“Don’t.” This was the message Joe Biden has once again given to Iran’s regime as it prepares to attack Israel.
I have news for Biden, however: the last time he said “Don’t”, they “did” – and because of the failure in Western policy towards Tehran, the regime will almost certainly do it again.
By the time you read this, the attack may have already happened. In which case Biden and co will be telling Israel to “take the win” and calling for de-escalation.
But what they fail to realise is that the ayatollah’s persistent drive for escalation is as much the West’s fault as it is rooted in his regime’s bloodlust.
No, I’m not about to pull the ludicrous and simplistic post-colonial victimhood card that blames all the ills of the Middle East on the West’s “military adventurism” in the region. Quite the opposite.
It’s hard to imagine the current levels of unprecedented conflict in the Middle East if the US was still militarily dominant in the region, to preserve security. The naive guff of “ending the forever wars” totally misinterpreted and underestimated the intent of the West’s enemies, chief among them Khamenei’s regime. US disengagement from the Middle East created a vacuum which Iran’s regime was only too happy to fill. It inadvertently aided the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) decades long objective of expelling the US from the region to isolate Israel and thus enable – in its own words – the “eradication of the Zionist regime.”
Empty words? The IRGC’s escalation against Israel since October 7 strongly suggests otherwise.
This, coupled with the Biden’s failure to impose direct military consequences on Iran’s regime has produced the current status quo. Since October 7, Biden has gone out of his way to make it clear to Khamenei that he will not impose direct military consequences on the IRGC. Even after three US soldiers were killed by IRGC proxies, Washington refrained from doing so.
This pumped more air into the already overinflated confidence of the IRGC, making it believe it can escalate without facing military repercussions.
It was precisely this calculus that resulted in the unprecedented direct IRGC attack against Israel in April.
Make no mistake: Khamenei and the IRGC rolled the dice in conducting this attack. They knew an Israeli retaliation was inevitable, but what they were really testing was whether it would produce a US response (as Tehran had always previously assessed would happen). The gamble paid off. Instead of targeting the IRGC in response, Biden told Israel to “take the win”.
The IRGC will treat the last few months of the Biden administration as the final opportunity to escalate without fear of consequences from the US. A worsening situation feels inevitable.
Of course, it’s easy to criticise without offering any solutions and this is not my intention – so let’s cut to the chase.
The impending IRGC attack on Israel will likely involve different stages and combine military and cyber capabilities. Unlike in April, Tehran has made it clear this attack will involve the IRGC’s proxy militia network. If this should happen, instead of targeting the symptom, the US and its allies should target the source. This means strikes on the IRGC’s regional infrastructure, which equips these proxies with the means to carry out these attacks. Such strikes must include targeting the Behshad Intelligence ship, which has – since October 7 – provided the Houthis with critical intelligence capabilities to conduct its attacks.
But the response should not stop there. To shift Khamenei’s calculus and force de-escalation, Washington must impose direct military consequences on the IRGC inside Iran. This means striking the very military and intelligence assets the IRGC used to orchestrate and launch attacks against Israel.
Finally – but most importantly – the US and its allies need to develop a strategy to support the Iranian people. Anti-regime sentiment in Iran has reached unprecedented levels. The pattern of unrest reveals protests are increasing in size, scale and frequency. The survival of the regime hinges almost entirely on its brutal suppressive machinery. Weakening this apparatus will enhance the Iranian people’s ability to achieve their democratic aspirations and topple the Islamic Republic. This can be achieved through combining maximum economic pressure on the regime and targeting key IRGC suppressive assets in Iran via military and cyber capabilities. When I speak to underground protest leaders in Iran, they tell me they are preparing for the death of the 85-year-old supreme leader as the best opportunity to take to the streets and end the Islamic Republic for good. We too, in the West, should be preparing for this moment – a moment that could be the single most liberating thing for the Iranian people, the Middle East and global security.
Kasra Aarabi is the director for IRGC Research at United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI)
