“This is a golden opportunity,” Janatan Sayeh, a research analyst with the Washington-based Foundation for Defence of Democracies (FDD), told JNS on Tuesday, outlining the possibility of a one-two punch, with the US imposing economic sanctions and Israel delivering military blows.
A US prepared to inflict “Trump maximum pressure 2.0” and a newly confident Israel tackling Iran militarily “puts us in a good position,” he said.
Majid Rafizadeh, a Harvard-educated political scientist and expert on US foreign policy and the Middle East, agrees. “Iran is currently at its weakest point since the 1979 Islamic Revolution,” he told JNS on Tuesday. It’s “vulnerable both internally and externally.”
Bashar Assad’s fall is “a catastrophic loss for Iran’s leadership,” Rafizadeh said, not only because Syria served as a conduit for Iran’s proxies, but because the Iranian people now perceive the regime as “increasingly vulnerable, which emboldens anti-government sentiment and protests.”
Sayeh, who left Iran in 2013 and remains in touch with people there, confirmed that Syria’s collapse made more of an impact on the Iranian people than did the fall of Hezbollah or Hamas. With the end of Assad, Iranians began to see events as having a “domino effect” that could lead to the Islamic Republic’s fall, too.
Internal Iranian propaganda heralded the “Axis of Resistance” (of which Syria was a fundamental pillar) as a success that could not fail, bringing “the Zionists and Americans to their knees,” Sayeh said. The attempt of regime officials to now distance themselves from the project, with Khamenei even attempting to redefine the “resistance front” as something spiritual, isn’t succeeding. Iranians see the project as the failure that it is, he said.
Assad’s fall has also sparked rifts within the Islamic Republic’s leadership. Iran invested some $50 billion into propping up Assad, who owed $30 billion in debt to Tehran.
“Beyond public statements, leaked internal discussions among Iranian officials reveal growing dissatisfaction and blame-shifting,” Sayeh said.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ Quds Force is under intense scrutiny. Its commander, Maj. Gen. Esmail Ghaani, who replaced the assassinated Qassem Soleimani, hasn’t made a public appearance since Assad’s collapse, he noted.
Iran has no choice but to “double-down” on its nuclear programme, Sayeh said. “They are being more overt about it.” On October 8 less than two weeks after Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s death, the parliament in Tehran announced it had received draft legislation for the “expansion of Iran’s nuclear industry.”
There are also reports Tehran is developing chemical weapons.
“A weakened Iran is a desperate Iran,” Rafizadeh said. “This desperation increases the likelihood of lashing out, either directly or through its proxies, to divert attention from internal weaknesses and project strength to both domestic and international audiences.”
Rafizadeh urges Israel to target Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and continue whittling down its proxies. The West should back Israel to the hilt, he added. “This includes not only diplomatic backing and economic sanctions but also direct military aid to Israel.”
Sayeh questions whether Israel alone could take out Iran’s nuclear sites, and if that is the best strategy. He suggests Israel would do better targeting Iran’s oil infrastructure. And that is what Israel may be planning to do, he noted, as it has hit air defences around the oil industry in the south and southwest of Iran.
“The way Westerners and Israelis perceive the Iranian Achilles’ heel is the economy,” Sayeh said. “To bring about an economic collapse is critical,” he added, noting that not every government bureaucrat or IRGC member is ideologically devoted to the Islamic Republic. Some are just mercenaries. “Once the regime runs out of cash, they’re likely to turn on it,” he said.
The West should provide “maximum support” for the Iranian people by helping via intelligence and technology to pull together “scattered” protests. “These civil acts of disobedience aren’t really organised in the way that they should be,” Sayeh said.
“The pivotal point is if its own supporters start leaving. And they will leave if: 1) Iran’s military proves incapable, as we saw with Assad; and 2) if it can’t pay its people due to economic sanctions,” Sayeh said.
The potential collapse of the Islamic Republic offers startling possibilities for Israel. Unlike Syria, in which anti-Israel Islamists have filled the vacuum, the end of the ayatollahs could herald the emergence of a pro-Israel Iran, one even more pro-Israel than under the shah, as the people of Iran are siding with Israel against the regime.
In a piece he co-wrote for FDD in early December, Sayeh revealed that “both Iranian and international pollsters consistently show that most Iranians oppose the Islamic Republic’s antisemitic and anti-Western foreign policy.”
In October 2023, students refused to chant “Death to Israel” as demanded by school administrators, instead chanting, “Death to Palestine.” Students at Tehran University refused to walk over a painted Israeli flag on the floor.
“The fall of the Islamic regime in Iran would be transformative for Israel and the region,” Rafizadeh agreed. “As the primary sponsor of terrorism and the ideological driver behind groups like Hezbollah and Hamas, the regime’s collapse would significantly reduce the threat of attacks against Israel.
“It would also pave the way for a more stable and peaceful Middle East, where Iran could potentially shift from being a destabilising force to a constructive regional actor.”
