Forget the Bomb and Help Iranians Fight Their Regime

Excerpt

Just three weeks before Hamas’s gruesome attack on southern Israel, the first anniversary of Iran’s “Women, life, freedom” movement quietly passed on September 16. Even in the heat of events in Israel, the women’s uprising was worth a lament: If the theocracy hadn’t subdued it, Iranians might have toppled the Islamic Republic; and among all the other salutary effects, Hamas’s onslaught against Israel could conceivably have been smaller and less ambitious, or might not have happened at all.

Hamas, an offshoot of the Sunni Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, is an independent actor but has ties to the Islamic Republic that have grown substantially over the years. Its political head, Ismail Haniyeh, has often visited Tehran and Beirut, where other Hamas officials are in regular contact with the Lebanese Hezbollah, Iran’s most powerful, operationally savvy proxy. As Iranians in ever larger numbers have rejected the Islamic Revolution and its theocracy, the clerical regime has sought affirmation and legitimacy abroad—an aggressive disposition that isn’t likely to abate until Iranian dissent finally triumphs.

Officially, the Iranian regime characterizes internal protests as foreign-inspired, but most of its insiders actually know that the Islamic Republic’s worst problems are homegrown. They are mournfully aware that Iranians have deeply absorbed secular and democratic values. But despite its frequent expressions, that popular discontent has not yet become a revolutionary challenge to the ruling elite.

Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former Iranian-targets officer in the CIA, is a resident scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Ray Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.