Iran's fragile regime

David Brooks:

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The core lesson of these events is that the Iranian regime is fragile at the core. Like all autocratic regimes, it has become rigid, paranoid, insular, insecure, impulsive, clumsy and illegitimate. The people running the regime know it, which is why the Revolutionary Guard is seeking to consolidate power into a small, rigid, insulated circle. The Iranians on the streets know it. The world knows it.

From now on, the central issue of Iran-Western relations won’t be the nuclear program. The regime is more fragile than the program. The regime is more likely to go away than the program.

The central issue going forward will be the regime’s survival itself. The radically insecure members of this government will make no concessions that might threaten their hold on power. The West won’t be able to go back and view Iran through the old lens of engagement on nuclear issues. The nations of the West will have to come up with multi-track policies that not only confront Iran on specific issues, but also try to undermine the regime itself.

This approach is like Ronald Reagan’s policy toward the Soviet Union, and it is no simple thing. It doesn’t mean you don’t talk to the regime; Reagan talked to the Soviets. But it does mean you pursue many roads at once.

There is no formula for undermining a decrepit regime. And there are no circumstances in which the United States has been able to peacefully play a leading role in another nation’s revolution. But there are many tools this nation has used to support indigenous democrats: independent media, technical advice, economic and cultural sanctions, presidential visits for key dissidents, the unapologetic embrace of democratic values, the unapologetic condemnation of the regime’s barbarities.

Recently, many people thought it was clever to say that elections on their own don’t make democracies. But election campaigns stoke the mind and fraudulent elections outrage the soul. The Iranian elections have stirred a whirlwind that will lead, someday, to the regime’s collapse. Hastening that day is now the central goal.

I have discussed how fragile a regime is that suppress free expression. Iran is at that point again and will probably begin a more brutal repression in the coming hours. The key will be whether those responsible for implementing the repression are people of conscience who will blink at brutalizing their fellow citizens. If they shrink from the brutality, the regime will be finished.