Revolutions are hard to predict. Long fuses of smoldering economic and political discontent are often lit by unplanned and unexpected events. Few anticipated that a handful of embattled farmers on Lexington Green would launch the American Revolution or that a disorganized mob freeing a few French criminals from the Bastille would unleash another. The Arab Spring started with the suicide of an obscure Tunisian fruit vendor. Iran's next revolution may well have begun with the arrest and subsequent death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini for not wearing a headscarf.
Economic incompetence, compounded by Western economic sanctions, has reduced much of Iran's population to poverty. According to their own government's figures, 60 percent of Iranians now live beneath a poverty line defined as only $55 a month per capita. Inflation is running at 50 percent a year and last month the Iranian rial hit an all-time low of 440,000 to the U.S. dollar. In 1979 the exchange rate was 75 rials to the dollar.
The current wave of unrest, which began in August, has lasted far longer than any of its predecessors. Hundreds of protesters have been killed by security forces and thousands more arrested. More than 20 protesters have been sentenced to death and at least four executed. Yet unlike in the past, these oppressive measures have not silenced calls for change by a young generation who cannot remember the Shah and are fed up with decades of endemic corruption and authoritarian government.
Iran is now a youthful, increasingly secular country ruled by an aging, theocratic regime. Normally, its domestic politics would be of little immediate importance to the United States. Today, however, Iranian politics intersect directly with American security concerns regarding Israel and Russia. Even as they face a determined popular uprising, Iran's ruling ayatollahs have likely continued their efforts to develop nuclear weapons in ways that existing monitoring arrangements cannot detect. They have certainly continued to develop sophisticated drone and ballistic missile technologies, some of which are being exported to Russia, where they are having an impact in the war with Ukraine.
Iran's continued nuclear ambitions are destabilizing. They have ended any hope of reviving the Iran nuclear agreement and greatly alarmed Israel. Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu, once again prime minister, has been adamant that, if necessary, he will use force to prevent Iran's nuclear breakout. We should take him at his word both because he has made this statement many times and because he clearly believes his nation's vital interests are at stake.
A pre-emptive Israeli attack on Iran would be a global catastrophe. It would quickly spread to other Gulf oil producers that Iran correctly views as allied to the West. These Arab states remain vulnerable as last year's successful Iranian-backed Houthi attack on Saudi oil facilities demonstrated. Renewed Iranian attacks on energy infrastructure would create havoc in our already stressed economy. The United States could well be drawn into the conflict. Even more worrying, Russia has now developed extensive economic and military ties to Tehran. Should Russian President Vladimir Putin move to defend Iran in the same way that Tsar Nicholas II sought to protect Serbia in 1914, a cascade of unintended events could easily turn a regional conflict into a global one.
Renewed negotiations with Iran have failed. Military action against Iran poses grave risks. Perhaps our best option would be to support those already trying to bring about change in Tehran. Western support could tip the balance in favor of Iran's opposition. A coordinated Western campaign of overt and covert, political and economic measures aimed at discrediting the current Islamic Republic could hasten its replacement by a new political order chosen by the majority of the Iranian people.
Specifically, we should reach out to underground trade unions, university students, and human rights activists. We should speak out boldly and often about the rampant human rights violations taking place in Iran and call for the release of all political prisoners. We need to recognize that Iran's youth are increasingly secular and, like many Ukrainians, look to the West for their future. Providing them with internet access to virtual private networks could allow them to avoid detection by security forces.
We should also provide solid support to religious minorities such as Christians, Jews, Sunni Muslims, Bahais, and Zoroastrians who have been systematically persecuted by the revolutionary government. We should consider supporting greater autonomy for Kurds, Azeris, Baluchis, and Arabs who together make up nearly half of Iran's population and have long resented Persian dominance. In the end, it may require military force to stop Iran's revolutionary government from obtaining nuclear weapons, but supporting the next revolution now might allow us to avoid that outcome.
David H. Rundell is a former chief of mission at the American Embassy in Saudi Arabia and the author of Vision or Mirage, Saudi Arabia at the Crossroads. Ambassador Michael Gfoeller is a former political advisor to the U.S. Central Command and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.
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