It is unclear what, if anything, Iran can do to induce the United States and its regional allies to halt their escalating war of attrition before it provokes all-out conflict. When Donald Trump reneged on the UN-ratified nuclear agreement with Tehran last year, he said he wanted a better deal. Iran must change its behaviour, he said, and act like a “normal country”.

This was always disingenuous. Iran’s authoritarian and abusive rulers certainly need to mend their ways. But what Trump and his imperious advisers really meant was that they must do what America says, in conformity with American interests. What they want is an end to 40 years of post-revolution defiance. What they want is regime change in Iran.

Tehran’s leadership now has three choices – capitulate, wait or resist. Capitulation is no real option at all. Hassan Rouhani, the country’s moderate, conservative president, and senior allies such as the foreign minister, Javad Zarif, would not survive the sort of sweeping strategic and regional pullback required by the Americans.

The clerical establishment, led by the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, rightwing fundamentalists and the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards, would exploit any attempted compromise to vanquish the reformist remnants of the so-called 2009 Persian spring. In short, the mullahs would double down on repression.

If, on the other hand, the regime were to lose control in the face, say, of urban uprisings encouraged from abroad, Iran could break apart. This is a land of large ethnic minorities – principally Azeris, Arabs, Baluchis, and Kurds – as well as smaller Baha’i, Turkmen, Christian and Jewish communities. None has particular reason to love the centre.

It is unlikely that the Americans have a plan for Iran in the aftermath of a regime collapse, any more than they had a plan for Iraq in 2003. Given that disastrous precedent, John Bolton, Trump’s neocon national security adviser and an architect of the Iraq invasion, should think twice. He and other myopic machinators must be careful what they wish for

more:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/09/trump-iran-regime-change-resistance