"Change is the only constant in life." - Heraclitus.
"The Mullahs have by accident ... brought about a generation that doesn't like them." - Christopher Hitchens.
The Ayatollahs have already written their death warrant.
But the hangman is busy.
The hope that the Islamic Republic of Iran will be toppled by the Iranian people through popular protests and organized collective action should not cloud a rational assessment of the regime's capabilities, ruthlessness, and messianic fanaticism.
The evil clique in power in Tehran will not cede power because of popular demonstrations, workers strikes, and the rising body counts of little girls. The totalitarian police state they have constructed over the last four decades can withstand mass uprisings, civil disobedience, and armed rebellion. They have brainwashed, trained, and bribed enough killers to hold onto power for many years.
While it's foolish to predict future events based on hope alone, there should be no doubt that the regime's demise is a matter of when, not if.
The young people of Iran, who account for more than half the population, want to live in a normal country, not a politically engineered society hell-bent on a forever war against Islam's enemies.
The anti-Western mullahs know their time is up. But the transition to a post-Islamic Republic will be a bloody and protracted period for Iran. If the recent turbulence does not subside it could lead to a prolonged civil war, economic collapse, and mass population displacement.
Unless something miraculous happens like mass defections from the bureaucracy or an outpouring of millions in the streets, the Islamic regime will dig in and wait out the anger in the streets.
As Iran teeters on the edge of the precipice of change, the surrounding region is also experiencing severe tumult.
Lebanon, one of the poorest and most corrupt countries in the world, will not see economic dividends as a result of its latest maritime border deal with Israel any time soon. The economic situation is so bad in the country that regular citizens are resorting to robbing banks because they're denied access to their own money.
An excerpt from, "Lebanon’s bank heists crisis" by Fred Kelly, The Week, October 10, 2022:
Citizens are bearing the brunt of the economic collapse, driving some to desperate measures. A 28-year-old woman called Sali Hafiz has been “lauded as a national hero after forcing staff at a BLOM Bank branch in Beirut to give her thousands of dollars from her own account by waving a replica gun in order to fund her sister’s cancer treatment in hospital”, Al Jazeera reported.
Bad economies, as we learned in the 20th century, lead to dictatorships, wars, and mass death.
If Lebanon's economy does not recover its slide to chaos and Islamic extremism will continue until terrorists and drug smugglers rule the country entirely.
In Afghanistan we've seen what a drug economy ultimately leads to: national bankruptcy and mass starvation. The United Nations has reported that the country has suffered a total economic collapse in the wake of the Taliban’s seizure of power last summer.
The Taliban's discovery that the state's coffers were empty was immediate upon their arrival to the capital. Washington left Kabul in the middle of the night like a band of thieves. It stole "more than 40 percent of Afghanistan’s hard currency reserves," (Washington Post).
Washington's so-called war on terror managed to bankrupt both itself and Afghanistan. After two decades of aimless war, the banks and terrorists won, no one else.
Washington's interest in the Middle East will come to an end eventually, if it has not already. Its schizophrenic policies will not end global terrorism nor stop the spread of nuclear weapons in the region. Forget its words. Action matters. And it has acted like a villain. It legitimized terrorists in Afghanistan by making deals with the Taliban and looks the other way whenever Israel's illegal nuclear stockpile is mentioned.
So those who look to America for "global leadership" should have their heads examined.
Washington proved it was not a leader in the fight against Islamic terrorism when it failed to punish Pakistan in any way for openly assisting the Taliban for two decades.
Pakistan, like Iran under the Ayatollahs, is also a self-styled Islamic Republic. Its support for various Islamic terrorist groups has been an essential feature of its foreign policy since its founding as a state by the British after World War II.
A Middle East without terrorist organizations like Hezbollah and the Taliban is not possible without first eliminating the two "Islamic Republics" that gave birth to them in Iran and Pakistan.
For decades Tehran and Islamabad have utilized their state's resources to arm and equip terrorist proxies to take over sovereign countries based on the false pretext of resisting Western imperialism, Hindu fascism, and Zionist expansionism. But if it came to war, would the "Islamic" armies of Pakistan and Iran actually fight the United States, Israel, and India? Highly doubtful.
The ruling elites in Pakistan and Iran are interested in staying in power and looting their captured countries, not earthly glory or the rewards of the afterlife. Riches and leisure have weakened them. When they speak of retaliation, resistance, and war they elude to their foot soldiers in Hezbollah and the Taliban because they themselves know their own populations don't support their extremist worldviews.
Anti-Indian, anti-Israeli, and anti-American rhetoric has achieved nothing tangible or fruitful for these two societies. They've gotten poorer and angrier, and there's no relief or release in sight because their leaders are too cowardly to go to war with their declared enemies officially.
In such a state it is easy to be taken advantage of by a superior power. And that is exactly what is happening. The arrogant religious and military leaders in Iran, like their counterparts in Pakistan, have sold their country to China while still daring to pretend to be "anti-imperialist."
They hope to replace cheap words with cheap goods. But nothing is cheap. Everything has a secret cost.
The only figment of legitimacy they have left is ruling in the name of religion and when that finally goes they will be cast aside by history.
