Economically, Iran is in the process of coming apart. Its GDP steadily sinks. More than 40% of Iranians are now living below the poverty line. The rial is at an historic low, having lost 25% of its value just since September; it now stands at 820,000 rials to a dollar. Since the establishment of the Islamic government in 1979, the Iranian currency has undergone an 11,000-fold decline in value.
Politically Iran is on its back foot. It has seen all of its major allies, that were formerly part of Iran’s “Shi’a crescent” — Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and the Assad regime in Syria —fall away. In Gaza, Hamas is being systematically dismantled by the IDF, with 20,000 of its fighters killed and many more wounded. In Lebanon, Hezbollah has been battered by the IDF. Four thousand of its operatives have been killed, thousands more wounded, and 80% of its once-formidable arsenal of rockets and missiles destroyed by the IAF. Hezbollah had to beg for a ceasefire that requires it to remove all of its men and weapons north of the Litani River. In Syria, the rebels have toppled the Assad despotism, and once the loyal ally of Iran, Syria has now become the archenemy of the Islamic Republic, precisely because Iran for so long supported the Assad regime. Iran invested $50 billion in keeping Assad in power; now that $50 billion has gone up in smoke, and the Iranian people are keenly aware of that loss, which has enraged many of them.
More on the current dismal of Iran’s economy, its military weakness, and the growing fury of its population with the regime of the mullahs, can be found here: “$50 billion to Syria vanished into thin air: Unrest in Iran grows over economic turmoil – interview,” by Peled Arbeli, Jerusalem Post, January 10, 2025:
Iran’s public discontent surged in recent weeks as economic hardships, including widespread power outages and rising inflation, fueled calls for change, Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) researcher Benny Sabti told Maariv on Friday.Sabti began by describing the growing frustration among the Iranian population. “People are very angry with the regime for squandering funds, oil revenues, and resources on Syria, which fell alongside Hezbollah,” he said. “The regime has poured $50 billion into Syria from 2000 until now, all of which vanished into thin air, along with funds sent to Lebanon and other places.” According to Sabti, the Iranian public views this as “a regime failure.”Sabti believes recent events have given Iranians hope. He pointed to key incidents, such as the reported elimination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, which exposed the Iranian regime’s vulnerabilities, and “the fall of Gaza.” He emphasized: “All of this gives the Iranian public—80% of whom oppose the regime—hope.”…
Most Iranians — 80% of them, according to the Israeli researcher Benny Sabti — oppose the regime and have taken heart from the Israelis’ victories over both Hamas and Hezbollah, for both terror groups are seen, correctly, as allies of the Tehran regime. They have been especially impressed by Mossad’s spectacular ability to assassinate, in the middle of a heavily-guarded guest house in Tehran, the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. These Iranians were pleased when the IAF managed to destroy Iran’s S-300 anti-aircraft systems, and the plant producing fuel for ballistic missiles. They are waiting for an IDF attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, which they believe will cause the Iranian leadership to be so publicly humiliated by the “Zionist entity,” as to lose all face, and be vulnerable to being toppled by a popular uprising. --->READ MORE HEREDon’t Wait for Iran to Get Nukes:
It's time to use the “mailed fist.”
Donald Trump has twice issued ultimatums to Hamas: If the hostages held by Hamas are not returned by his Inauguration, “there’ll be hell to pay.”
It may not take that long, since last week a deal was announced for a cease-fire and 33 of the Israeli hostages returned in exchange for nearly 1000 Palestinian Arab prisoners in Israeli custody. Once again, Trump’s foreign policy realism shames the Biden administration’s prissy foreign policy crew and its “rules-based international order” naïve idealism that for decades has ended in dangerous appeasement and shameful retreat.
But this deal is very questionable, fraught as it is with the same moral hazards that have always accompanied decades of such agreements: the Palestinian Arabs’ habit of not keeping their word, and serially violating the terms of every deal; the disproportionate number of prisoners to be released; Israel’s withdrawal from territories that Hamas has used for launching attacks; and the strong possibility that those released prisoners will help Hamas regroup and resume the war.
A much more strategically important goal should be destroying Iran’s theocratic regime, given that it’s mere months from having the wherewithal to make several nuclear weapons. More negotiations, “parchment barriers,” or “deals” piled on top of those that have been going on for ten years, are not viable, and have only provided time and billions of dollars for the mullahs’ nefarious purposes. What we need, as First Lord of the Admiralty Duff Cooper said during the doomed Munich talks, is not “the language of sweet reasonableness” but the “language of the mailed fist.” And we need it stat.
Moreover, it’s not just about the nukes. The bipartisan appeasement of the Islamic Republic of Iran for nearly half a century has been one of the most destructive assaults on our power of deterrence and national prestige, ranking with our retreats from Saigon and, for al Qaeda and other terrorists, from Mogadishu in 1993, and especially Beirut ten years earlier, when 241 American servicemen, mostly Marines, were bombed by an Iranian proxy gang of jihadists that became Hezbollah. Nor did the Reagan administration punish Iran, not even bombing its training camps in the Bekaa Valley, as France (sic!) and Israel did.
The wages of appeasing Iran include proving to the mullahs that Americans––for all their wealth and power––are corrupt infidels enslaved to pleasure and comfort. This perception has not weakened, despite the current setbacks inflicted on Iran by Israel. After all, during the Trump administration Tehran faced challenges like “maximum pressure” on its economy, further infuriating the regime’s already angry citizens. But given the mullahs’ passionate belief in their divine mission, and the continuing civilizational failure of nerve in Western nations, the Iranian theocrats still believe they will achieve the aims enjoined on them by their faith.
The many other maleficent effects of our feckless Iran policies quickly became obvious in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, which was transformed into “Little Tehran,” filled with Iranian money, weapons, terrorist training of proxies like Hezbollah, and Quds Force troops, the revolution’s expeditionary military wing.
Moreover, as historian Robin Wright said of Iran’s presence in the Bekaa Valley, Iran started “systematically mobilizing the Shiite community and establishing small cells of activists under the leadership of radical local clergy for possible action.” Later, a National Security Council staff member commented, “We had no idea that this action would inevitably lead to the radicalization of large elements of the Lebanese Shiite community, the widespread taking of hostages, a dramatic upsurge in international terrorism and the Iran-Contra Affair.” --->READ MORE HERE
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