The Unfinished Counter-Revolution

The U.S. Must Finish the Job in Iran.

The United States finds itself in strategic limbo. Mediated talks in Pakistan inch forward while American and Israeli bombs continue to strike Iranian military targets. The regime demands the release of $24 billion in frozen assets as a precondition for talks. And the Trump administration, desperate to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and deliver relief at the pump before the midterms, appears willing to entertain precisely the kind of surrender that strategic realists have warned against for two decades.

Any negotiated settlement that leaves the current regime intact is not a diplomatic victory. It is a moral betrayal of the tens of thousands of Iranians this regime has slaughtered, a knife in the back of the students and workers still risking their lives in the streets, and a catastrophic failure of American grand strategy that would endanger Israel, empower radical Sunni actors, and leave the Middle East more dangerous than ever.

The Blood on the Diplomat’s Hands

The case against negotiation has always rested on a simple truth that the Islamic Republic is a death cult, not a negotiating partner. The events since February 2026 have only confirmed this.

When anti-regime protests erupted in January, the regime responded with a level of brutality that shocked even seasoned observers. According to the United Nations, an estimated 40,000 Iranians were killed by regime forces during the January uprising alone. Forty thousand. In a single month.

Since the start of the U.S.-Israeli campaign on February 28, the crackdown has intensified. The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights reports that at least 21 people have been executed on national security charges, with more than 4,000 arrested. Among the executed are a 21-year-old karate champion and a 19-year-old wrestling champion—young athletes whose only crime was protesting for their freedom.

The regime imposed an 87-day near-total internet blackout, severing Iranians from the world and from each other, while the Revolutionary Guards tortured detainees, conducted mock executions, and forced televised confessions.

This is the regime for which the word “grand bargain” is being uttered in Washington. To sit across the table from the men who ordered the murder of 40,000 citizens is to tell the families of the dead that their blood is an acceptable price for oil flowing through the Strait of Hormuz.

The Strategic Reality: This Regime Cannot Be Reformed

The counter-argument from the realist camp, articulated most recently by Jennifer Kavanagh and Rosemary Kelanic in Foreign Affairs, is that the United States has no good options. They argue that Iran’s bargaining position has strengthened, that a deal will require uncomfortable U.S. concessions, and that the pursuit of regime change through military means is a fool’s errand. This analysis mistakes tactical difficulty for strategic impossibility. Yes, Iran has proven more resilient than anticipated. Yes, air power has a poor track record of toppling regimes. But the argument that this justifies a negotiated surrender rests on three fatal errors.

First, it assumes the regime is a rational actor capable of keeping its word. This regime has cheated on every nuclear commitment it ever made. It rebuilt its program after the 2025 strikes. It has demonstrated repeatedly that it views negotiation as a tactic, not a settlement. Any deal signed today would be used as breathing room to reconstitute, rearm, and retaliate.

Second, the realists ignore the domestic catalyst. The Iranian regime is weaker than it appears. The visible degradation of the state’s power could provide the missing spark for a popular uprising.

Third, the realists have no answer for what happens after a negotiated settlement. A deal that leaves the mullahs in power would be read across the Middle East as proof that terror and nuclear blackmail work. It would embolden every Islamist movement from Ankara to Islamabad.

From Existential Threat to Strategic Partner

No nation has more to lose from a craven deal than Israel. The past eighteen months have demonstrated, yet again, that the Islamic Republic’s commitment to Israel’s destruction is not rhetorical. Iranian missile and drone strikes have rained down on Israeli territory. The regime’s proxies—Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Iraqi militias—have been activated in a coordinated campaign of annihilation.

A negotiated settlement that leaves the regime intact would leave Israel facing a nuclear-armed enemy whose leadership has consistently called for a second Holocaust. The Begin Doctrine, that Israel will not allow any enemy to develop weapons of mass destruction against it, would be proven hollow.

But the opportunity is as great as the threat. As the Foundation for Defense of Democracies has outlined, the fall of Iran’s Islamist regime would mark one of the most seismic shifts in Middle Eastern geopolitics since 1979. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly stated that once the regime falls, Jerusalem and Tehran could become partners again, reviving the historical ties of the Pahlavi era.

Imagine the strategic realignment: a democratic or even moderately secular Iran, with its educated and deeply pro-Western population, aligned with Israel against the jihadist forces that have plagued the region for decades. The Axis of Resistance—Hezbollah, the Houthis, and the Iraqi militias—would lose its paymaster and its purpose. Hezbollah, already weakened by Israel’s military campaign, would face the choice of disarmament or fragmentation.

For the first time since 1979, Israel would have a genuine partner in the heart of the Muslim world, not a cold peace enforced by American aid, but a warm alignment of shared interests against common enemies.

Liberation from the Shia Crescent

The conventional wisdom from Western intelligence services such as the CIA and NSA is that America’s Arab allies fear the collapse of the Iranian regime. This is precisely backwards.

From Riyadh to Abu Dhabi, from Cairo to Amman, Sunni Arab leaders have spent decades in terror of the Islamic Republic’s revolutionary ideology. The mullahs have destabilized Lebanon, seized Yemen, threatened the Gulf monarchies, and assassinated dissidents on Arab soil. The Shia crescent—from Tehran to Beirut, via Baghdad and Damascus—has been the single greatest threat to Arab state sovereignty since the end of the Cold War.

A post-theocracy Iran liberates the Arab world. The Saudis would no longer fear a nuclear Shia crescent on their eastern flank. The Emiratis could pursue economic development without Iranian-backed Houthi missiles targeting their infrastructure. The Egyptians would see the collapse of the primary funder of Islamist terror groups that have sought to undermine the Egyptian state since Camp David.

However, the situation is more complex than a simple “Arab states will embrace Israel” narrative. New alignments are emerging that could marginalize Israel if the United States does not act decisively. Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt are forging trilateral ties that cut across old lines, with Ankara seeking dominance in Syria and influence in Gaza.

There is a risk that a post-Iran Middle East could see a Sunni jihadist bloc—Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan—emerge as a counterweight to a U.S.-Israel-Iran alignment. The September 2025 mutual defense pact between Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, with Turkey in advanced talks for inclusion, suggests a new “Sunni alliance” is already taking shape.

This makes American action in Iran more urgent, not less. If the United States fails to shape the post-regime order in Tehran, other powers will. A vacuum in Tehran will be filled by Ankara, Riyadh, or Islamabad—none of whom share America’s commitment to Israeli security or liberal international order. And the U.S. embraces post-war Iran transition by embracing Iranian leaders in the diaspora, waiting to go home and rebuild their nation.

The Path Forward

The United States stands at a crossroads. One path leads to a craven deal—concessions on the Strait of Hormuz, a freeze on nuclear enrichment without dismantlement, sanctions relief that will be used to rebuild the regime’s military capacity, and a “grand bargain” that legitimizes the murderers of 40,000 Iranians.

The other path leads through the fall of the Islamic Republic. It is not an easy path. It will require sustained military pressure, not the on-again, off-again strikes that have characterized the current campaign. It will require economic strangulation, not negotiated relief. It will require explicit American backing for the Iranian people’s aspirations, not diplomatic niceties with their oppressors.

Specifically, the United States must:

Abandon the fantasy of a negotiated settlement. Declare that the goal of American policy is not a reformed Iran or a denuclearized Iran, but a free Iran—a post-theocratic state that represents the will of the Iranian people.

Sustain and intensify military pressure on the regime’s command-and-control infrastructure, its missile facilities, and its leadership. The “hope” that the Iranian people will rise is insufficient; the regime’s ability to crack down must be actively degraded.

Protect dissidents by breaking the regime’s monopoly on violence and communication. The internet blackouts must be answered with technical assistance to bypass regime firewalls.

Coordinate with Israel and moderate Arab states on a post-regime transition framework. The United States must ensure that the vacuum left by Tehran’s collapse is filled by pro-Western, pro-Israel forces—not by Turkish or Saudi actors seeking their own advantage.

In sum, we are now twenty years into the debate over how to handle the Islamic Republic. Every year of negotiation has brought more Iranian corpses, a more advanced nuclear program, and a more dangerous Middle East.

The Iranian people have shown us what they want. In January, they poured into the streets by the hundreds of thousands, risking their lives against a regime with every advantage of violence. Forty thousand of them died. Their blood cries out from the ground.

The question for American policymakers is simple: Will we honor their sacrifice by finishing the job they started? Or will we betray them and Israel and our own strategic interests by signing another worthless piece of paper with a regime that has proven, over forty-seven years, that it cannot be trusted with power?

The hour of decision is now. The opportunity may not come again. For the sake of the Iranian people, for the survival of Israel, for the liberation of the Arab world from Iranian terror, and for the long-term security of the United States, we must finish the job.

Any other course is not realism. It is cowardice.