Whatever Happens Next, Iran Doesn’t Need To Be Made Safe For Democracy

[Right_in_Virginia]

Whatever Happens Next, Iran Doesn’t Need To Be Made Safe For Democracy
Escalating our war with Iran by pursuing regime change and nation-building would be a colossal mistake.
The Federalist, Jun 23, 2025, John Daniel Davidson

Now that President Donald Trump has decided to bring the United State into the Iran-Israel war by striking Tehran’s major nuclear facilities, our goal should be to ensure Iran remains a non-nuclear power that’s unable to threaten the United States or its allies anywhere in the world.

What that goal doesn’t require, however, is a regime-change war with the aim of toppling the ayatollahs and imposing democracy in Iran. The American interest is not served by toppling regimes and nation-building — especially not in the Middle East. Whatever the wisdom of striking Iran’s nuclear facilities at this particular time, on the heels of Israeli strikes on Iran, President Trump’s aim now should be to limit escalation and avoid plunging the U.S. into a years-long quagmire in Iran.

Unfortunately, many people in Washington were hoping that Trump would strike Iran precisely because it might make room for the kind of escalation that would lead to a regime-change war. We still don’t know what Iran’s response will be to these strikes, and it might well lead to unavoidable escalation on our part. But that escalation should serve the purpose of rendering Iran harmless — not free, or democratic, or even stable. The internal politics of Iran are of no concern to us.

One hopes the president understands that, even as he acts to ensure that Iran cannot acquire nuclear weapons or carry out a major retaliatory attack on the U.S. Initially, there was reason to think he did understand. “Our objective was the destruction of Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity and a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world’s No. 1 state sponsor of terror,” Trump said Saturday night from the White House.

But on Sunday, Trump posted a disturbing comment about how it’s not politically correct to use the term “regime change,” “but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!”

More:  https://thefederalist.com/2025/06/23/whatever-happens-next-iran-doesnt-need-to-be-made-safe-for-democracy/

[Right_in_Virginia]

This is a rather long, substantive essay, worth the read, IMO.

FTA:

By taking out Solemani and leaving it at that, Trump was practicing a form of Jacksonian foreign policy that prioritizes and aggressively defends American interests, rather than the ideological priorities of neoconservative nation-building that had dominated American foreign affairs for nearly two decades.

That’s the approach we need now in the Middle East. The pressure on Trump to escalate from the intelligence agencies in particular will be intense. And there’s good reason not to trust those agencies. As Rachel Campos Duffy noted Sunday, the intelligence apparatus in place now is the same one that insisted there were WMDs in Iraq, that cooked up the Russia collusion hoax, that lied about Hunter Biden’s laptop. And we know from the first Trump administration that these agencies are willing to withhold or distort information to undermine Trump and advance their own agenda.

[DefiantMassRINO]

America sucks at regime change.

Multi-decades long, trillions of dollars wasted, and American lives lost ... for failed states in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We don't want the Iranians to nuke their neighbors, but it is not America's place to make Iran safe for democracy.  That's up to the Iranian people at a time of their choosing, by means of their choosing.

All that money wasted in Afghanistan and Iraq could have been invested in America.

[jafo2010]

All these ivy league school pukes weighing in while holding key positions in our government, and they do not comprehend that the notion of democracy is 180 degrees opposite the teachings of islam, which dictate one leader, one religion.  We will never see a democratic form of governance in an islamic state.

What Iran needs is for every mullah involved with the governance of Iran to be eliminated.  The talk of the people rising up will never happen unless these men are sent to hell.

[DB]

America sucks at regime change.

Multi-decades long, trillions of dollars wasted, and American lives lost ... for failed states in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We don't want the Iranians to nuke their neighbors, but it is not America's place to make Iran safe for democracy.  That's up to the Iranian people at a time of their choosing, by means of their choosing.

All that money wasted in Afghanistan and Iraq could have been invested in America.

I don't know that we suck at regime change. That wasn't particularly hard or expensive in Iraq. What followed was. We do suck at nation building for people who want to live under a dictator. I say air drop small arms and ammo across Iran and let them sort it out.

[Right_in_Virginia]

I don't know that we suck at regime change. That wasn't particularly hard or expensive in Iraq. What followed was. We do suck at nation building for people who want to live under a dictator. I say air drop small arms and ammo across Iran and let them sort it out.

I think we have a plan! 

[Smokin Joe]

I don't know that we suck at regime change. That wasn't particularly hard or expensive in Iraq. What followed was. We do suck at nation building for people who want to live under a dictator. I say air drop small arms and ammo across Iran and let them sort it out.

Let the Iranians decide how they want to live, just give them the opportunity to choose.

[berdie]

Let the Iranians decide how they want to live, just give them the opportunity to choose.

Agreed. Sadly, imho, most of these countries are tribal and have no desire to live in a democracy. Hence, there has to be a strong dictator that will cobble them into a country. For their own nefarious purposes, of course.

[Smokin Joe]

Agreed. Sadly, imho, most of these countries are tribal and have no desire to live in a democracy. Hence, there has to be a strong dictator that will cobble them into a country. For their own nefarious purposes, of course.

True. The meanest ones have been the most effective at keeping internal order. Saddam, Qaddafi, Assad, the list goes on.