For decades, Western policymakers and analysts have been preoccupied with a single question: how might the Islamic Republic of Iran collapse? Yet a far more critical inquiry has been consistently overlooked: should it fall? For the millions of Iranians who have fled their homeland since the 1979 revolution, the answer is both obvious and profoundly personal.
The Moral and Strategic Failure of the Theocracy
Prior to the mullahs' seizure of power, Iran was a modernising, secular state. Women enjoyed significantly greater political and social freedoms, Western culture was welcomed, and oil wealth fuelled domestic economic growth rather than foreign extremism. What replaced it has been, by any honest measure, a comprehensive failure.
The regime's moral bankruptcy is clear. Iran's Shia theocracy enforces a medieval interpretation of Islamic law, systematically brutalises women, executes political dissidents, and governs through pervasive fear. Its ambition to export this extremist ideology makes it a global threat to free societies.
However, the most compelling argument for change is strategic, and it aligns directly with core Western security interests. The Islamic Republic is the world's most aggressive state sponsor of terrorism, serving as the central hub for a proxy network that stretches from Yemen and Lebanon to Gaza and Venezuela.
Over four decades, the regime and its militant proxies have been responsible for killing and maiming thousands of American citizens, from the Beirut barracks bombing to the campaigns in Iraq. This makes Iran one of the most lethal state adversaries the United States has confronted since the Second World War.
An Unabated Campaign of Aggression
The threat is not historical; it is current and escalating. Tehran continues to threaten attacks on US forces in Iraq and Syria, is rapidly reconstituting its nuclear weapons programme, and is building a massive missile arsenal. This includes an expanding intercontinental ballistic missile capability that places the American homeland, Israel, US forces, and key allies in direct peril.
Simultaneously, the regime is supplying Russia with Iranian-made drones to prosecute Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine. These are not isolated acts but components of a coherent, long-term strategy: to bleed American power, destabilise US allies, and forcibly reshape the Middle East in Iran's favour.
Diplomatic efforts have consistently failed to alter this trajectory. Sanctions relief did not moderate the regime's behaviour, and engagement did not empower internal reformers. Instead, every Western outreach has inadvertently strengthened the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and bankrolled expanded external aggression. The fundamental problem is not Iran's policies, but the regime itself.
The Iranian People's Rejection and a Viable Alternative
Critics often warn that advocating for the regime's end risks chaos or a nationalist backlash. This fear is outdated. For almost two decades, since the 2009 Green Movement, Iranians have repeatedly flooded the streets in historic numbers, chanting "Death to the dictator" and "Our enemy is right here." A majority have visibly rejected a clerical rule that has delivered only economic ruin, brutal repression, and global isolation.
The mullahs maintain power solely through violence, censorship, and fear—not through popular consent. Supporting the Iranian people is not about imposing a Western model or engineering revolution from abroad. It is about aligning foreign policy with the clear aspirations of a population that overwhelmingly despises theocracy.
Importantly, Iran's organised democratic opposition abroad has spent years developing detailed, credible plans for a post-regime transition, addressing governance, economic recovery, and international relations. This undercuts the argument that collapse would inevitably lead to chaos.
A post-Islamic Republic Iran would not need to become a perfect democracy overnight to represent a monumental strategic improvement. A government more accountable to its citizens would have powerful incentives to rebuild a shattered economy and redirect vast resources from funding foreign militias to serving domestic needs.
Regional de-escalation would become possible for the first time in decades. While recent actions have degraded threats from Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis, these Iranian proxies will inevitably rebuild if the regime in Tehran remains. Ending this menace does not require a US invasion, but it does demand abandoning the illusion that the Islamic Republic can be reformed or sustainably managed.
A strategy combining targeted military and cyber operations, maximum financial pressure, diplomatic isolation, and unequivocal political alignment with the Iranian people's demands for change is not reckless—it is long overdue. The regime has spent 45 years waging war on the US and its allies; it has never offered peace.
The uncomfortable truth is that as long as the mullahs rule in Tehran, the Middle East will remain a factory for terror, missiles, and nuclear blackmail. Every delay grants the regime more time, and every illusion of reform prolongs the danger. History will judge the West not by how carefully it managed this regime, but by whether it finally possessed the resolve to help end it.
