Iran: A Ball of Fire Burning Itself
The evolution of events suggests that the United States is not in a hurry to achieve a military resolution with Iran, provided it possesses more painful tools to strike the Tehran regime, namely the suffocating and insurmountable economic sanctions.
On this basis, calculations regarding the upcoming U.S. midterm elections in November have played a major role in shifting the landscape, moving away from military war, bombing, and destruction toward stoking Iranian public sentiment against the regime. Voices demanding an end to the daily suffering of the people have begun to rise, ranging from former President Mohammad Khatami to current President Masoud Pezeshkian. This development is undoubtedly in favor of the United States.
This is not a transient phenomenon in Iranian history. For 47 years, the Iranian people endured sanctions, but there were outlets that helped alleviate the severity of living conditions. Additionally, proxy militias played a role in diverting the international community’s attention from the internal situation. Today, however, all of this is beginning to change, starting with the fall of the former Syrian regime, followed by the weakening and containment of Hezbollah in Lebanon, and moving through Iraq, where the state is beginning to regain its stability and consolidate control over weapons. Meanwhile, the Houthi group has become more isolated than before, both socially and regionally.
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Therefore, the U.S. electoral landscape, which was previously based on opposition to war, has been leveraged by a significant portion of the public. The imposition of the harshest sanctions in history has stripped the opposition of that card, especially since Americans recognize that this approach prevents their country from entering into military conflicts while simultaneously weakening the enemy.
North Korea, Iraq, and Syria—which is today beginning to recover from the impact of sanctions thanks to a wise leader who understands that his country cannot oppose the world’s major powers—serve as examples that remove the war card from the hands of opponents.
Thus, the current blockade, which U.S. President Donald Trump described as an “economic landing more severe than the Normandy invasion,” represents the penultimate step in a series of pressures against a rogue terrorist regime. This regime exploits every inhumane tool against its 90 million citizens while using threatening language toward the outside world, backed by media voices supportive of it due to private interests, much like the media syndicate of Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as in Iraq and Yemen.
When the source of funding dries up, the hired hand stops playing the same tune, and some even switch their rifles from one shoulder to another. This phenomenon is beginning to appear today across many television channels, media outlets, and digital bots. Hence begins the end, according to the logic of affairs: regimes similar to the current Iranian one fall from the outside before they fall from within.
The blockade on Iran will leave no room for political repositioning. Popular discontent is growing. While force, terrorism, and repression may have extinguished last January’s protests, that will not be an option when people begin to feel hunger. Meanwhile, regime pillars are fighting over crumbs of symbolic power that will benefit them nothing when revolution erupts against them once again.
We stated some time ago that President Donald Trump is not like previous U.S. presidents, who attempted to revive the Tehran regime through deals that failed, because Iran always tried to exploit any move to rearrange its internal position. However, today, following the recent war, the fragile economic situation, extremely high inflation, and new sanctions, all these factors will turn Iran into a ball of fire against the regime.
