Richard Haass, the President of the Council on Foreign Relations, has recently put out a piece calling for the U.S. to actively promote regime change in Iran. His article is surprisingly blunt and characterizes the regime’s determination to develop nuclear weapons in urgent terms. Most importantly, it’s worth paying attention to this piece because what Haass says matters– the Council on Foreign Relations often performs a consensus-building function across large swaths of the foreign policy community.
It’s also important to recognize what Haass is and is not saying. Although he’s calling for regime change, he aims to achieve it through means other than war — targeted sanctions, name and shame campaigns, etc.
The controversial aspect of Haass’s position has everything to do with another debate entirely: whether the Iranian opposition is better able to overthrow the regime with or without American assistance? Haass’s argument is simple:
Critics will say promoting regime change will encourage Iranian authorities to tar the opposition as pawns of the West. But the regime is already doing so. Outsiders should act to strengthen the opposition and to deepen rifts among the rulers. This process is underway, and while it will take time, it promises the first good chance in decades to bring about an Iran that, even if less than a model country, would nonetheless act considerably better at home and abroad.
Yet, I’m not sure this logic passes the scratch-and-sniff test. It doesn’t matter what the Iranian regime is saying about America. What matters is whether or not the Iranian people believe what the regime is saying about America.
Right now, the regime is baselessly accusing the US Government of interfering in its domestic politics in order to spark a nationalist backlash against the revolutionaries. But there’s a problem – the accusations aren’t sticking. There is very little evidence to suggest that the regime’s efforts to sully the reputation of the revolutionaries by linking them to “American imperialists” is resonating with the people.
If the US does begin to actively assist the Iranian opposition, wouldn’t that make the regime’s efforts to tar the revolutionaries significantly more effective? Almost certainly. The key question then is to determine whether or not the benefits of American assistance to the revolutionaries would outweigh the reputational costs to the revolutionary movement. The jury is out on that one.
