Saturday, March 10, 2018

Hoping for regime change in Iran - David M. Weinberg




by David M. Weinberg

Lubrani was convinced that Iran's nuclear program and revolutionary ambitions threatened the entire world, and that the only way to stop the ayatollahs was by supporting change from within Iran.

The legendary Uri Lubrani died this week at age 91. His foremost desire was to see the Islamic revolutionary regime in Iran overthrown, and he passionately believed that Israel and Western powers could and should do much more to bring this about. Lubrani's passing is an opportunity to revisit this important issue.

Lubrani was a fixture in the Israeli foreign affairs and defense establishment from day one, and I was fortunate to know him. He smuggled Jewish immigrants into British Mandate Palestine while serving in the Haganah, and fought in the War of Independence. He was bureau chief to Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett, and Arab affairs adviser and bureau director to Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. He served under every administration since then, all the way through to Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon.

While serving as ambassador to Ethiopia, he orchestrated Operation Solomon, which brought 20,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel. In the 1980s, he was coordinator of operations in Lebanon and made ultimately unsuccessful efforts to repatriate captured Israeli airman Ron Arad.

Most notably, he was the Israeli mission's head in Tehran from 1973 to 1978, the final years of the Jewish state's warm relations with Iran before the fall of the shah. He claimed that he foresaw the fall of the shah six months before it happened, but nobody believed him, including CIA analysts.

After that, Lubrani embarked on a one-man campaign to foment regime change in Iran. He wrote articles and briefs arguing that this was possible and should be a priority program, and he presented his arguments to anyone in Washington and Jerusalem who would listen to him. He was convinced that Iran's nuclear program and revolutionary ambitions threatened the entire world, and that the only way to stop the ayatollahs was by supporting change from within Iran.

When the Green Revolution rocked the streets of Tehran and other major cities following the corrupt Iranian elections of 2009, Lubrani was joined by many other experts and officials who felt that an opportunity was at hand to reinforce the protesters and bring about an end to the regime of the ayatollahs.

But then-U.S. President Barack Obama was deaf to the pleas of the Iranian protesters and to free-Iran advocates like Lubrani. Instead, Obama already was secretly promising goodies to the ayatollahs in exchange for a nuclear deal.

Lubrani was out of commission when the latest round of protests rocked Iran beginning last December, but you could hear echoes of him in the ensuing public policy debates. Could this lead to regime change in Iran? Should America and other important actors weigh in with moral and perhaps material support for the protesters? And would such Western "interference" only delegitimize the protesters and ultimately backfire?

Sure enough, the usual suspects (mainly former Obama administration officials) argued that Washington should stand back and do no more than pray for the protesters. They noted that the Islamic republic's apparatuses were vast and sturdy, the Iranian machine of oppression was well-oiled and brutal, and Iran's regional and international alliances were impressive and empowering – so the likelihood of overthrowing the regime was slim. Wishful thinking, at best. And anyway there was Obama's signature "achievement," the JCPOA nuclear agreement, to protect.

Other analysts, however, noted a qualitative difference in the recent protests and saw opportunities to weaken the regime. As opposed to past protests, which had focused on the economy and corruption, the new ones had a nationalist edge to them, with the demonstrators calling for a return to a pre-Islamic Revolution Iran.

"Stop investing in Syria, start investing in us," "Clerics, go home, free the country," and "Death to Khamenei, we want [Shah] Pahlavi," were some of the protest slogans.

Consequently, notable Iran experts including former CIA agent Reuel Marc Gerecht of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and former State Department official Ray Takeyh of the Council on Foreign Relations have argued that it is in U.S. interests to see the Iranian regime's internal conflicts intensify.

Specifically, they see a worsening struggle between President Hassan Rouhani and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that threatens Iran's governing edifice. The result of the factional fighting is paralysis at a time when the theocracy is facing popular disaffection, economic decline (with unemployment among young people at 40%) and imperial overstretch.

Gerecht and Takeyh argue that the U.S. can help crack the regime. They say that President Trump should use his bully pulpit and economic sanctions aggressively to expose and punish the regime's tyrannical behavior. Pushback against Tehran's gains in Syria would help too, as would a tidal wave of sanctions against the Revolutionary Guards. "Iran is a volcano," they assert. "We want it to erupt."

The Trump administration has taken some advantage of the unrest to back up its portrayal of the Iranian government as a "rogue regime" and an "evil dictatorship" not supported by most Iranian people. The State Department used its Farsi-language Twitter and Facebook accounts to offer support for the protesters, despite warnings from Iran and other countries, such as Russia, not to get involved. And U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley said that "all freedom-loving people must stand with the cause [of the Iranian protestors]."

That's a lot more support than the Iranian protestors got in the Obama era, but as far as I can tell, it remains merely rhetorical.

Speaking at the annual AIPAC conference this week, Prime Minister Netanyahu also sounded a note of support.

"As we counter Iran's aggression, we should always remember the brave people of Iran ... [including] students that are tortured and shot for advocating freedom. We stand with those in Iran who stand for freedom. I believe that a day will come when this horrible tyranny will disappear ... and at that point, the historic friendship between the people of Israel and the people of Persia will be re-established," he said.

Fine words and a fine sentiment. But again, might more be done to advance an Iranian counterrevolution? Uri Lubrani certainly thought so, and he was not naive.



David M. Weinberg is vice president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategic Studies, jiss.org.il. His personal website is davidmweinberg.com.

Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/hoping-for-regime-change-in-iran/

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