Regime Change in the Middle East: Recent Background

In recent days, during an interview with Fox News, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly expanded the goals of his government in the conflict with Iran: under his leadership, the current Israeli government not only seeks to dismantle Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programs through military offense but also aims to promote regime change in Tehran. This new goal raised alarm signals among numerous analysts, who see in it a disturbing parallel with the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. 

At that time, the central argument put forward by the Bush administration to justify its preemptive attack was the alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction by Saddam Hussein's regime, a claim that later proved to be false.

The aftermath of that intervention was disastrous: the collapse of the Iraqi state. The subsequent instability gave rise to the Islamic State, which conquered and devastated areas of northern and eastern Iraq as a result of the power vacuum. According to estimates from UNHCR and institutions like Brookings, around 4.7 million people were displaced (internally and externally) as a result of the war.

The case of Iraq was not an exception. A few years later, in North Africa, the protests of the Arab Spring that destabilized Muammar Gaddafi's government in Libya were supported by the international community. UN Security Council Resolution 1973 authorized the use of "all necessary measures" to protect the civilian population, leading to a military intervention led by NATO countries. Several of these countries provided training, weapons, and intelligence to the rebel forces fighting the regime. Only three years after Gaddafi's fall, in the same year that the second Libyan civil war would begin, the then Tunisian president Moncef Marzouki stated in August 2014 that two million Libyans (around one-third of the pre-2011 population) had sought refuge in Tunisia.

In a similar vein, in 2013 the Obama administration faced a critical situation in Syria following the use of chemical weapons by Bashar al-Assad's regime. The so-called "red line" warned by the American in 2012 had been crossed, leading the United States to intensify its involvement in the conflict with the aim of pressing for regime change. The Democratic administration chose to indirectly support a deeply heterogeneous opposition coalition, whose goals were as diverse as its members: from segments aspiring to a Western-style democracy, to Islamist factions proposing a theocratic state. 

On the other end of the spectrum, the Russian Federation provided decisive support to Assad's government. The result was a prolonged civil war, large-scale regional destabilization, and one of the most severe migration crises that Europe has faced in recent decades, the political and humanitarian consequences of which are still a subject of debate today.  Even the current rise of the far right in several European countries is partly linked to those decisions: these sectors criticize the migration policies adopted at that time and demand the defense of "European identity" against the migratory wave coming from the Middle East.

Because the Iranian case is much more complex.

This historical overview should lead us to a clear conclusion: regime changes are no minor matter. Even in countries much less complex ethnically, religiously, and politically than the Persian nation, they have resulted in conflicts with global consequences. But why would the case of Iran be even more delicate if we do not learn from previous experiences?

To begin with, the Iranian regime is not simply a dictatorship. The Islamic Republic of Iran, as its name suggests, is a hybrid structure: a democracy supervised by a theocratic system. That is to say, there is electoral and representative participation at certain decision-making levels, but under the strict supervision of religious authorities headed by the Supreme Leader. Religious power and civil power coexist in constant tension, but that very complexity has been one of the keys to the system's longevity.

Iranians elect a president, a parliament (Majlis), and a Council of Experts in the polls, the theoretical function of which is to supervise and even dismiss the Supreme Leader. However, this entire "democratic" framework is under the control of the Guardians Council, an unelected body that approves or vetoes candidates and validates that the laws sanctioned by parliament are compatible with the principles of Shiite Islam. 

The judicial power, for its part, is under the orbit of the Supreme Leader, who appoints the head of the judiciary and thus ensures that the application of the law remains aligned with religious precepts. In this system, the theocratic dimension acts as a permanent filter and limit on the actions of institutions elected by popular vote, making Iran a particularly complex case.

In practice, the institutional fragmentation that this power scheme entails has generated permanent tensions, especially in a country that has faced almost constant crises since the arrival of the ayatollahs to power in 1979. In this context, the bond between the president and the Supreme Leader has gradually deteriorated in favor of the latter, consolidating an unequal power scheme.

Argentinians, who know very well the implications of a dual command, can recognize when the formal figure of the President is reduced to a practically administrative role, in the face of a real political power that underlies outside the executive. In Iran, the Supreme Leader not only has the final say on religious and constitutional matters but is also the commander-in-chief of the armed forces and the intelligence apparatus, making him the true center of power. The president, for his part, is relegated to a management role, almost as if he were in charge of the "lighting, sweeping, and cleaning" of the Islamic Republic.

This scheme has given rise to a state within a state, governed by religious ends and sustained by complex intelligence apparatuses that operate in the depths of public affairs. In the "basements" of the Islamic Republic exist power structures that do not answer to the president or the formal government, but directly to the Supreme Leader. In the event of a regime change or even the disappearance of its commander-in-chief, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, it is highly likely that these organizations would fragment into autonomous cells, willing to preserve their share of power by force. This would bring about, as in Libya, Syria, and Iraq, the balkanization of the country. Perhaps, for the security of Israel and the West, a weakened authoritarian theocracy under sanctions would be preferable to a mosaic of terrorist conflicts.

The migration risk against the already disputed European identity.

The migration crisis resulting from the conflict in Syria, a country that in 2011, at the start of the protests, had approximately 23 million inhabitants, had a profound impact on Europe. The prolonged conflict led to a massive exodus to the continent, creating one of the most significant migration crises in recent decades. With dramatic images like that of Aylan Kurdi, the 3-year-old Syrian boy who drowned on the beaches of Turkey. The political, social, and cultural consequences of this migration crisis remain a subject of intense debate to this day, especially due to the perception of a threat to European identity against the flood of Muslim immigrants.

Iran, with a current population of approximately 90 million inhabitants, has all the ingredients for a possible political fragmentation crisis like those we have already seen in other parts of the Middle East. If the order imposed by the ayatollahs is broken without an orderly transition and without a government capable of generating stability and economic development, the risk of a massive exodus is real. In that scenario, Europe and the United States could face an even greater migratory wave than that caused by conflicts in Syria, Libya, or Iraq. The current migration crisis might seem like a bad memory compared to the geopolitical and humanitarian nightmare that would involve bringing to its knees a country of 90 million people.

At the same time, this debate is deeply resonating in the Republican establishment. In recent days, ultra-Trumpist journalist Tucker Carlson starred in a tense interview with Senator Ted Cruz, in which he questioned the need for the United States to get involved in a new conflict in the Middle East by promoting regime change in Iran, a position defended by the Republican senator. The exchange exposed the internal division of the Republican Party and the strategic dilemmas facing the MAGA coalition.

The far-right in Europe and leaders like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán fervently support the objectives of the Israeli government in the Middle East. However, during the migration crisis of 2015, Orbán was one of the main opponents of opening borders, and since then has insisted on defending "national identity" against what he denounces as a process of islamization of Europe. Of course, the argument that the state could effectively halt a migratory wave of such dimensions is as fanciful as pretending to cover the sun with one hand.

These same sectors could soon face a boomerang effect, quickly transitioning from their idealized "Europe of yesteryear" to the dystopian nightmare described by Michel Houellebecq in his novel.