Iran is not a conventional adversary operating within accepted rules of state behavior. It is a regime whose survival depends on repression at home, destabilization abroad, and the systematic manipulation of diplomacy. For more than four decades, Tehran has refined a strategy built on violence, delay, and deception, betting on Western hesitation, election cycles, and diplomatic fatigue to advance its objectives while avoiding consequences.

The most recent wave of protests inside Iran exposed this reality with brutal clarity. These demonstrations were not ideological uprisings orchestrated from abroad, as the regime claims. They are rooted in daily hardship. Millions of Iranians took to the streets demanding freedom, dignity, economic opportunity, and basic services that any responsible government should provide.

Instead, they live under a system where billions of dollars have been spent over decades financing foreign militias, terrorist proxies, and regional interventions, while essential infrastructure at home continues to collapse. Hospitals lack medicine and equipment. Schools and universities are underfunded. Food prices have soared. Unemployment—particularly among the youth—has reached alarming levels, eroding hope for an entire generation.

This stark imbalance between ideological ambition abroad and economic neglect at home was at the heart of the protests. The regime’s response was neither reform nor restraint. It was mass violence.

According to multiple credible human rights organizations and international NGOs, the Iranian authorities killed and executed more than 3,500........

© The National Interest