A New Chapter for Iran

With Ayatollah Ali Khamenei no longer alive, still part of the public discourse on the Middle East is already slipping into a familiar refuge: the region is “complex” and “complicated.” That framing typically gestures at history, religion and identity — and then stops short of a diagnosis of what drives instability.

The predictable result is a debate that remains descriptive rather than diagnostic. “Complexity” becomes a substitute for problem definition. And when we avoid defining the problem, we cannot test assumptions, compare explanations or build solutions that can be executed.

The Middle East is complex, yes — as every region is. But complexity is not an excuse for analytical paralysis. If the region cannot be reliably predicted or controlled because multiple factors interact at once, the minimum requirement is to identify those factors, clarify which ones matter most and develop credible, actionable solutions. The most persistent regional problem is chronic instability — the engine of conflict and a primary obstacle to prosperity and quality of life for millions.

For decades, instability has been explained through multiple lenses: religious/sectarian division, competition over oil and gas, and rivalries among major powers with entrenched interests among others. But one major factor has been consistently underweighted in post-1979 analysis and is difficult to ignore: the establishment of the Islamic Republic in Iran.

Using 1979 as a baseline, the region saw a sustained rise in conflict intensity, political violence and proxy warfare — dynamics that repeatedly drew in multiple countries. In simple terms, the post-1979 order produced a higher conflict burden than the pre-1979 baseline, including more distinct armed conflicts and more episodes reaching war-level intensity.

Since 1979, that higher conflict burden has been visible in recurring war theaters and proxy arenas in which Iran has been either a direct belligerent or a force multiplier.

Iranians Have Been the Islamic Republic’s Primary Victims

The Islamic Republic’s regional playbook — proxies, missiles and maritime coercion — has been underwritten by a domestic system of organized violence. The January 2026 “Lion and Sun” uprising remains fresh in memory, underscoring a reality too often minimized in external commentary: the regime’s first targets are not foreign adversaries but Iran’s own citizens.

Live fire against civilians, sweeping intimidation, and the steady conversion of universities, hospitals and public life into securitized spaces point to a state that governed for decades through fear and imposed death. The repression is not incidental; it is operationally deliberate.

That domestic war also clarifies a point now contested in Western debate: When some commentators argue that the United States and Israel “started” the war with Iran, the most basic fact for Iranians is nonnegotiable. For them, the war began in 1979. The Islamic Republic’s first battlefield was not abroad; it was at home.

From the outset, the regime declared war on its own society and prosecuted that war through repression, fear and systematic coercion. The downstream impact is not abstract: a durable architecture of gender-based repression, the criminalization of basic freedoms, and the sustained crushing of ethnic and religious minorities. When internal domination is the regime’s core operating model, external conflict is not a deviation; it is a continuation by other means.

This is why many Iranians do not primarily assign blame to Americans or Israelis for strikes on Iranian territory. They assign it to decision-makers who militarized the state, bankrupted diplomacy and imported war back into Iran. The Iran-Iraq War, the regime’s long-running projection of conflict across the region, and the export of armed networks did not happen in a vacuum. They flowed from a state that normalized aggression as policy: storming and holding a foreign diplomatic mission in Tehran, hardwiring anti-Americanism and anti-Israel maximalism into ideology, and defining national “purpose” through confrontation rather than nation-building. When a regime constructs its identity around destroying others, it issues a standing declaration of hostility — and drags its own population into the blast radius.

Iranians are ready to reset — to embrace democratic governance and rejoin the international community as a normal state, not a revolutionary project. The conventional objection is familiar: The collapse of the Islamic Republic would automatically deepen Middle East instability. That is one scenario but treating it as the default is intellectually lazy and strategically self-defeating.

Another scenario deserves serious attention: a transition with visible national cohesion, credible leadership and a clear political platform — precisely what Iranians inside the country have signaled in recent months, mirrored by the diaspora. The Lion and Sun flag has re-emerged as a unifying symbol. Large segments of the opposition have rallied around a single figurehead, the son of Iran’s late Shah, Reza Pahlavi, and around principles articulated and defended over decades: national sovereignty, secular governance, equal citizenship, and a forward-looking economic and diplomatic orientation.

From a hard-nosed strategic standpoint, the only sustainable path to regional peace and prosperity is to help Iranians detach from a regime whose operating model is permanent confrontation. A free Iran that delivers security and prosperity for its own people becomes a net stabilizer: reducing proxy warfare, lowering maritime risk premiums, and enabling trade, investment and energy-corridor resilience that directly benefit the whole region and beyond.

This is where responsibility shifts to external stakeholders — particularly Europe’s major powers, including France, Germany and the United Kingdom, as well as the GCC countries.

They should stop hedging. They should stop laundering the regime’s legitimacy through euphemism and “process” language. And they should align public messaging and policy with the Iranian people’s stated will — as their own countries and civil and economic infrastructures come under attack from the regime’s networks.

That means three things.

First, support civic mobilization and democratic transition consistently — not rhetorically one week and cautiously reversed the next. Second, tighten accountability on regime perpetrators with clear consequences. Third, build a post-transition economic and diplomatic package that rewards stability — a credible pathway to reconstruction, investment, institutional rebuilding and reintegration into regional and global markets.

Back the Iranian people consistently. Treat this moment as a once-in-a-generation opportunity — not something to be deferred into another lost decade.

If the goal is a Middle East defined less by permanent crisis and more by durable growth, then “geopolitics of prosperity” is not a slogan. It is a strategic agenda. And it starts with a simple premise: The region’s future is not destined. It is shaped — by choices, by coalitions, and by whether Europe and Middle Eastern states decide to act like stakeholders in stability rather than spectators of collapse.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)