Why the Iranian Regime Must Be Removed

Trump promised the Iranian protesters that he would come to their aid — “help is on the way” — if the regime continued to violently suppress them. The regime continued to kill protesters, albeit at a lower level, since the protests began to peter out, but Trump did not come to their aid. And many Iranians are disappointed. So is Senator Lindsey Graham, who gave an interview to the Jerusalem Post about the necessity of America helping the Iranians to overthrow the Supreme Leader. More of his interview can be found here.

The Iranian regime is teetering on the edge of collapse, the US must follow through on its promises to aid the Iranian people or risk facing a catastrophe “worse than Afghanistan,” and risks facing the fall of the Abraham Accords if the Islamic Republic regime survives, US Senator Lindsey Graham told The Jerusalem Post in a Monday interview.

Following meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, opposition leader Yair Lapid, and other senior officials, and after participating in a rally of 250,000 anti-Iranian regime protesters, Graham described a historic window of opportunity that he believes could reshape the Middle East for a long time to come.

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“Without the October 7 massacre happening, I don’t believe Iran would be on the verge of regime collapse,” he said.

The Hamas attack on October 7 led both to Israel’s war in Gaza to destroy Hamas, and its other war in Lebanon against Hezbollah. Both terror groups have been badly mauled by the IDF, and their battering has harmed Iran, which can no longer count on them to be proxies who could assist Iran in any war with Israel. Furthermore, the battering of Hezbollah meant that that terror group was in no condition to help Bashar Assad beat back the forces of Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham; without that help, Assad’s forces collapsed and he fled to Moscow. And with Assad replaced by Ahmed Al-Sharaa, a Sunni jihadist who regards Shia Iran as an enemy, Iran is now bereft of all of its once-powerful allies — Hamas, Hezbollah, and Syria.

Despite the risks of an Iran deal being reached, Graham expressed confidence in Trump’s strategy.

“President Trump is one of the smartest guys I know about [being] strong without getting entangled,” he said.

“When they write the history of these times, I think Trump and Netanyahu and me and others, we can hold our heads up high and say that we listened to the people in the streets, telling them that help is on the way, and as a result of that help, the largest state sponsor of terrorism is no more,” Graham said.

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Lindsey Graham seems on the one hand to deplore Trump’s failure to deliver on his “help is on the way”’ promise made to the protesters in Iran, while on the other hand he praises Trump as “one of the smartest guys I know about [being] strong without getting entangled.” Does Trump know exactly what he is doing? Perhaps he’s just stringing Iran along, giving it every chance to make a deal but stonily determined as to what he will do — something “kinetic” — if Iran fails to make concessions on its nuclear enrichment program. I allow myself to believe the latter.

Those hoping for a massive attack on Iran to destroy what remains of its nuclear program, to devastate its store of 1,500-2,000 ballistic missiles, and to get Iran to agree to stop giving support to its proxies, the terror groups Hamas and Hezbollah, may well be disappointed. Though every other day President Donald Trump changes his mind as to what he may, or may not, do in Iran, at the moment, his aides have let it be understood that he is now planning a limited strike that would leave the supreme leader’s regime in place, but sufficiently chastened so that he will be more willing to accept American demands for a complete end to Iran’s nuclear program.

Would Trump have assembled such a force, the mightiest American force since the Iraq War, only to put pressure on Iran to curb its nuclear program? What’s to come is still unsure, but every day it looks more and more as if Iran has made a fatal error in not coming to terms, when it still had a chance, with The Donald.