Washington should focus on toppling Iran’s regime not by fighting a full-scale war, but through specialized strikes and empowering Iranians — while denying Tehran the opportunity to turn its people against the United States.
While the world’s attention remains fixed on U.S. forces striking Iranian rocket launchers on Larak Island in the Strait of Hormuz, the Iranian regime has been keeping its eye on the Iranian street. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps issued a statement Thursday warning of intensifying social discontent and potential street protests that could be exploited by enemies of the regime.
Niccolo Machiavelli in his 16th-century political treatise The Prince wrote that a ruler faces two fears: one “from within, on account of his subjects,” and another “from without, on account of external powers.” He also understood that a ruler’s best protection against the former was to avoid being hated by his own people. Tehran has failed spectacularly at that task. Its next best option is to give Iranians someone else to hate.
Though the regime’s public message is that the U.S. and Israel are existential threats, its domestic behavior says otherwise. President Donald Trump on Monday called Iran a “failed nation” that has killed over 100,000 of its own people who have protested against the regime. The real strategic danger the regime keeps acknowledging is the Iranian people.
We made this argument in May, when we wrote in the Chicago Tribune that the Iranian regime’s “fortress” was falling apart from the inside. Today, scarcity, a collapsing currency, and hyperinflation continue to erode the regime’s legitimacy.
The weekend’s latest cycle of force, with Iran retaliating by attacking two U.S. bases in Jordan, risks distracting from the threat Tehran itself appears increasingly preoccupied with: discontent at home. The Guard launching missiles at U.S. targets while obsessively hunting down its own citizens sends a clear message over which war it is more afraid of losing.
But external confrontation also gives Tehran an opportunity. The regime has sought to portray domestic opposition not as the product of its failures but as the work of foreign enemies. A wider war would make that argument easier, allowing Tehran to redirect anger over inflation, shortages, and repression away from the regime and toward the U.S.
That is the trap Washington must avoid. A strategy designed to weaken the Iranian regime cannot simultaneously help Tehran redirect its people’s anger toward America.
Iran’s theory is simple: make the world feel pain so Washington suffers international backlash. Through its attempt to charge international tolls for passing through the Strait of Hormuz, Tehran hopes to force the U.S. to choose between a wider war and a deal that gives it an economic lifeline. But the U.S. has established a shipping corridor through the strait, and oil flows have reportedly recovered to around two-thirds of prewar levels.
Trump is right that economic pressure works. The Treasury Department’s campaign against oil smuggling, shadow shipping networks, and cryptocurrency schemes denies the Guard cash it uses to oppress its own society. But economic pressure should be an instrument of a broader strategy, not the strategy itself.
The solution to Washington’s stalemate with Tehran is neither more war nor another bad deal. The U.S. should continue denying Tehran an economic lifeline and conduct specialized strikes against military assets when necessary. But Washington should also prepare for the front the regime increasingly fears: its own streets.
That means helping Iranians maintain access to communications, including through Starlink, when the regime shuts down the internet, exposing repression as it happens, and supporting conditions that allow Iranians — not Washington — to determine their country’s future.
Every American action should meet a simple test: Does it tighten pressure on the regime, or does it give Tehran a chance to turn Iranian anger against the U.S.? A full-scale war, which U.S. military leaders warn could strain American forces worldwide, could let the regime wrap itself in nationalism and unite a battered population against an external enemy.
This does not mean Washington should stop using force. When the Guard threatens American forces, international shipping, or freedom of navigation through the strait, the U.S. should respond. Specialized strikes can deny the regime military capabilities without giving it the full-scale war it can use to rally the country.
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A new U.S. strategy must make clear that Iran is not the enemy. The Iranian regime is. Washington should pressure Iran’s rulers, deny them the resources they use to threaten the outside world and suppress their own population, and ensure that Iranians can communicate when the regime attempts to silence them.
Machiavelli warned rulers to fear both foreign powers and their own subjects. Tehran is trying to use one fear to protect itself from the other. Washington should not help it. The Iranian regime wants its people to believe that America is their enemy. The U.S. should not help it make the case.
Bradley Martin is the executive director of the Near East Center for Strategic Studies. Follow him on Facebook and X @ByBradleyMartin. Dr. Liram Koblentz-Stenzler is the head of the Global Extremism and Antisemitism Desk at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism at Reichman University, Herzliya, and a visiting scholar at Brandeis University. Follow her on LinkedIn.