Iran’s failure in its proxy war with Israel and the “swift and stunning reversals” its ally has suffered in Syria could speed up the collapse of the Tehran regime, a former State Department official has said.
Robert Joseph, who was an undersecretary of state for arms control and international security in President George W. Bush’s administration, told an online conference on Dec. 4: “Iranian drones and missiles, including ballistic missiles fired by Yemen and directly from Iran, have been proven to be ineffective, and this is in stark contrast to Israel’s reprisal attacks that have depleted Iran’s air defenses and weapons production capacity.
“In the past week the swift and stunning reversals of the Iran-backed Assad regime have decisively demonstrated the abject failure of the mullahs. Their plans and costly investments have simply backfired.
“Think of what all this must mean for the mullahs, who staked their future and their legitimacy on being the leader of the anti-Israel cause to the outside world. The regime has shown itself to be a weak and unreliable actor in a region that abhors weakness.”
‘Further Weakened the Regime’
Joseph said Iran’s foreign policy failures—especially since its “proxy,” the terrorist group Hamas, began the conflict in Gaza by sending gunmen across the border to massacre Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023—had “further weakened the regime at home.”He described the Iranian government under its 85-year-old supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, as a “desperate regime that long ago lost all legitimacy with its own people.”
Joseph said there had been several uprisings in the past five years, an “embarrassing boycott” of presidential elections earlier this year, and continued “brutal repression.”
“The people have had enough of the pervasive corruption, the squandering of national treasure and failed foreign interventions, and the endless repression of all the opposition,“ he said. ”Its fate is clear, it will fail and it will end.”
Joseph said the incoming Trump administration would end what he called the current policy of “appeasement” and get tough with Tehran, especially over its nuclear program.
“It is clear that, with the loss of the JCPOA, they have now positioned themselves to build nuclear weapons fairly rapidly, if they so choose,“ Goldston said. “And they want the world to know this.”
On Dec. 4, Joseph said, “President Trump has said that Iran will not be allowed nuclear weapons, and unlike his predecessor, the current sitting president, I think he truly means it.”
He said it is likely that the Iranians will have “all hell to pay.”
Ivan Sascha Sheehan, an associate dean at the University of Baltimore’s School of Public Affairs, agreed.
“When it comes to Iran, we rely on appeasement and negotiation at our peril,” Sheehan said.
‘Pitiless Killing Machine’
Alejo Vidal-Quadras, a Spanish politician and critic of the Iranian regime who survived an assassination attempt at the hands of a contract killer in November 2023, told the conference that the police in Spain had evidence that the attack on his life had been orchestrated and financed in Tehran.“The regime is a pitiless killing machine,” he said.
David Jones, a former UK government minister who stepped down as a member of parliament in July, praised the “bravery, doggedness and unity of purpose” of the National Council of Resistance of Iran and said he was confident they would provide a ready-made government in a democratic Iran.
He said some claimed that the terrorist group had not been banned so that the UK could maintain a dialogue with the Iranian regime.
But he said he felt this was a “short-sighted policy.”
“I believe that there should be unity in the West in treating Iran as the pariah that it is,” he said.
