Iran is not Venezuela

The Iranian regime’s religious nature has long been the source of its hostility

A version of this article was originally published by the Southern California News Group.

American military action against Iran was long overdue. But despite going to war, President Trump has apparently not learned the lesson that eluded his predecessors: Iran’s distinctive Islamist nature is what drives its hostility.

One red flag: asked on March 1st about the war’s political endgame, Trump told the New York Times that, “What we did in Venezuela, I think, is the perfect, the perfect scenario.”

Days later he again expressed hope that he can simply appoint a new leader, “like with Delcy [Rodriguez] in Venezuela.” Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth insists the U.S. objective in Iran is to degrade Iran’s missile program, not regime change. Even after floating the slogan “unconditional surrender,” Trump mused about welcoming religious leaders in Iran, provided they somehow diverge from current policies.

The idea that the Iranian regime’s policies might change for the better simply by appointing a more pliable leader, as in Venezuela, is a delusion.

While Maduro’s Venezuela had its roots in the socialist ideology of Hugo Chavez, socialism’s power to motivate fails when the earthly goods it promises fail to materialize. When that happened, it’s no surprise that the Venezuelan state was captured by cartels who made it a haven for drug trafficking and money laundering. Delcy Rodriguez herself has long been a key figure in the Cartel of the Suns, perhaps the power behind Maduro’s throne all along. Rodriguez seems to care about little more than maintaining her power. She can plausibly be counted on to do Trump’s bidding, else face the same punishment as Maduro — though it’s premature to deem this setup a success.

Whereas Venezuela is led by thugs and gangsters, Iran is an ideologically driven militant regime.

Iran’s 1979 revolution created an Islamist regime led by a clerical “supreme leader.” Its founder, Ayatollah Khomeini, established a religious dictatorship that subjugates the Iranian people under sharia law, while zealously exporting its dogma by force. The constitution embraces “the ideological mission of jihad in God’s way; that is, extending the sovereignty of God’s law throughout the world” (citing a Koranic verse [8:60]). “Martyrs” sacrificing themselves for this cause are celebrated. The regime glorified one 13-year-old boy who strapped grenades to his body and threw himself under an enemy tank; his face appeared on postage stamps and banknotes. This extolling of self-sacrifice has roots in Iranian Shiism.

Iran’s revolution galvanized the Islamist movement across the world. Iran not only taught jihadists that their nihilistic goal is realizable, it also spearheaded the cause, funding, training, arming and coordinating such factions as Hamas and Hezbollah, which sometimes function as its proxies.

The clerics lead chants of “death to America,” condemning it as “the great Satan” to be destroyed, because of our secular, pro-individual freedom society. Iran’s first act of war against us was the 1979 seizure of the embassy in Tehran and the humiliating 444-day captivity of American diplomats. Then came lethal bombings of American targets in Lebanon. Then the enabling and arming of Iraqi insurgents slaughtering U.S. troops. Iran has been waging a religious war against America for decades. Our presidents since Jimmy Carter have failed to recognize that.

Trump’s notion that “what we did in Venezuela” would be “perfect” for Iran is beyond ludicrous. It projects a leadership of anti-ideological dealmakers like himself. But Iran’s regime has proven itself committed to its vicious ideas, which cannot be bought off. A fact underscored by Iran’s violations of the 2015 nuclear deal. An obvious risk of any deal with surviving members of the regime is that they would accept it only as a temporary ploy to fight another day.

To defeat Iran’s Islamist regime, our war planners must keep the regime’s ideology firmly in mind. They are not the gangsters of the Maduro regime, easily bought off or even afraid of death. If our war planners have any end game in mind — and it is scandalous if they do not — they must think about how to facilitate the end of a deeply ideological regime.

Eliminating the threat from Iran’s Islamic totalitarian regime necessitates discrediting its ideology, making it a lost cause. Some may doubt this is possible, in the shadow of the Iraq and Afghanistan debacles, and indeed, it has been decades since America has followed the right approach. History, however, provides a compelling model.

Consider the lesson from the 1945 defeat of martyrdom-extolling imperial Japan, which offered an “unconditional surrender” only after two atom bombs. The historian John David Lewis has eloquently described American efforts to discredit and uproot the regime’s ideology from schools and government, and to block from political office former regime leaders.

A hopeful sign in Iran: Even before the US-Israeli strikes, countless Iranians have courageously risen up against the theocratic regime, calling for “death to the dictator,” in 2022 during the “Woman, Life, Freedom” mass protests; and then in January, across 180 cities in all 31 provinces (which Tehran brutally crushed). Such protesters deserve our moral support. They could open the way for a secular, non-threatening, peaceful, even friendly, Iran.

Image credit: Arezoo / Middle East Images / AFP via Getty Images