Nader Hashemi is the director of the Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding and an associate professor of Middle East and Islamic politics at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. He is also a non-resident fellow at DAWN.
Iran is experiencing its most significant protest movement since the Women, Life, Freedom protests of 2022, raising major questions about the country's future amid renewed threats from U.S. President Donald Trump to strike Iran. What do such strikes mean amid the protests, and what will their impact be in practice?
Non-Resident DAWN Fellow Nader Hashemi offers his analysis of the situation in the latest "Key Questions" series in Democracy in Exile, and the first of the year, highlighting the illegality and limited efficacy of any new U.S. assault on the Islamic Republic.
1- U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to strike Iran if it kills those participating in the growing protest movement in Iran. What would a potential attack against the Islamic Republic look like in practice and why
Bombing Iran would constitute an egregious violation of international law, a clear violation of Article 2(4) of the U.N. Charter and a blatant act of aggression. "Rules-based order," anyone?
I say this without any illusions about the nature of the Iranian regime, its grotesque human rights record and its recent killing spree that has killed possibly thousands of protesters.
Bombing Iran would constitute an egregious violation of international law, a clear violation of Article 2(4) of the U.N. Charter and a blatant act of aggression.
- Nader Hashemi
Last June, the United States and Israel bombed Iran for 12 straight days, killing over 1,000 Iranians—including senior members of the regime and many civilians. This time around, I suspect a similar assault, with strikes targeting Iran's nuclear program and ballistic missile stock. None of this will help protesters in Iran.
Remember a key fact: Rhetoric aside, the West does not really care about the human rights of the Iranian people. The focus of U.S. policy toward Iran has long been almost exclusively about Iran's nuclear program and its regional policy of intervention. Democracy and human rights have never been on the Western agenda.
2-As the Iranian state opts for increasingly repressive tactics to squash the protests, including killing protestors, what is the real red line for the U.S. administration? Why has it not attacked Iran yet?
With Trump, there is no red line. Taking at face value claims that he cares about the human rights of Iranians is wrong. Recall, he is personally close to each of the region's dictators, especially the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), and head of the family dictatorship than runs the United Arab Emirates, Mohammad bin Zayad (MBZ).
Recent events in Venezuela are also informative. Trump removed the dictator but kept the dictatorship. He sidelined the democratic opposition to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, focusing exclusively on oil and resource extraction via gunboat diplomacy. With Tehran, a similar outcome will occur if he can manage to strike a deal. Iran has significant levels of oil.
Still, Iran is a very different case than Venezuela, and not only regarding the resilience of the authoritarian regime in Tehran. Critically, the Israel factor comes into play in the Iranian case, alongside a cultural factor concerning American Islamophobia. This does not apply to Venezuela, Cuba or Latin America broadly. These factors constrain the depth of any Trump negotiations with Iran, which could alienate his MAGA and Likudnik supporters.
3- What are the potential risks and rewards of any U.S. strike on Iran? Does a potential attack help the protest movement?
There are many risks behind bombing Iran. First, Tehran will retaliate by hitting American military bases and Israel, as they have publicly stated. This response could force Washington to keep bombing Iran, risking an expansion of the war and regional destabilization, producing a negative effect on the global economy.
Furthermore, Trump's MAGA base opposes military intervention abroad, especially in the Middle East. They also increasingly oppose the U.S.-Israel alliance, most clearly articulated by influential MAGA voices like Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens and, to a lesser extent, Steve Bannon.
Iranians face a particular challenge today: how to develop an indigenous strategy for democratization.
- Nader Hashemi
A potential strike will hurt the protest movement in Iran. To be sure, some Iranians, including members of my family, disagree with this point. Their views are rooted in legitimate anger toward state repression within Iran and a desire to see an immediate political transition to democracy. The truth is, however, that American B-52 bombers cannot produce these results.
Rather, bombing Iran will feed the Islamic Republic's narrative and strengthen the resolve of its supporters. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and company increasingly claim these protests are driven by foreign-instigated acts of subversion with backing from the United States and Israel. The former head of the Central Intelligence Agency, Mike Pompeo, continues to provide credence to this narrative by bragging about Mossad agents on the streets of Tehran helping protesters. Thus, an American military attack on Iran will allow the regime to declare a state of national emergency rooted in a foreign military attack. A brutal crackdown—much worse than we have already seen—will certainly follow.
4-Will the Islamic Republic re-enter negotiations with the United States to prevent an attack? What conditions are necessary for new talks?
On Jan. 11, Trump announced Iranian outreach to his administration, reflecting a sign of desperation from Tehran. After the June war, Iranian officials said the ball was in America's court to make a good faith effort if negotiations were to be restarted. Clearly, that principle is no longer operative.
Tehran understands that the only path forward for regime survival is sanctions relief. Without it, Iran's economic prospects are nil, making another mass uprising inevitable. The problem is that Washington has effectively boxed Iran in, leaving it with few cards to play. Iran's regional position has severely weakened in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iraq. Critically, U.S. sanctions are producing their predictable effect—destroying Iran's economy—while inducing mass poverty, pauperization and revolt. Thus, the Trump administration's goal from the outset has come to fruition.
Understanding Iran's weak position, Washington will demand a heavy price from Tehran. Time is not on Iran's side, especially amid reports that Trump has cut off any possible talks. Previously, the Islamic Republic has demonstrated that when its survival is at stake, it can make compromises to survive. It did so during the Iran-Iraq war in 1988, with its nuclear program in 2013 that produced the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action—colloquially known as the Iran nuclear deal—and in its de facto removal of the hijab law due to the 2022 Women, Life, Freedom protests.
Given the depth of this crisis, Tehran is likely to compromise again to ensure the survival of the Islamic Republic. The question is whether Trump provides Iran a face-saving path out of its box, perhaps symbolically allowing it to claim that it has not totally capitulated to the West on its nuclear and ballistic missile program—which are core U.S. demands.
5-What are the lessons from this moment that bear on the internal struggle for democracy in Iran?
Iranians face a particular challenge today: how to develop an indigenous strategy for democratization. There has been very little serious theorizing on this topic. Recently, Shadi Sadr, an Iranian feminist and human rights activist, wrote a thoughtful essay calling on Iranians to develop "a credible and collective understanding of how to move from repression to democracy through a people driven and inclusive political process. The absence of such a theory has left a dangerous vacuum."
Today, this vacuum is being filled by deeply non-democratic voices like Reza Pahlavi—the baby Shah of Iran—who is close with Israeli political and intelligence sources and has a sophisticated public relations operation. Such figures seek to topple the Islamic Republic via external military attack.
Bombing Iran from 50,000 feet will not produce democracy or advance human rights. It will likely foster another Iraq, Afghanistan or Libya. A serious plan for Iranian democracy—one that is indigenous—requires hard work. It also requires patience. Any plan must be rooted in cross ideological coalition building, fosters internal political organization that brings different economic classes and ethnic groups together, and, critically, is committed to a nonviolent strategy for democratization that can mobilize and inspire Iranians within Iran and in the diaspora.
In this regard, certain tools are counterproductive. Broad-based economic sanctions that impoverish the average Iranian citizen—while enriching the ruling elite—must be jettisoned. When people are starving and struggling to survive, it is impossible to organize politically to fight authoritarianism because the priority is day-to-day survival. To be clear, however, utilizing targeted sanctions on the repressive apparatus of the Iranian state and Magnitsky sanctions on senior Iranian officials in command-and-control positions who have significant blood on their hands constitutes sound policy.
Finally, the United States has a special moral obligation to support democracy in Iran because it toppled Iranian democracy in 1953. At this time, a CIA-led coup removed Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, ending Iran's best opportunity at democracy. The Shah of Iran was restored to power, warping Iran's internal development trajectory and setting the stage for the 1979 Iranian Revolution that established the Islamic Republic the world knows today.
Where might Iran be politically if the Washington had not intervened in 1953? I ask this question a lot these days as I observe the tragic events in Iran and the prospects of another American intervention.
The views and positions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of DAWN.
