Misguided Assumptions Continue to Undermine Western Policy on Iran

For decades, Western engagement with Iran has rested on flawed assumptions rather than an accurate understanding of the country’s political realities. Since the 1979 revolution, policymakers have oscillated between underestimating the fragility of Iran’s leadership and tolerating its oppressive nature as an unchangeable fixture. This pattern of misreading Tehran has resulted in repeated strategic failures, with dangerous consequences.

One of the earliest misconceptions emerged in the late 1970s when the Shah’s regime was seen as a stable bulwark. This view collapsed as the monarchy fell swiftly in the 1979 revolution, exposing a fundamental error in equating authoritarian control with lasting stability. Despite this clear lesson, Western governments later fell into a related trap, assuming that the new theocratic regime, though oppressive, could be managed through diplomacy, sanctions, and containment rather than challenged at its core.

This belief underestimated the regime’s resilience and the profound threat it posed to internal opposition groups. The brutal crackdown following the Iran-Iraq War ceasefire in 1988, where tens of thousands of political prisoners—mainly affiliated with the democratic opposition People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK)—were executed, highlighted the regime’s deep insecurity and unwillingness to tolerate dissent. Such actions reveal that the regime fears internal resistance far more than Western policymakers acknowledge.

More recently, the regime has continued executing political prisoners, maintaining a violent intolerance to opposition. This ongoing repression challenges Western policy assumptions that Iran’s internal dynamics are static and that engagement or pressure, short of regime change, can ensure regional stability. The widening gap between emerging evidence of Iran’s internal vulnerabilities and the inertia of Western policy raises not only strategic concerns but also moral questions about the effectiveness and legitimacy of current approaches.

Years of analysis and engagement with Iranian dissidents underscore the urgency of reexamining these persistent myths. Policymakers face the difficult task of recalibrating their understanding of Iran beyond the outdated idea of an immovable regime, considering the courage and determination of internal resistance movements as critical factors shaping Iran’s future.