Playing Chess With the Islamic Republic

Iran has no shortage of problems. Some activists outside the country are trying to help people who are already carrying more than enough pain. Unfortunately, some power-hungry groups have decided that even this space must be turned into a battlefield for their own ambitions.

Most Iranians today are, in one way or another, hostages of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. One reason may be that nearly every attempt to weaken this monster has somehow fed it instead. It is as if Nietzsche’s line, “What does not kill me makes me stronger,” was not written for human beings at all, but for the IRGC. A grim achievement, even by Iranian standards.

People will read all this through their own loyalties. Fine. But one question is harder to dodge: are we trying to make life better for Iranians, or are we mainly worried about the future of our political friends?

Suppose you are close to the reformists. These are people who helped ruin Iran’s land and water, then developed a touching allergy to accountability. Still, you argue that great powers should talk to them. Perhaps you even imagine a useful role for yourself as the civilized bridge between the West and the same familiar wreckage.

Suppose you have fled Iran. You now offer Western governments your contacts inside the Islamic Republic, like a salesman arriving with a suitcase full of slightly used insiders. You explain that these are actually good people. Reasonable people. People who can help transform the regime from within. And naturally, when the day after finally comes, the West should remember who introduced them.

Suppose you came from inside the regime yourself. Now you need Western trust. So you rebrand as the face of change. You announce that you are ready to go to Jerusalem tomorrow and perform the most anti-Islamic gesture imaginable, preferably one irritating enough to make every cleric in Qom spill his tea. A bold conversion. Conveniently timed.

All this may impress some Western politicians. It may also delight media circles that mistake political theater for political substance. But the real question remains: Will any of it make life better for the people of Iran?

To deal with the Islamic Republic, slogans are not enough. You need to play three-dimensional chess while remembering the rules of backgammon. You also need to understand the creature across the table. It may have the temper of an enraged gorilla. It may pretend to be mad. But do not be fooled by the performance. It is still playing. And it is still trying to fool you.

The first rule, then, is simple: if you want to fight the Islamic Republic, do not vaccinate it. Over the past several decades, many groups, and even Western policymakers, have fed the regime weakened versions of the virus instead of weakening it. Its immune system has been strong enough to learn from those attacks, prepare for them, and grow more resistant to the next variants.

The regime may even have sent people into think-tank circles to study those political viruses up close and make sure it had the necessary antidotes ready in advance.

In my view, too many of the methods tried so far have failed the people inside Iran. Real help will not come from people who keep giving the regime practice rounds. It will come from those who can think further ahead than the regime, read its next move, and stop helping it become harder to kill.