On one of my last trips to Germany this winter, a taxi driver who almost literally saved my ass in a traffic chaos/black ice-situation happened to be an Iranian. Not just any Iranian, but one whose life had spanned enough decades to have witnessed both the Shah’s last years in power and the current Islamic regime. And, as almost every diaspora Iranian I’ve met, he was a dissident and former political prisoner.
However, he wasn’t happy when I cheered “Javid Shah” at our encounter. In my defense, a few days earlier, I had seen a small group of Shah supporters in the unlikely city of Zug, Switzerland, carrying the Lion and Sun flag, and they applauded and waved at me when I shouted these words through my car window. Not that I’m a Reza Pahlavi fan. But I happen to know many Iranians who are, as he represents the one thing diaspora Iranians cannot get enough of through the past two months’ oppression, persecution and mass murder of their fellow countrymen and -women, children and teenagers: hope.
My taxi driver wasn’t happy, though. He wasn’t unhappy either—while he’d seen political repression during the Shah years, he said, he’d never experienced anything as life-defying as the Islamic Republic’s regime and the IRCG’s grip on the people. He told me about the hunger strikes he had gone on at the UN’s Geneva headquarters, repeatedly, in the past 30 years. “If you want a comparison, you can say the Shah was Mussolini, but the Supreme Leader is Hitler!” He also said he is against regime change “coming from the outside”. Only the Iranian people, and no one else, could and should decide on the future of their own country. “Yes, there should be a democratic transition government, but not necessarily by the Crown Prince. Well, whatever happens, we have enough people who are ready for implementing a democratic rule of law. Just open the prisons and bring back the political prisoners! We have thousands of educated and eligible people for the job!”
While my Iranian taxi driver had seen political repression during the Shah years, he said, he’d never experienced anything as life-defying as the Islamic Republic’s regime and the IRCG’s grip on the people.
At the same time, he said, “we need help”. Realistically (and as we have seen) the Iranian people, devoid of military power, could not overthrow the regime while left to their own devices. And it takes a military intervention to overthrow the rule of the “Supreme Leader”—he agreed with me there.
While most of us, supporters of the Iranian cause, had already given up thinking Trump would do anything of the sort—he had even praised the Islamic Republic’s regime for “pausing executions” —last night, in a joint military operation, Israel and the US struck essential military targets in Tehran. The military reportedly took out higher-ranking personnel in the Iranian government, such as Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, Iran’s Chief Justice. As head of the judiciary, he oversaw the court system—including the Revolutionary Courts that handed down thousands of death sentences since last September. More strikes are being conducted as of now, all in Tehran. Reportedly, no civilian homes have been damaged so far.
“If you want a comparison, you can say the Shah was Mussolini, but the Supreme Leader is Hitler!”
To anyone paying attention, it could have been clear that Trump was never going to simply “appease” the Islamic Republic, even if his rhetoric was hard to decipher and at times quite contradictory. But the transferals and deployments of military infrastructure to the Middle East in the past two months were not just for display of power—as some of us, including myself, thought.
Over the past 6 weeks, the U.S. Air Force forward-deployed at least 14 aerial refueling tankers — predominantly KC-46 Pegasus and KC-135 Stratotankers — to Israel predominantly KC-46 Pegasus and KC-135 Stratotankers — to Israel (Ben Gurion Airport) in preparation for extended air operations and to support both U.S. and Israeli aircraft. These aircraft dramatically increase operational range and sortie rates for fighters — essential for any long-range air campaign against Iran without local bases closer to Iranian airspace.
Last week, the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier was ordered toward the Middle East, joining another carrier strike group already in the region. This boosted the U.S. Navy’s presence to at least 16 ships, including carriers and destroyers in or near the Arabian Sea and Eastern Mediterranean — the largest such concentration in years. Several Arleigh Burke-class destroyers and other escort vessels accompanied carriers, providing air defense, surface warfare capability, and missile defense coverage around the fleet. These naval assets served dual roles: deterrence against Iranian ballistic missile threats and platforms from which aircraft could launch strikes or support missions if ordered. This was one of the most significant U.S. military surges in the Middle East in decades.
Trump’s rationale, as he made clear in last night’s speech, was this: “Iran can never have nuclear weapons”. But the Islamic Republic—a terrorist, quasi-fascist regime—could also not go on unpunished for what it has done its people for the past 47 years. And pushing it out of power, never to return, is the appropriate form of punishment.
What then? I refer to the Iranian taxi driver. He had a pretty good sense of what needed to be done. Godspeed!
