Why Iran Needs Reform Before a Revolution

Those who advocate regime change in Iran are of varied political persuasions — some are monarchists, some are Marxists, and some are just fed up. But they all seem to believe that if Iran’s incorrigible “mullahs” can somehow be driven from power, their nation might finally be able to tackle its chronic unemployment, stave off its water crisis, cease its human-rights abuses, and, in the words of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, become “a normal country.” In this fantasy, Iran also ceases to be a destabilizing force in its neighborhood.

Emboldened by the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal, and its use of sanctions to further degrade Iran’s economy and foment unrest against the administration of President Hassan Rouhani, who has fashioned himself as reformer, regime-change proponents have seized the political momentum from advocates of gradual reform. The turn in sentiment was perhaps best illustrated by Shirin Ebadi, a Nobel-prizewinning Iranian lawyer and human-rights activist, who told my Bloomberg Opinion colleague Eli Lake that “reform is useless in Iran.”