Why the Venezuela playbook will fail with Iran

There is a deceptive simplicity to the Trump administration’s foreign policy, a belief that aggressive military pressure, a few belligerent tweets and targeted sanctions can bring the most entrenched adversaries to their knees. 

Having watched the gradual unraveling of the Chavist grip on Venezuela — a situation that seems to validate the maximum pressure theory — I’ve noticed that the White House is now understanding Tehran through a similar lens. Trump seems to think regime change in Iran has already been achieved, remarking that those in charge are “smarter” and less “radical” than their predecessors.

But Iran is not Venezuela and treating it as such is a naïve and dangerous miscalculation. Iran is a different animal altogether: The Venezuela playbook will fail there.

In Venezuela, the opposition coalesced under a credible leader, Maria Corina Machado. Her party overwhelmingly won the 2024 elections. Under her leadership, there is a clear alternate government waiting for the moment when Venezuela is stable enough to hold fair elections 

Iran has no such credible opposition to resist the regime’s iron grip over the electoral system. The resistance movement is a fractured landscape of disparate factions ranging from exile-based monarchists, armed militias and exiled socialist groups with little cohesion. These groups often despise each other more than they fear the current clerical regime. 

There is no legitimate, alternate government waiting in the wings to fill a dangerous vacuum left in the wake of regime collapse. Without a unifying message, uprisings........

© The Hill