The flaw is that we haven’t armed the dissidents. The regime’s soldiers have guns and the civilians don’t. The boots on the ground we need to overthrow the regime could be Iran’s ethnic groups.

I don’t think that Israel and the US really understand that Tehran controls Iran only because Tehran has a monopoly on armed force. If they did, they would now be smuggling large amounts of arms and munitions into Iran to arm the varied ethnic groups of Iran. Ethnic groups, other than the Persian majority, are about 45% of Iran’s population, and most of them have cultural, religious and ideological differences with Tehran. Also, Iranian ethnic groups have often faced more lethal force and repressive brutality than the larger Persian community, and they have also been hit hard by the near collapse of the Iranian economy. Smuggling large quantities of arms and ammunition to these ethnic groups would incentivize a rebellion. President Trump and PM Benjamin Netanyahu seem to think that civilian Iranians can overcome the the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and the regular Iranian Army, which, in total, number roughly 610, 000 armed men. But what are the people of Iran who want regime change supposed to do?? They have no weapons or ammunition. Do Trump and Netanyahu think that the Iranian regime can be overthrown by Iranian civilians throwing bricks, rocks and stones at 610,000 armed soldiers?? If large numbers of Iran’s ethnic groups were supplied with arms and ammunition, they would be the “boots on the ground” to overthrow the regime.

Smuggling arms and ammunition in Iran would not be difficult. Earlier this year, the US smuggled 7,000 Star Link internet terminals into Iran, to counteract Tehran’s taking Iran’s internet down early this year. If hundreds of thousands of arms, and rounds of ammunition, were given to members of Iran’s ethnic groups, they will quickly seek revenge against the regime for its homicidal crimes, brutal repression and denial of basic human rights. Facing a large number of newly armed citizens, the Army and the IRGC will have to make a choice. Either they will fight, and try to kill, their armed opponents or they will choose to rebel against the current regime. The rebellions may be of individual soldiers or entire regiments. In any case, a supply of arms and ammunition will give the Iranian opposition a fighting chance to make a revolution successful. Failing to give the Iranian opposition arms and ammunition is almost guaranteed to keep the Iranian regime in power.

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)