Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is dead, but regime change will require more than airstrikes by Israeli and American forces. His death puts pro-democracy Iranians at risk of being massacred by the heavily armed IRCG, whose soldiers have vowed to defend the regime to the last drop of their blood.

The Operation Lion’s Roar and Operation Epic Fury need to protect those defenseless Iranians by way of taking over Tehran as US forces did in 2003 when they stormed into Baghdad to topple the regime of Saddam Hussein.

The Iranian regime has reportedly killed at least 32,000 of its own people because the Iranians fought the dictatorship without using weapons. Now that the IRGC is excessively furious at the demise of its supreme leader, more civilian victims would fall if they were left alone in their noble struggle for freedom.

A strong impression that has formed within the international community is that if the IRGC was not able protect its own supreme leader and only learned about his tragic death after Israeli air strikes, it cannot and will not protect ordinary Iranians — all the more so those freedom-seeking protesters, many more of them are bound to die as a result.

It is not enough for President Donald Trump only to call on the Iranians to seize the momentum without sufficiently aiding them on the ground — Operation Lion’s Roar and Operation Epic Fury need to be there with the protesters on the ground to ascertain a regime change, if indeed that is what these operations aim to achieve. Otherwise, the death of Khamenei would only trigger an endless civil war that would claim many more innocent lives.

Critics would argue that President Trump is a double-standard leader, because while promulgating the Board of Peace for Gaza, he is........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)