Trump Has No Plan for the Iranian People

From Anne Applebaum in The Atlantic:
"The American bombardment of Iran has been launched without explanation, without Congress, without even an attempt to build public support. Above all, it has been launched without a coherent strategy for the Iranian people, and without a plan to let them decide how to build a legitimate Iranian state.

This lack of coherence has plagued the Trump administration’s policy for many weeks. On at least eight occasions during Iran’s nationwide uprising in early January, President Trump encouraged Iranians to “take over their institutions” and promised that American help was “on its way.” But just last month, days after the Iranian regime massacred thousands of its own citizens, Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, sent out the opposite message. He described Iran as “a deal that ought to happen” and said that the country could be welcomed into “the league of nations.” Vice President Vance has also said that America’s interests in Iran are limited. “If the Iranian people want to overthrow the regime, that’s up to the Iranian people,” Vance recently told reporters. “What we’re focused on right now is the fact that Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon.”

The absence of a broader strategy fits a pattern. For decades, American presidents from both parties have oscillated between coercion and engagement with Iran, sometimes offering diplomacy, sometimes sanctions. Doves and hawks both sought to manage the tactics of the Islamic Republic—its nuclear ambitions, its ballistic missiles, its network of proxy militias throughout the Middle East—without ever coming up with a meaningful strategy to combat the root problem: the ideology of the regime itself.

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The point is not that the U.S. should promote democracy for its own sake. The goal, rather, must be to help Iranians achieve normalcy. For the region to be at peace, Tehran must transform itself from the headquarters of an insurgency back into the capital of a country seeking to build peace and prosperity for its own citizens. A stable, law-abiding Iran will help build a stable, law-abiding Middle East. But in order to achieve that, Iran needs not a new dictatorship but self-determination and a pluralist government that respects basic rights. Right now, the Trump administration is not trying to build one."