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The Decline of the Iranian Empire

(National Review) Elliott Abrams - After a decade in which Iran's expanding power and influence seemed irreversible, they were in fact reversed by Israel - with last-minute help from American B-2 bombers. What's left is a much weakened Hizbullah (Iran's key proxy), Syria free of Assad (a Russian and Iranian ally), and an Iran without air defenses or an advanced nuclear-weapons program. The Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023, caught Israel by surprise because its security elite thought there was a modus vivendi with the terror group: as long as it could rule Gaza, with Qatari money flowing in, Hamas was satisfied. It was viewed as bought off and no longer serious about its murderous ideology. Oct. 7 taught the Israelis to stop psychoanalyzing their enemies, to look at those enemies' capabilities, and to assume that whatever capabilities exist will eventually be used to kill Jews. Iran's direct attack on Israel on April 13, 2024, changed the rules of the game. Since the Reagan administration, a series of presidents has tried to negotiate with Iran and avoid confrontation despite Iran's hand in killing Americans in terrorist attacks and during the Iraq War. President Trump's bombing of Iran, as H. R. McMaster has written, "reminded officials in Tehran that they cannot antagonize their adversaries in the region with impunity - and reminded officials in Washington that Iran's theocratic dictatorship cannot be conciliated. 'De-escalation' was never a path to peace - it was an approach that perpetuated war on the Iranians' terms." Recent events have led many states to change important calculations. Iran and other friends of Russia and China have seen that, at least in the Middle East, those two powers are paper tigers. Everyone has seen the superiority of American to Russian military hardware. China has seen that American military power is not theoretical. The Gulf Arab states have seen that Iran is much weaker than they thought. By restoring its reputation for military and intelligence excellence, Israel has made itself an appealing partner for potential Abraham Accords participants. The barbarians of Hamas and the mullahs in Tehran had something very different in mind when they started their major attacks on Israel in 2023, but their actions and the Israeli and American reactions have proved that the United States and its allies remain the dominant powers in the Middle East. The writer, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, served as White House deputy national security advisor, where he supervised U.S. policy in the Middle East.
2025-07-29 00:00:00
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