Ending the nuclear program and stopping external activity could spare Iran foreign intervention that enables internal change by exploiting widespread domestic unrest.

The Iranian regime is facing an existential crisis for the first time since the founder of the Islamic Republic returned to Tehran. There is only one actor capable of preventing the regime’s descent and possible collapse, and it is not Washington, Israel or any of the Gulf states. The only party capable of saving the Iranian regime from its fate is the regime itself. This time, the threats against it have converged, and together they are capable of bringing it down. Danger surrounds it both internally and externally.

The regime stubbornly adopted the nuclear project despite the clear impossibility of being allowed to possess nuclear weapons. Today, it is paying the price and finds itself standing at the finish line, stripped naked, without nuclear deterrence.

The Tehran leadership also persistently adopted projects of external change and the export of chaos, declaring this official state policy from its first day in power. These projects led to confrontations that harmed both Iran and the region. We are now witnessing the collapse of most of the external revolutionary project.

Danger surrounds it internally and externally

Abdulrahman Al-Rashed


Very little time remains for the regime to take courageous decisions and execute a complete reversal. This may be the final hour, and it still has the option of withdrawing from its nuclear project, which everyone knows is a military effort rather than one aimed at electricity generation.

It can spare itself destruction by retreating from its hostile policies toward countries in the region, dismantling the military institutions that were built to chaos and threaten neighbors, and refraining from imposing its will on the peoples of the region regarding their choices between peace and confrontation.

Such decisions, ending the nuclear program and external activity, can spare Iran foreign intervention that would enable internal change by exploiting the widespread unrest inside the country.

What we are seeing now is Iran tactically seeking to halt a US attack, bargaining over freezing the nuclear project while promising to abandon its military dimension. This may satisfy the core requirement of Washington and Israel, but it raises concern for countries in the region. A wounded lion remains dangerous to most regional states once it recovers, as long as it retains its conventional weapons and military institutions directed toward external military activity.

A wounded lion remains dangerous

Abdulrahman Al-Rashed
The narrative that we face two bitter options, that the regime’s survival is preferable to chaos, is valid only in a peaceful environment and under a rational, non-extremist ideological system. The regime can buy more time and reach understandings that prevent it from being targeted by the US and Israel. This does not necessarily halt the collapse, but merely delays it, unless the regime adopts a series of internal and regional retreats. If it were to do so, this would mean we are facing a system unlike the one we have known for almost half a century.

Predictions of the regime’s fall are old and have been repeatedly made, yet the system has endured. Zbigniew Brzezinski, US President Jimmy Carter’s right-hand man and the official responsible for the file at the time, said after Ayatollah Khomeini came to power: “This is a temporary mobilization regime.”

Years later, Henry Kissinger agreed with him, saying: “The regime is internally contradictory, a modern state and a revolutionary doctrine, and cannot last long.” Yet it has endured for four decades and become a dominant regional power.

Those predictions were premature. Today, however, the trajectory of the Islamic Republic appears to be toward change. The question is how. A total collapse or a partial transformation? The region must prepare for such potential changes, both negative and positive. And while extending support to Tehran, we must remember that our issue with the regime lies solely in its external interventions, which it continues to pursue in Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen, even as it is on its deathbed. So, is Tehran truly ready to change?

• Abdulrahman Al-Rashed is a Saudi journalist and intellectual. He is the former general manager of Al-Arabiya news channel and former editor-in-chief of Asharq Al-Awsat, where this article was originally published. X: @aalrashed