EXPERT PERSPECTIVE — Iran is experiencing its most consequential interval of inner unrest in years. Nationwide demonstrations pushed by financial collapse, social grievance, and political frustration have been met with drive, mass arrests, and near-total data management. The size and coordination of the response counsel a regime that feels threatened however not unmoored, assured in its capacity to soak up strain whereas stopping fragmentation.
This second has reignited debate in Washington about escalation, leverage, and the chance—express or implicit—of regime collapse. That debate is acquainted. America has confronted comparable moments earlier than, most notably in Afghanistan and Iraq, the place early assumptions about strain, legitimacy, and endurance proved fallacious.
This text isn’t an argument for restraint or intervention. It’s a warning drawn from expertise: with out understanding how competitors unfolds beneath the extent of open battle – the grey zone – strain alone doesn’t produce favorable outcomes. Iran at present sits on the middle of an issue america has repeatedly misunderstood – not the usage of drive, however what comes earlier than and after it.
Afghanistan and Iraq: The place Technique Slipped
In Afghanistan, america eliminated the Taliban from energy rapidly. In Iraq, Saddam Hussein’s regime collapsed even quicker. In each instances, the decisive part of the battle ended early. What adopted was the tougher contest—one outlined much less by firepower and extra by native energy buildings, casual authority, and exterior interference working quietly and persistently.
In Afghanistan, as I witnessed firsthand, regional actors tailored quicker than Washington. Iran, Pakistan, Russia, and later China handled the battle as an extended sport. They invested in relationships, cultivated affect, and positioned themselves for the post-U.S. atmosphere years earlier than the withdrawal. The consequence was not an instantaneous defeat on the battlefield, however a strategic hollowing-out of the state.
Iraq adopted an analogous trajectory. Iranian-aligned militias embedded themselves inside neighborhoods, spiritual establishments, and political events. Over time, they grew to become inseparable from the state itself. U.S. army dominance didn’t forestall this. Actually, it usually obscured it, till the structure of affect was already in place.
The lesson from each instances is simple: management of territory is short-term; management of networks endures.
Iran Is Not Afghanistan or Iraq — However the Sample Rhymes
Iran at present is usually mentioned as if strain will produce speedy political change. That assumption ignores how energy is organized contained in the Islamic Republic.
Iran’s safety mannequin is intentionally social. The Basij isn’t merely a paramilitary drive; it’s embedded throughout society—universities, workplaces, neighborhoods, spiritual establishments. Its goal isn’t solely repression, however surveillance, mobilization, and ideological reinforcement. This construction was constructed to outlive unrest, sanctions, and isolation.
Externally, Iran has exported the identical logic. In Iraq, allied militias operate concurrently as armed actors, political actions, and social suppliers. In Afghanistan, Iran preserved affect throughout regime adjustments, sustaining entry to key actors even after the autumn of the Republic. These usually are not improvisations; they’re the product of many years of studying.
It’s value remembering that Iran was not a spectator throughout the U.S. presence in Afghanistan and Iraq. It noticed American strategies up shut—what labored, what failed, and the place endurance outperformed energy. Tehran tailored accordingly.
Why Escalation With out Preparation Backfires
Moments of inner unrest usually create strain for exterior motion. But Afghanistan and Iraq present that collapse—actual or perceived—creates its personal dangers.
Eradicating a regime doesn’t dismantle casual energy buildings. It usually accelerates their consolidation. Networks that survive strain are those that outline what comes subsequent. Iran’s inner system is designed exactly for this type of stress: decentralized, redundant, and socially embedded.
There’s additionally a strategic paradox at play. Exterior strain can validate inner narratives of siege and overseas risk, strengthening coercive establishments slightly than weakening them. Info controls, safety mobilization, and proxy signaling usually are not reactions; they’re rehearsed responses.
This is the reason simplistic comparisons—whether or not to Japanese Europe, Latin America, or previous protest actions, are deceptive. Iran’s political ecosystem is nearer to the environments america confronted in Kabul and Baghdad than many in Washington are prepared to confess.
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None of this implies that Iran is resistant to strain or that its present trajectory is steady. Financial misery, generational change, and legitimacy erosion are actual. However historical past cautions in opposition to assuming that strain equals management or that unrest equals alternative.
The extra related query for U.S. policymakers isn’t whether or not Iran is susceptible, however whether or not america is ready to function successfully within the house that follows vulnerability.
That preparation requires understanding how authority is distributed beneath formal establishments, recognizing how coercive and social techniques reinforce each other, and anticipating how regional actors adapt during times of instability.
These are the identical classes Afghanistan and Iraq provided classes realized too late.
Iran’s present unrest has reopened a well-recognized debate in Washington about strain, leverage, and escalation. However Afghanistan and Iraq ought to have settled that debate way back. America didn’t lose these conflicts as a result of it lacked army energy; it misplaced as a result of it underestimated how authority, loyalty, and affect really operate inside contested societies.
Iran isn’t a clean slate, neither is it a fragile state ready to break down underneath exterior pressure. It’s a system constructed to soak up strain, handle unrest, and outlast moments of disaster. Any method that treats unrest as a chance with out first understanding what follows it dangers repeating the identical strategic error america has already made—twice.
The selection dealing with U.S. policymakers is subsequently not whether or not to behave, however how you can act with out misunderstanding the terrain. Escalation with out preparation doesn’t produce management; it produces penalties that others are higher positioned to handle. If Washington has really realized from Afghanistan and Iraq, it is going to acknowledge that essentially the most harmful second isn’t the collapse of order, however the false confidence that comes earlier than it.
Historical past is not going to choose america on whether or not it utilized strain. It can choose whether or not it understood what that strain would unleash.
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