Strategic Blunders: How Iranian Regime Got Stuck Between a Rock and a Hard Place
Opinion Letter By Dr. Bazargan
Iran-Arab Relations:
Ayatollah Khomeini was not interested in a strong national army (he was in favor of forming/strengthening the Revolutionary Guards Corp, IRGC). He also provoked and humiliated Saddam Hussein, who invaded Iran in 1970.
Later in 1982, when Iran had the upper hand in the Iran-Iraq war, Iran rejected Saddam’s offer to withdraw and end the war as well as later offers of financial aid from Arab countries to end the war. Instead, in 1987, Iran was forced, after 600,000 of its citizens were killed/injured, into a dead-end ceasefire and peace, without receiving any reparations or financial aid and without rapprochement with most Arab countries.
Iran-US Relations:
Encouraged by pro-Russia factions and Iran’s Supreme leader (Khomeini), Leftist radicals took hostages in the American Embassy in Tehran (1979) and did not release the hostages to Jimmy Carter. The backroom deal with the Republicans, helped Ronald Reagan win the Presidential elections and paved the way for years of heavy-handed interventionist militaristic policies towards Iran.
Later on, in 1986, in a rapprochement effort, Reagan sent a clandestine, highly controversial diplomatic mission to Tehran which was exposed by hardcore Iranian militants (perhaps close to Russia), and blew up into the Iran–Contra affair. These failed reconciliation efforts led to decades of costly hostilities between Iran and America and further political isolation of Iran in the West.
In the 21st century, arms dealers, oil companies, Arabs, Israelis, Russians, Hardcore pro-Russia Islamists in Iran and pro-Trump Republicans all worked/lobbied against any reconciliation efforts such as Obama’s Nuclear Deal with Iran. Reformist Iranian statesmen in favor of normalizing ties with the West, like Rouhani, Khatami and Zarif, have been sidelined or blacklisted. The Iranian economy, crippled by the sanctions, has been dominated for years by the IRGC-ruled military industrial complex. More American pressure from outside has resulted in more power for IRGC and pro-Russian elements inside and more US weapons sales to Arab countries.
Relations with Iranian Citizens:
The hardcore anti-Western Islamists in Iran, not only isolated Iran from the US and its allies abroad, but also made the Islamic regime domestically unpopular, by imposing censorship routines on pro-democracy reformists and mandating headscarf for women. Over the years, pro-democracy, pro-freedom and pro women’s rights groups who boycott elections grew to some 70-80% of Iran’s population, as evidenced by low voter participation in recent elections in Iran. Since the Woman-Life-Freedom movement in 2022, the IRGC-dominated regime has faced strong domestic opposition and even protests/rebellions like those in January 2026, which resulted in some 30,000-40,000 protesters killed or injured.
As a result of crippling economic sanctions, never-ending tensions with Arabs, Israelis, Europeans and Americans, and a domestic battle of wills with the majority of reform-minded secular Iranian citizens, Iran's militant Islamic regime is now facing the dire consequences of the strategic blunders made in the past 47 years. It is stuck between a rock and a hard place, between foreign military pressures and domestic dissent/protest by both conservative militants (who are against any talks or peace with the US) and the pro-democracy secular majority (who are against militant conservatives).
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