On February 28, amid rising tensions between the US and Iran, the United States and Israel shocked the world by directing air raids against Iran’s government compound, assassinating Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Also known as the “Supreme Leader”, Khamenei had been ruling since 1989, transforming the preliminary establishment that enacted the 1979 Iranian Revolution into a highly authoritarian, militarized state. The strike was in response to failing negotiations on Iran’s nuclear capabilities and its regional power. After the assassination, President Trump addressed the Iranian people, saying that “the hour of your freedom is at hand” and to “take over your government”. Freeing the Iranian people from their theocratic regime is a decades-long development since the Iranian Revolution, with regime change being the current initiative. However, on a larger scale, this process of regime change will not contribute to liberation, but would lead to a catastrophic vacuum of power for the Iranian people, a continuation of a humanitarian crisis in the wider region, and many Americans losing their own freedoms in democracy.
The biggest logical fallacy is that the Iranian political system isn’t based on voting rights, which renders a democratic transition nearly impossible and widens the vulnerability of the freedom of the Iranian people. Due to this quality of Iran’s political system, the government does not need to worry about political dissent. In fact, we saw this dynamic in action earlier this year, where a death toll in the thousands and mass arrests resulted after tens of thousands protested across the country due to well-being issues and oppression. However, regime change in the United States depends on citizens rising and taking control of the government, which doesn’t seem likely when the fundamental system is locked out and inclined to respond with violence.
Theoretically, this violence would most definitely worsen at the hands of Iran’s militant force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). This paramilitary force works side by side with the Iranian authority to aid in suppression, like the operations against early January. If a top-down regime change were in effect, the IRGC, with hundreds of thousands of active and reserve militants across Iran’s provinces, would continue to enact the central government’s wishes. Additionally, this regime change would potentially create a power vacuum that the IRGC could take advantage of. In this hypothetical, the balkanization of Iran would lead to much more oppression, with the power of judge, jury, and executioner being held by regional warlords. The already minuscule freedoms of Iranians would dwindle as the IRGC monitors every single part of one’s life, continuing their targeting of “others” in Iranian society.
Secondly, while not the original targets of the United States and Israel, millions of citizens have been caught in the crossfire of the war. On February 28, during the initial strikes, an American miscalculation reduced a girls’ school to rubble, claiming the lives of 165 students and staff. While this may be addressed as “collateral” in the larger war, we must question if this is truly a path for freedom for the Iranian people. Why must children be in the crossfire if the true goal is removing the leaders of government? If the conflict leads to this kind of suffering and casualties, I do not think it is genuinely for the people of Iran.
While the strikes were traded between Iran and the U.S.’s allies, Israel reignited conflicts with Hezbollah because of its ties to the IRGC. Sending legally dubious displacement orders to southern Lebanon, Israel positioned the most recent operation to root out the militia. As of now, more than one million Lebanese people have been displaced, while only a few hundred thousand can reasonably take refuge inside Lebanon. To the displaced people of Lebanon, especially those not affiliated with Hezbollah, this is an egregious deterioration of their lives, their freedom to live where they have lived for many years. We cannot promote the freeing of Iranians from oppression while our allies displace over a million Lebanese civilians.
Finally, the conflict greatly affects all of us, whether we wanted this war or not. According to a recent Pew Research survey, around 6 out of 10 Americans disapprove of this war. Despite this wide distaste, all Americans have to deal with rising oil prices. Furthermore, around $28 billion has been used in the past month by the Pentagon, which could have been used to support nationwide infrastructure. If we want to project a true beam of freedom to the global world, we should also practice that within our own nation. It cannot be freedom for the average American who is being forced to pay rising oil costs, and for a war they don’t support. The irony of not voting for the war, and paying for its tolls, is not democracy nor personal freedom.
As Andover students, we often take complex global situations as just intellectual puzzles to solve, especially from our perspective of extreme peace and comfort. However, conflicts deal with genuine lives at the line, and we have a responsibility to care for lives as well as geopolitical objectives. Additionally, while it is simple to think that removing oppressors can restore freedom, there is always potential for the overthrow to lead to worse situations, and there must be a more comprehensive view of the situation. True global citizenship requires us to question not just who is being freed, but the consequences of the action and whether our definitions of freedom align with the reality of those on the ground.
