For instance, in Syria, we could seek a more ethnically coherent loose confederation or separate states that might balance each other—the Iranian-dominated Alawites along the coast, the Kurds in the northeast, and the Sunni Arabs in the heartland. Of these groups, it is the Kurds we should most champion and help protect, and not only because we have worked for years with them in combating ISIS. They are our most natural allies, for blocking Iranian expansion—including the delivery of weapons from Tehran to Syria—and containing Turkey’s, which poses an increasing challenge to U.S. interests. And they reside in oil-rich areas. Similarly, in Iraq, our most natural allies are also the Kurds.

Any redrawing of political relationships or borders is highly complex, and the United States cannot dictate the outcomes. But we can influence them. We would need to deeply examine each country for its unique qualities and histories, consulting closely with our regional allies before deciding upon a policy.

Some might argue this approach is impractical, destabilizing, and offering Iran new opportunities. Perhaps, but the region’s current trajectory is more dangerous. The burden is on the United States to adapt its policy to the dissolving of borders and Iran’s aggression. Further, artificial states have been divided or loosened before with some success, such as the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, all post–World War I formations. Bosnia and Herzegovina have also managed as a confederation.

Where sectarian groups have united in protests against Iran or its influence, such as in Lebanon and Iraq lately, the administration should continue to support the people any way we can. However, Iran will not easily loosen its grip in these countries, and in some ways is tightening it.

IV.            Conclusion

In 1949, Winston Churchill declared about communist regimes:

“Tyrannies may restrain or regulate their worlds. The machinery of propaganda may pack their minds with falsehood and deny them truth for many generations of time. But the soul of man thus held in trance or frozen in a long night can be awakened by a spark coming from God knows where and in a moment the whole structure of lies and oppression is on trial for its life. Peoples in bondage need never despair.”

One cannot know when that spark will arrive in Iran, but it is incumbent upon the United States to hasten its coming, so that that evil regime collapses, as Soviet rule did, and like all evil regimes eventually do. The longer it takes, the more lives will be endangered and the more our interests threatened. Adopting a “regime collapse” strategic goal and a “comprehensive pressure” policy will help do so, and offers the best and most realistic chance of advancing core regional and global U.S. interests and values.

Michael Makovsky, a former Pentagon official in the George W. Bush administration, is president and CEO of the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA).

Image: Reuters