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** Is Washington About to Replace One Iranian Tyranny with Another? ([link removed])
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by Pierre Rehov • April 15, 2026 at 5:00 am
* The issue is no longer whether the regime in Tehran is under strain — it clearly is — but whether Washington is preparing, consciously or not, to replace a brutal clerical dictatorship with a brutal military one.
* The idea that a military structure could serve as a "moderate" transitional governing authority in Iran seems to rest on the fragile assumption that professionalism leads to moderation. Regional history says otherwise. From Egypt to Pakistan, militaries that stepped in to "restore order" entrenched their own authoritarian rule. Iran offers no reason to believe it would be different.
* What makes the current moment so dangerous is that, if no credible alternative to the mullahs takes power -- one that is rooted in popular legitimacy -- the vacuum will not remain empty. It will be filled by the most organized, armed actors available — the IRGC and security apparatus -- the same forces that slaughtered more than 30,000 of their own citizens on the streets in just two days.
* The faces change, but the repression, torture and hangings stay the same.
* The former Shah's army, the Artesh, relegated to patrolling Iran's borders, may lack the theological zeal of the IRGC, but it has shown no commitment to dismantling the structures of repression.
* Any kind of real, long-term peace requires the total end of Iran's regime, not its adaptation. The Islamic Republic unfortunately cannot be reformed, any more than could the Afghan Taliban. The regime's legitimacy is rooted in a doctrine built on confrontation — both with the West and with its own population. Preserving any part of this ruling structure, whether through the IRGC or segments of the military, risks perpetuating the same destabilizing brutality.
* Preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, while essential, addresses only one dimension of the threat. A non-nuclear authoritarian Iran remains capable of repression at home and destabilization abroad. Removing the threat of nuclear bombs does not create peace; it merely limits the scale of the potential catastrophe.
* For Trump to declare victory based on a ceasefire, partial concessions, or the emergence of supposedly "pragmatic" actors would be catastrophically naïve.
* Whatever happened to Trump's "Help is on its way"?
* To say that economic collapse will make it easier for the Iranians to change their government if they wish might sound good, but it is fantasyland. They have no weapons.
* The Iranian people are not asking for a redistribution of brutality. They are asking for a new system entirely.
* Will Washington recognize this distinction, or will Trump's legacy, instead of peace, be -- in Syria as well -- that he simply exchanged one tyranny for another?

The issue is no longer whether the regime in Tehran is under strain — it clearly is — but whether Washington is preparing, consciously or not, to replace a brutal clerical dictatorship with a brutal military one. Pictured: Iran's then Supreme Leader, the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, prepares to award a medal to the late General Amir Ali Hajizadeh (L), then commander of the Aerospace Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), in the presence of the senior IRGC leadership, in Tehran on October 6, 2024. (Image source: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader)

A recurring illusion in American foreign policy is that removing the most visible layer of oppression in a brutal regime, as in Haiti, Afghanistan, Libya and Iraq, is enough to claim victory. It is politically convenient and media-friendly, but in the instance of the Islamic Republic of Iran, looks to be strategically disastrous.

Today, as pressure mounts on Iran and US President Donald J. Trump signals a willingness to seize a perceived opening — most recently through a 15-day ceasefire — the same illusion is once again taking shape. The issue is no longer whether the regime in Tehran is under strain — it clearly is — but whether Washington is preparing, consciously or not, to replace a brutal clerical dictatorship with a brutal military one.

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