By L. Todd Wood – The Washington Times – Thursday, September 6, 2018
ANALYSIS/OPINION:
The Iranian regime is starting to crack.
The terror train is about to derail.
But this will also be the most dangerous time for Iran’s adversaries, including the United States, as the murderers in Tehran start losing their grip on the Iranian people and on their billions of dollars banked abroad. We’ve seen this time and time again throughout history, from Mussolini to Ceausescu — it never ends well.
Smelling opportunity, the Iranian resistance is pushing hard, driving a wedge between ordinary Iranians and the mullahs. The people have had enough of the theocratic thugs and their corruption, murder and plunder. With much of the country lacking access to fresh water and economic opportunity, finding support to toppling the regime is not a hard task. The people are waking up that it is not America, or some other Great Satan, that is causing their misery. It is their own government, which has wasted hundreds of billions of dollars supporting terrorists worldwide while stealing fortunes for their families who live in the West.
In the Majlis, the Iranian parliament, Gholamreza Heydari, a representative from Tehran, on Thursday berated the government of President Hassan Rouhani for its deceitful and unwise stewardship of Iran’s wealth.
“Our dear Iran is in a peculiar situation: The people’s lives have become harder and harder on a daily basis,” the lawmaker said.
“We should talk honestly to the people: a sharp decrease in the value of the national currency and a sharp increase in prices, even for the most basic needs of life, shows that our country is not managed properly. Are we the world’s guardian that we want to rub everybody’s nose to the ground?”
Such open defiance of the Supreme Leader and the Revolutionary Guard’s official narrative is indeed telling. The regime is becoming weaker and weaker. The Trump administration is serious about tightening the screws and driving Iranian oil from the global market this fall. The revolutionary stone is rolling down the hill and getting faster and faster. At some point, the momentum will be too much for the regime to withstand.
It will happen more quickly that most anticipate, probably without warning. The mullahs will be in power until they are not.
Right now, the U.S. and its allies need to do all they can to hasten this day.
As judgment day approaches, the regime will try desperately to hold on to power. Repression and terror will increase. We have already seen intelligence agents arrested in Washington, D.C., accused of plotting to assassinate resistance leaders. We have seen Iranian diplomats arrested in Europe earlier this summer after providing explosives to regime operatives in order to bomb the Paris gathering of the leading Iranian exile dissident group.
Iran’s intelligence service has proudly declared it has installed sleeper agents in the West to wreak havoc and terror, just awaiting the order to move.
I don’t doubt it. After the Obama administration ignored Iran’s terror activities and failed to secure our borders, I’m sure Iranian sleeper cells are present in our major cities and near critical infrastructure.
This regime is fatally weak, but remains dangerous. It will not go quietly. The mullahs must be removed from power before they have the chance to regroup, before they can again threaten our very existence and way of life with nuclear weapons.
The American military need not lead the fight. We should be employing all of the elements of American power, with the military getting involved if we are physically threatened. In the meantime, we can every tool at our disposal to force our European friends to stop supporting Tehran and get on the right side of history.
The alternative is unacceptable.
- L. Todd Wood is a former special operations helicopter pilot and Wall Street debt trader, and has contributed to Fox Business, The Moscow Times, National Review, The New York Post and many other publications. He can be reached at LToddWood.com.
