The High Cost of Incompetence: Why the Islamic Republic is going down the drain of history
Operation Epic Fury
As I wrote in June. Wishcasting was never a strategy for Iran. 8 months later the regime appears crippled unless it has a hidden reserve of strength.
The President is to be commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States. In this respect his authority would be nominally the same with that of the king of Great Britain, but in substance much inferior to it. It would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the military and naval forces, as first General and admiral of the Confederacy; while that of the British king extends to the DECLARING of war and to the RAISING and REGULATING of fleets and armies, all which, by the Constitution under consideration, would appertain to the legislature. —Federalist Papers 69, Alexander Hamilton
I note the above because it is an important point of discussion for the American people and their future, but, I do not intend here to argue about the war powers of the United States Constitution, but to remark on the failure of the Iranian regime, mostly from 1989 to today, but to an extent going back to the beginning of the 20th century. I come to historically bury the Khamenei era not to praise the war.
Let’s get one thing straight: in the world of political history, when we talk about institutional sclerosis that’s just a fancy way of saying a government has become so stiff and brittle that it cannot adapt, cannot pivot, and certainly cannot admit when it is failing. It is like a biological hardening of the arteries for a nation-state. And if not taken care of that state will die. When we look at Iran under Ali Hosseini Khamenei (April 19, 1939—???), we are not looking at a tough regime. We are looking at a profound failure of leadership. To be blunt: the man simply isn’t/wasn’t very bright when it came to geopolitics. It is possible that it will be official confirmed by Iran that he has been killed by the USA/Israel by the time this is read.
Two Generations Lost
Khamenei has/held the reins since 1989. Whatever Iran is right now, he cannot escape responsibility. For those keeping track at home, that’s over three decades of stagnation. Nearly 37 years! While the rest of the world was digitizing, globalizing, and—in many cases—liberalizing, Khamenei was busy doubling down on a revolutionary model that has all the charisma of a damp rag and the economic output of a rusted-out factory. There is no excuse for the Iranian government to have fallen so far behind their opponents that they have been bombed twice in less than a year will little fear of consequence. He presided over two lost generations. Think about that. That is almost 40 years of Iranian youth who have had their potential suffocated by a regime that prioritizes ideological purity over, you know, actually making the country work. The worst indictment of any regime is not having a bad leader; it is the inability to replace a bad leader. This is what we call a systemic failure. Even monarchies know when it is time to appoint a regent. If a business has a CEO who plunges the stock price for years they probably will not continue to be in charge for thirty more. The board fires them. In a healthy democracy—which Americans need to take seriously—we vote them out. But the Iranian regime is so broken, so riddled with cronyism and fear, that they could not find an off-ramp for an 86-year-old man who was clearly driving the national bus off a cliff.
Now, Iran faces an embarrassing prospect: their third conquest since the First World War.
As a scholar of the Anglo-Protestant tradition, I focus on how liberty is not just about “doing whatever you want.” It is about ordered liberty and the act of building institutions that are strong enough to withstand bad leaders and flexible enough to allow for human flourishing in a fallen world. The Islamic Republic of Iran is the antithesis of this. But the last century of Iranian history is also a lesson of good government being held hostage to the nostalgia, of making Iran Great Again.
