Former National Security Adviser John Bolton has called on the United States to provide direct support to Iran's opposition movements, arguing that regime change cannot happen through military force alone. "Arming, financing and helping to organize the opposition would empower Iranians to have a more forceful role in their future," Bolton wrote.
Bolton outlined the proposal in a guest essay for The New York Times, "Hvylya" reports.
The former adviser described conditions inside Iran as ripe for upheaval. The economy is grim. Young Iranians know they can have a different way of life, and they yearn for it. Women have been defying the clerics' dress codes since the killing of Mahsa Amini over three years ago, rejecting what Bolton called "the very foundations of the regime's legitimacy, the claim of the clerics to speak the word of God."
Iran's ethnic minorities - Kurds, Azeris, Baluchis, Arabs, and others - also deeply oppose the Tehran regime, Bolton noted, with many groups seeking autonomy or independence. The opposition's main weakness, he wrote, is organization: it remains scattered and poorly structured despite widespread discontent.
To dramatize American commitment, Bolton suggested Trump name a special representative to the Iranian resistance - modeled on George H.W. Bush's 1989 decision to appoint Peter Tomsen as special envoy to Afghanistan with the rank of ambassador, backing Afghan rebels against the Soviet-backed government.
Washington need not favor any particular faction or individual, Bolton stressed. Who rules in Iran after the clerics depart should be determined then, not now.
Also read: "Hvylya" explored how local fractures rather than Iranian influence explain the rise of Middle East militias.