June 22, 2025

I realize there’s a lot going on in the world right now, so it’s easy to get distracted, but would someone please check in on former President Barack Obama. I fear that he must be seriously unwell.

Israel’s pre-emptive attack against Iran nine days ago, and the knock-out punch delivered by the United States early Sunday morning, has left the ayatollahs positively reeling. Obama must be inconsolably bereft. As president, he never met a mullah he didn’t simply adore. It was a little creepy, but most Americans forgave his peculiar predilection.

His one foreign policy achievement was an unmitigated disaster. Billions of dollars of unfrozen funds were awarded to Iran. Economic sanctions lifted. The United States negotiated a bogus “deal” that allowed for Iran to enrich uranium 300 feet below mountainous terrain—for ostensibly “civilian” purposes. Not even inspectors with the International Atomic Energy Commission were given complete access to verify Iran’s compliance.

Energy for commercial use only requires 3 percent to 5 percent enrichment. Weapons grade uranium is enriched at 80 percent. Iran was enriching at 60 percent.

So much for that Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. Obama had many talents. Math was not one of them. The full implications of his misjudgment are impossible to calculate, but American soldiers stationed in Iraq, and Israelis before and after October 7, 2023, lost their lives due to terrorist acts undertaken by Iran and its regional proxies.

Donald Trump’s first term in office scuttled the Iran deal. Joe Biden’s foreign policy team—all graduates from the Obama Academy of Clueless Diplomats—lifted sanctions and spent four years begging the ayatollahs to return to the negotiating table. The clerics predictably stalled Biden, all the while tinkering with fissile material.

Now that seven B-2 bombers dropped bunker-busting bombs on Fordo and Natanz, and 30 Tomahawk missiles rained down on a third nuclear hideout in Isfahan, the bad faith balking of the ayatollahs may have finally come to an end.

The Israeli Air Force already obliterated Iran’s air defense missile systems, strategic command centers, launching facilities, and drone sites in Tehran, Bushehr, Ahvaz and Yazd. The top echelon of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps are all dead, along with 14 of the regime’s best nuclear scientists.

I’m sure we will soon hear from Obama, Biden, and other Democrats—flaunting the same instincts for appeasement as Neville Chamberlain—roundly condemning Trump’s canny deployment of American might. We’ll hear that the mullahs should have been trusted. The moron wing of the MAGA movement will question America’s self-interest in thwarting Iran’s nuclear aspirations.

Some members of Congress will insist that before undertaking any such action tantamount to a declaration of war, Trump should have first received their approval pursuant to the War Powers Act.

All except that Obama, in 2011, launched 112 Tomahawk cruise missiles aimed at over 20 targets in Libya to end the reign of Muammar Gaddafi. In 1993, President Bill Clinton ordered 23 Tomahawk cruise missiles to strike Baghdad, Iraq in a preview assassination attempt on Saddam Hussein.

Neither of those military actions received prior congressional approval. What’s more, Libya and Iraq never came close to presenting the same threat to American, and worldwide, national security as does Iran. Unless and until Trump orders ground troops to not only change the Iranian regime, but also to rebuild its nation, Congress not need have been consulted beforehand. Talk about ruining a surprise attack.

So far, Trump has done precisely what America’s Commander in Chief and the leader of the free world should be expected to do: exercise the right judgment in the service of both the United States and humankind. Their abject failings are precisely why Obama and Biden never fit the bill.

President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu both saw the ayatollahs for what they are: trash-talking theocrats who roguishly financed and fomented terrorism around the world.

The United Nations Charter requires member states to “practice tolerance and live together in peace … as good neighbours,” and “refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.”

And, yet, Iran somehow remained a nation in good standing after repeatedly threatening to wipe Israel from the map. Now that smirk has been wiped from their faces.

Iran somehow remained a nation in good standing after repeatedly threatening to wipe Israel from the map. Now that smirk has been wiped from their faces.

A nation that worships the Stone Age finally got its wish. Iran’s military infrastructure is in rubble. The ayatollahs boastingly absorbed America’s first-strike capacity and promised “everlasting consequences.”

Apocalyptic theocrats are not known for their poker faces, or sense of irony. Their terrorist Revolutionary Guards are quaking. Missile stockpiles depleted and production facilities out of commission. Launching sites, annihilated. Fighter jets that never left the tarmac. Nuclear ambitions, now buried and impassable.

All that’s left is global terrorism—something the Western world now must take very seriously.

If Iran continues firing rockets at Israeli population centers (indisputable war crimes that seem of little interest to the global community), then the Jewish state will rightly see that as an invitation to collapse the remaining guardrails keeping the mullahs in power.

The assistance of the United States will no longer be necessary. Fear that America’s involvement in Israel’s final Middle East battlefront might set off World War III, or embroil the United States in yet another “forever war,” is more science fiction than realpolitik.

Israel was already at the 5-yard-line. America’s bunker busters merely punched this war over the goal line, allowing President Trump, like Harry Truman who once brought Japan to its heels, to relish an endzone celebration.

The Persian Gulf nations, along with honest brokers within the European Union, realize that Israel, aided by the United States, has done everyone a massive favor. Soon they will admit it, privately, at first.  Eventually, Iran’s absence as a menace will be widely felt.

The Persian Gulf nations, along with honest brokers within the European Union, realize that Israel, aided by the United States, has done everyone a massive favor. Soon they will admit it, privately, at first.  Eventually, Iran’s absence as a menace will be widely felt.

In the polarized United States, however, among Blue State coastal elites and anti-American academics who have co-opted its universities, if it originates from the Trump White House, it can’t be good. Not only must it be denounced, it must serve as an impeachable offense.

With the fear of ballistic missiles on their collective brains, Israelis went from the Iron Dome to Iran being effectively done. Quite a dizzying turnaround. What might be even more improbable to imagine, notwithstanding the global significance of Iran’s fall, is a Nobel Peace Prize with Trump’s name on it.

Such a Norwegian gift is not entirely undeserved. It might correct for the one prematurely given to Obama.

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The war that erupted in the early hours of Friday, June 13 marks the beginning of a critical new phase in both Iran’s internal crisis and regional developments. But we must not forget that the true conflict is not between Israel and the religious dictatorship in power in Iran. It is a long-standing battle between the Iranian people and their organized Resistance against a theocratic regime—a struggle that began in 1981. The only lasting solution is the overthrow of this regime by the Iranian people and their Resistance.

The World Is Not Bound to Choose Between Appeasement and War

Twenty-one years ago, Maryam Rajavi, leader of the Iranian Resistance, stated in a speech at the European Parliament: “The policy of appeasement encourages the clerical regime to pursue its course and will ultimately impose war on Western countries. Let us not allow the Munich experience to be repeated—with clerics armed with nuclear bombs.”

Today, we see that appeasement toward Tehran has indeed led to war being imposed on the region and beyond. The Iranian regime, rooted in medieval religious dogma, is fundamentally incapable of addressing the needs of a 21st-century society. Since its inception, it has maintained power through brutal repression at home while exporting war and terrorism abroad. These two pillars—domestic repression and external aggression—form the foundation of the regime’s survival.

Even in wartime, the regime clings to its nuclear ambitions because the collapse of one pillar would trigger the collapse of the whole system. The regime’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei sees any retreat as a shortcut to his downfall. He will not go quietly—but instead plunges the defenseless population into war, fear and insecurity to protect a regime that is already teetering.

Appeasement Has Fueled War

The Iranian Resistance was the first to expose the regime’s clandestine nuclear sites in 2002, alerting the world to a danger that would have otherwise remained hidden. Without this exposure, the regime could have secretly developed nuclear bombs and posed a much greater threat to global security.

Since then, the Resistance has consistently championed the “Third Option”: neither appeasement nor military intervention, but regime change through the Iranian people and their organized movement. Sadly, instead of confronting the regime and its Revolutionary Guards, the West chose to blacklist the Resistance itself—a bitter irony of modern history. It is precisely this appeasement that has allowed the regime to survive.

Thanks to the persistent efforts of the Resistance, the European Union delisted the NCRI in 2009, followed by the United States in 2012. These decisions speak volumes about the legitimacy of the Resistance, its grassroots support, and its status as the regime’s principal adversary.

Recognizing the Fight Against Religious Fascism

The Iranian Resistance does not ask for money or weapons. It seeks only moral support for the courageous efforts of thousands of Resistance Units across the country—just as the European Resistance to Nazi fascism was once recognized. If this struggle is legitimized, there is no need for missiles or airstrikes, because these units embody the Iranian people’s will to overthrow the regime and end a century of tyranny.

Over the past year alone, Resistance units have carried out 3,000 operations against the regime’s machinery of repression.

Who Is the Real Alternative to Religious Fascism?

The alternative to Iran’s theocracy cannot be imposed through external intervention, as happened a century ago when Britain installed a monarch, or in 1953 when the United States orchestrated a coup against Prime Minister Mossadegh. Such actions, enforced through repression and execution, laid the groundwork for the clerics’ rise to power. Had a democratic national government endured, Iran’s path—and the fate of the region—would be drastically different today.

The Iranian people reject all forms of dictatorship. They want freedom.

The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), the backbone of the NCRI, has fought both the Shah’s monarchy and the mullahs’ theocracy for over 60 years—without pause. The execution squads, torture chambers, and prisons have never rested. But neither has the Resistance. This is why the NCRI’s motto is: “No to the Shah, No to the Mullahs.” The Iranian people reject all forms of dictatorship. They want freedom.

The Core Conflict in Iran

Although Iran’s nuclear program often dominates headlines, the country’s crisis runs much deeper. At its core, the conflict is between the people—and their Resistance—and a tyrannical theocracy.

Last year, the UN Special Rapporteur labeled the 1981 and 1988 massacres of political prisoners as crimes against humanity and genocide. Since August 2024, over 1,350 executions have been carried out under President Pezeshkian. Iran has the highest execution rate per capita in the world—a brutal response to the Resistance’s strength.

Protests by workers, teachers, nurses, retirees, and civil servants erupt daily across the country. Yet many Western governments and media outlets remain silent about the reality on the ground.

Maryam Rajavi’s 10-point plan—endorsed by over 4,000 parliamentarians across the U.S. and Europe—calls for a secular, democratic, nuclear-free Iran without executions. These principles have long been enshrined in the NCRI’s platform and reflect its unwavering vision for a pluralistic republic that promotes peace in the Middle East.

According to the NCRI’s plan, a freely elected National Constituent Assembly will be formed within six months of the regime’s fall. This Assembly will draft a new constitution for a democratic republic. Upon its formation, the NCRI and its transitional government will step aside.

Hamid Enayat is a political scientist, specializing on the topic of Iran, who collaborates with the Iranian democratic opposition (NCRI).