Why American missiles would save Iran's dying regime
The 2026 protests represent the Islamic Republic's deepest legitimacy crisis since 1979. Protesters have spread to all 31 provinces, targeting the Supreme Leader himself. American military intervention would accomplish what regime propaganda has failed to achieve: reunifying a fractured society...
The Scapegoat’s Return
Iran’s theocracy has survived four decades by perfecting one trick: channeling internal discontent toward external enemies. When economic pain mounts, blame America. When protests erupt, invoke Zionist plots. The regime’s legitimacy rests not on delivering prosperity but on positioning itself as defender against foreign aggression. This is why American military action during the 2026 protests would be the worst possible gift to a dying system.
The protests that began on December 28, 2025, triggered by currency collapse and inflation exceeding 40%, represent something qualitatively different from previous uprisings. According to Reuters reporting, Iran’s rulers face their deepest legitimacy crisis since 1979. The demonstrations have spread to all 31 provinces. The bazaaris—traditional regime allies—have joined. The slogans target not just economic mismanagement but the Supreme Leader himself.
American missiles would end this.
Not because they would strengthen the regime militarily—Iran’s conventional forces have already been degraded by Israeli strikes throughout 2025. But because external attack would accomplish what the regime’s propaganda apparatus has failed to achieve: reunifying a fractured society around the state. The scapegoat mechanism, exhausted by overuse, would suddenly find fresh blood.
The Exhausted Narrative
The Islamic Republic’s ideological architecture depends on martyrdom. Shi’a theology venerates Hussein’s death at Karbala as the paradigmatic act of righteous resistance against tyranny. The regime spent decades programming this narrative into Iranian consciousness through elaborate Ashura rituals, transforming resistance symbolism into state legitimization. The Iran-Iraq War, with its million casualties, provided fresh martyrs. The “Axis of Resistance” against Israel and America extended the framework regionally.
But martyrdom narratives have liquidity constraints. The regime has drawn on this account for so long that the symbolism has become contested terrain. Protesters in 2022 burned hijabs. In 2026, they chant “Undignified Basiji, you are our ISIS”—inverting the regime’s claim to defend Islam by equating its enforcers with Sunni terrorists. The transformation of Ashura from resistance ethos to status-quo legitimization under the Safavids reveals a historical pattern: martyrdom narratives can flip polarity, but each flip depletes their power.
The regime faces a structural problem. Its legitimacy framework requires external enemies, but decades of crying wolf have eroded credibility. Sanctions hurt, but Iranians increasingly blame their own government for economic isolation. Israel’s strikes throughout 2025 damaged military infrastructure but failed to produce the civilian casualties that might have rallied nationalist sentiment. The population has learned to distinguish between attacks on IRGC facilities and attacks on themselves.
American military intervention would collapse this distinction.
The Girardian Trap
René Girard’s theory of the scapegoat mechanism illuminates why external violence transforms internal politics. When a society experiences internal crisis—economic collapse, social fragmentation, legitimacy breakdown—it seeks to restore unity through unanimous violence against a designated victim. The scapegoat absorbs collective aggression, and its destruction produces temporary social cohesion.
Iran’s regime has long positioned America and Israel as permanent scapegoats. But scapegoating requires unanimous convergence of violence onto a single target. The 2026 protests represent a failure of this mechanism: Iranians no longer unanimously direct their anger outward. The protests themselves constitute a rival violence—internal, directed at the state.
American strikes would resolve this ambiguity. When external bombs fall, the question of who constitutes the enemy answers itself. The regime’s propaganda doesn’t need to be believed; the missiles provide their own argument. Protesters who yesterday demanded the Supreme Leader’s removal would tomorrow face a choice: continue opposing a government under attack, or rally to national defense.
History suggests which choice most will make.
The Iran-Iraq War provides the template. Saddam Hussein’s invasion in 1980 came when the revolutionary regime was at its most vulnerable—fractured by internal purges, facing separatist movements, economically chaotic. The war consolidated power. It provided the IRGC with purpose, the clergy with martyrs, the population with enemies. Eight years of brutal conflict produced the institutional architecture that still governs Iran.
Calibrating Violence
Not all military action produces equal effects. The spectrum ranges from targeted strikes on nuclear facilities to sustained air campaigns to ground invasion. Each carries different implications for Iran’s trajectory.
Limited strikes—the kind the U.S. conducted against Iranian nuclear facilities in June 2025—can be absorbed without triggering full nationalist mobilization. According to Congressional Research Service analysis, Iran faced “military and strategic setbacks” throughout 2024 that “dramatically diminish advantages and leverage Tehran had built up through years of investment.” These losses weakened the regime but didn’t save it. Targeted destruction of military assets, paradoxically, may accelerate regime fragmentation by demonstrating the IRGC’s inability to protect the nation.
Sustained bombing campaigns cross a different threshold. When civilian infrastructure suffers—power grids, transportation networks, water systems—the population experiences collective victimization. This is the mechanism through which external violence generates internal solidarity. The regime doesn’t need to claim credit for resistance; shared suffering produces identification with the state as the only institution capable of organizing response.
Ground invasion represents the extreme case. American boots on Iranian soil would fulfill every regime prophecy about Western imperialism. It would provide unlimited martyrdom opportunities. It would transform a legitimacy crisis into an existential struggle where the regime’s survival becomes synonymous with national survival.
The 2026 protests create a perverse window. The regime is weak enough that military action might seem attractive to American planners seeking to accelerate collapse. But the protests themselves represent the mechanism of collapse—one that American intervention would interrupt.
The Proxy Calculus
Iran’s regional position complicates any military intervention. The “Axis of Resistance”—Hezbollah, Iraqi militias, Yemeni Houthis, Palestinian factions—provides Tehran with response options below the threshold of direct state-to-state war. American strikes would trigger retaliation through these networks, expanding the conflict geographically while reinforcing the regime’s narrative of encirclement.
But the proxy system has already suffered severe degradation. Israeli operations throughout 2024-2025 decimated Hezbollah’s leadership and degraded Hamas’s military capacity. The evolution of Hezbollah from subordinate proxy to “managing partner” of Iran’s regional network created structural vulnerabilities: when Israel eliminated senior Hezbollah commanders, it disrupted coordination mechanisms that Iran had outsourced.
This degradation matters for intervention calculus. A weaker proxy network means reduced Iranian capacity for asymmetric retaliation—making military action appear less costly. But it also means the regime has fewer external victories to point to. The “Resistance Axis” narrative requires resistance to be succeeding somewhere. When proxies are losing everywhere, the regime’s claim to regional leadership rings hollow.
American strikes during the protests would provide something the proxy losses couldn’t: direct evidence of American aggression against Iran itself. The regime could pivot from defending distant allies to defending the homeland. Proxy defeats become irrelevant when the enemy is at the gates.
The Nuclear Variable
Iran’s nuclear program adds another dimension. IAEA reports indicate Iran possesses enough enriched uranium for “more than a dozen nuclear weapons” if further processed. The program exists in deliberate ambiguity—advanced enough to provide latent capability, restrained enough to avoid triggering preventive war.
American military action during protests would force a decision. The regime could accelerate toward weaponization, calculating that only nuclear deterrence guarantees survival. Or it could pause, recognizing that weaponization during active conflict invites preemptive strikes on facilities. The choice depends on regime assessments of American intentions and capabilities.
Historical patterns suggest acceleration. States under existential threat consistently move toward nuclear weapons when they possess the technical capacity. North Korea, Pakistan, and Israel all weaponized under conditions of perceived vulnerability. Iran’s theocratic leadership, facing both internal revolt and external attack, would likely conclude that only nuclear weapons guarantee regime survival.
This creates a paradox for American planners. Military action intended to prevent Iranian nuclear capability might accelerate it. The window between strike and weaponization could close faster than expected, particularly if the regime concludes that restraint has failed to prevent attack.
The June 2025 strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities provide a case study. According to CRS reporting, President Trump initially considered sanctions relief but “dropped all work on sanctions relief after Iranian rhetorical defiance.” The strikes damaged facilities but didn’t eliminate capability. They demonstrated American willingness to use force without producing regime change. The lesson Iran drew: nuclear latency isn’t enough; only actual weapons deter.
The Succession Shadow
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is 86 years old. His eventual death—whether during the 2026 crisis or after—will trigger the most significant leadership transition since 1989. The protests have made succession planning more urgent and more contested.
Khamenei’s selection as Supreme Leader despite “inferior clerical credentials” established that power creates legitimacy, not the reverse. His successors will face the same dynamic, amplified by crisis. The IRGC, which has accumulated economic and political power over decades, will seek to install a leader it can control. Traditional clerical establishments in Qom may resist military dominance. Reformist factions, emboldened by protests, may demand constitutional changes.
American military action would freeze this succession competition. External threat demands internal unity. Factional disputes become treasonous when the nation is under attack. The IRGC’s argument for a hardline successor gains strength: only military leadership can defend against American aggression.
Without American intervention, succession becomes the regime’s most vulnerable moment. A contested transition could fracture the system. Different factions might seek popular legitimacy by promising reform. The protests could gain institutional allies among elites positioning for post-Khamenei power.
With American intervention, succession becomes a wartime transfer of power. The military necessity argument overrides all others. The IRGC’s candidate wins by default.
The Economic Paradox
Iran’s economy has collapsed. Inflation exceeds 40%. The rial has lost most of its value. Sanctions have isolated the country from global financial systems. The protests began precisely because ordinary Iranians cannot afford basic goods—even the traditional haft-sin items for Nowruz have become luxuries.
Economic crisis should weaken the regime. And it has—the protests prove that. But economic crisis also creates dependencies that military action would disrupt.
Iranians have adapted to sanctions through informal economies: hawala networks, smuggling operations, cryptocurrency transactions, barter arrangements. These shadow systems require stability to function. They depend on predictable corruption, established smuggling routes, trusted intermediaries. War destroys this infrastructure.
The paradox: sanctions-adapted populations may fear war more than continued sanctions. The informal economy that enables survival under sanctions cannot operate under bombing. Iranians who have learned to navigate economic isolation haven’t learned to navigate military conflict.
This creates a constituency for regime survival that didn’t exist before sanctions. Not because people support the government, but because they’ve built lives around working around it. American strikes threaten those adaptations more than they threaten the regime itself.
What Doesn’t Happen
The most likely American response to the 2026 protests is rhetorical support combined with tightened sanctions—the same approach that has characterized U.S. Iran policy for years. Military action remains unlikely for several reasons.
Legal constraints matter. The U.S. lacks an Iran-specific Authorization for Use of Military Force. Article II presidential powers permit limited strikes in self-defense but not sustained campaigns for regime change. The War Powers Resolution requires congressional notification within 48 hours and withdrawal within 60-90 days absent authorization. Domestic political appetite for another Middle Eastern war remains low.
Regional allies urge caution. Gulf monarchies fear Iranian retaliation against their oil infrastructure and desalination plants. Israel, having conducted its own strikes throughout 2025, prefers continued degradation to escalation that might produce nuclear breakout. Turkey seeks to maintain its role as intermediary.
The protests themselves argue against intervention. American policymakers can observe what’s happening without missiles: a regime losing legitimacy, a population in revolt, an economy in collapse. Why interrupt a process that’s working?
This is the trajectory if the U.S. doesn’t intervene: continued protests, continued repression, continued economic deterioration, eventual succession crisis, possible regime fragmentation. Not guaranteed collapse—the Islamic Republic has survived previous crises—but genuine vulnerability.
American military action would replace this uncertain trajectory with a certain one: nationalist consolidation, suspended protests, accelerated nuclear development, and a regime that has rediscovered its founding purpose.
FAQ: Key Questions Answered
Q: Would limited U.S. strikes help Iranian protesters? A: No. Even limited strikes shift the frame from “people versus regime” to “nation versus foreign aggressor.” Protesters who continue demonstrating during American attacks face accusations of collaboration. The regime gains justification for maximum repression as national defense.
Q: Could military action trigger regime collapse? A: Unlikely. The Islamic Republic’s institutional architecture—IRGC, Basij, clerical networks—is designed for wartime conditions. External attack activates these structures rather than weakening them. Regime collapse is more likely through internal fragmentation during succession than through external pressure.
Q: What happens to Iran’s nuclear program if the U.S. strikes? A: Acceleration becomes probable. The regime would conclude that nuclear weapons are the only guarantee against future attack. Facilities damaged in strikes can be rebuilt; the knowledge and enriched material already exist. The timeline to weaponization might shorten rather than lengthen.
Q: How would Russia and China respond to U.S. military action? A: Both would provide diplomatic cover and economic lifelines while avoiding direct military involvement. Russia might accelerate weapons transfers. China might expand oil purchases through sanctions-evading mechanisms. Neither would risk confrontation with the U.S. over Iran, but both would exploit the situation to weaken American regional position.
The Patience Premium
The 2026 protests represent the most serious internal challenge to the Islamic Republic since its founding. They emerged from economic desperation, not external manipulation. They spread organically across all provinces and social classes. They target the system itself, not just its policies.
American military action would end this. Not by strengthening the regime materially—its military has already been degraded—but by restoring the narrative framework that justifies its existence. The theocracy survives by positioning itself as defender against foreign enemies. When no bombs fall, that positioning becomes increasingly implausible. When bombs fall, it becomes self-evidently true.
The hardest thing for American policymakers to do is nothing. The protests create pressure to “do something.” Military options exist. The regime is weak. The temptation to accelerate its collapse through force is real.
But the regime’s weakness is precisely why force is counterproductive. A system that cannot maintain legitimacy through economic performance or ideological conviction can still maintain it through external threat. American missiles would provide what Iranian propaganda cannot: proof that the enemy is real, present, and attacking.
The protesters in Tehran and Isfahan and Tabriz are doing what American bombs cannot: delegitimizing the regime from within. Their success depends on the absence of external attack. Their failure is guaranteed by its presence.
Iran’s trajectory without American intervention: uncertain, contested, possibly transformative. Iran’s trajectory with American intervention: consolidated, militarized, nuclear-armed.
The scapegoat mechanism requires a victim. America should decline the role.
Sources & Further Reading
The analysis in this article draws on research and reporting from:
- Reuters on Iran’s legitimacy crisis - Reporting on the scale and significance of the 2026 protests
- Congressional Research Service on Iran - Comprehensive background on U.S.-Iran relations and military developments
- CRS on U.S. Sanctions - Analysis of sanctions policy evolution through 2025
- Citizen of Europe on Shi’a political theology - Examination of how Twelver Shi’ism shapes Iranian governance
- Harvard on Shi’ism and Revolution - Historical analysis of Shi’a political activism
- Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy on Girard - Theoretical framework for understanding scapegoat mechanisms
- Security Council Report on Iran’s nuclear program - IAEA findings on uranium enrichment status
- Wikipedia on 2025-2026 Iranian protests - Timeline and scope of ongoing demonstrations
