The Iran Ceasefire Offers the Best Path to Regime Change

Judging by my inbox, there’s a misapprehension about how to deal with Iran among many supporters of the “finish the job” line of thinking. They contend that the choice between continuing or ending the war boils down to whether you want to destroy the Islamic Republic, or are happy to let it go on bringing misery to the Iranian people and their neighbors. But what if ending the Republic requires ending the war?

There are, of course, no guarantees this would happen. But it’s also no less likely than the alternative proposition which is that, having failed to produce regime change in the first two months of war, the US and Israel will be able to deliver it through another month or so of the same. The key difference lies not in the outcomes that the two paths would produce, which we don’t know, but in their respective costs, which we do.