Iran Plotting Its Comeback - Ezekiel 38-39 In View?

Iran's Regime Is Plotting Its Comeback & Looking For Revenge

MAJID RAFIZADEH

The Iranian regime does not think in terms of four-year election cycles or short-term political wins. It thinks in decades and acts on long-term strategic objectives. Its leadership, unelected, is essentially permanent. Iran is ruled by a Supreme Leader, who occupies the office for life, and by a military and clerical elite who are driven not by pragmatism but by an Islamist revolutionary ideology.

Over the past 46 years, the Islamic Republic of Iran has become a primary source of instability in the Middle East, a hub of global terrorism, and a headache for Western democracies. The Iranian regime's survival has been the result of relentless ideological focus, brutal repression, and an ability to exploit the weaknesses and short-term thinking of its adversaries.

Recently, the regime suffered a significant blow. Israeli and American strikes hit Iran's nuclear infrastructure and proxy leadership networks with devastating precision. Iran's leadership is bruised and its capabilities degraded, but this circumstance should not lull us into a false sense of security.

The damage, while significant, is not permanent. The West must resist the temptation to see this as the beginning of the end for Iran's radical regime. Rather than force the mullahs into submission, the damage is likely to fuel a desire for revenge. 

The regime responds to perceived humiliations with long-term, carefully-planned vengeance. 

This revenge may not come tomorrow or next month -- it will be calculated, methodical and likely deadlier than anything seen before, including the murderous October 7, 2023 Hamas invasion of Israel, the downing of civilian airliners, or the murder of hundreds of U.S. soldiers by Iran-backed militias in Lebanon, Syria or Iraq.

To believe that the Iranian regime has learned its lesson is to engage in wishful thinking -- just a Western psychological projection that mistakes tactical restraint for ideological reform. Iran's regime is built on the belief that it must export its revolutionary Islamist vision, overthrow secular governments, and unify the Muslim world under a single Shiite Islamist state. This project is its purpose. It is what gives the Islamic Republic of Iran its identity. Its constitution enshrines that vision, and its institutions -- from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to its intelligence services -- are structured around advancing this goal.

A regime built on these foundations does not abandon its mission when it suffers setbacks. It adapts, regroups and strikes again when the world is distracted or divided. It is important not misread its current weakness as evidence of defeat. It is more likely a prelude to escalation.