Defeating the Islamic Republic of Iran Is Entirely Justified Part 1

By Hushang Manuchehri & Walter E. Block

Aircrafts, attached to Carrier Air Wing 9 (CVW9) fly over the flight deck of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Daniel Kimmelman) The appearance of U.S. Department of War (DoW) visual information does not imply or constitute DoW endorsement.

There’s a stubborn dogma running through the Western libertarian establishment, and it just won’t die: every foreign threat, we’re told, is somehow a mirror of our own sins. Lew Rockwell, Rand and Ron Paul, Hans Hoppe, Thomas Massie — big names, all of them, at least in this arena — keep reaching for the same worn-out crutch, the myth of 1953 coup, to explain away the Islamic Republic’s decades of aggression. Hostage-taking, proxy wars, regional terror — they wave it all away as “blowback,” and the story practically writes itself. Comforting to isolationist theory, sure. Historically and morally bankrupt? Absolutely.

Here’s the thing about the Iranian regime’s hostility: it isn’t circumstantial, it’s ontological. This is a ruling class perfectly willing to burn its own country to the ground in pursuit of global theological dominance. You cannot shrink a force like that down to a wounded nationalist project still nursing a grudge over a Cold War intervention.

Ayatollah Khomeini — founder, theorist, and first Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic — was not reacting to the CIA. His foundational text, Kashf al-Asrar, called for the elimination of kufr (unbelief) and Taghut (illegitimate authority) all the way back in 1943, a full decade before any American intelligence officer ever set foot in Tehran. The mullahs and ayatollahs, in fact, hold Iran itself in something close to contempt. Their ideology is unapologetically pan-Islamist. Much like Mao’s Cultural Revolution, they’ve spent decades running a ruthless cultural purge — suppressing pre-Islamic Persian heritage, ancient history, and mythology, and replacing all of it with their own brand of fundamentalist Islam. The regime’s hostility flows from a theological commitment to violent jihad demanding the destruction of secular societies, a commitment rooted in 1,400 years of conquest and subjugation, regardless of whatever Washington happens to be doing. Believing that diplomatic handouts can pacify a regime whose own constitution demands perpetual revolution until total conquest — that’s not just naive. It’s a fatal intellectual error.

Behind all the zealotry sits a rigged, state-dominated economy. Anyone still pushing “free trade” with Tehran is chasing a mirage, because there is no genuine free market there to trade with. The country’s wealth is carved up between military-run conglomerates and massive religious foundations — not shady front companies, but public giants that control the most vital sectors and choke out any real competition. So when foreign cash flows into Iran, it doesn’t lift up everyday businesses. It flows straight into the pockets of state-backed elites and the security forces keeping the whole apparatus in power.

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action** — the JCPOA — proved the point beautifully. Western commentators praised the deal while ignoring basic economics: the billions it unleashed didn’t moderate the regime one bit. They went straight into proxy wars, missile development, and the domestic police state. Here is a question worth addressing: how exactly can a regime that shows no mercy to its own people and children, that guns down dissidents in cold blood, that shuts off the internet at will — how can that regime ever be trusted to use nuclear energy for “peaceful purposes”?

By January 2026, the weight of economic ruin, systemic cronyism, and structural decay finally broke what was left of the public’s patience. Millions of Iranians, with nothing, presumably, left to lose, flooded the streets. The regime answered with industrial-scale slaughter — more than 30,000 people murdered in a matter of days. And to the everlasting shame of the Western anti-war crowd, quite a few of them chose, at that exact moment, to slander the dead. The most glaring example: right in the middle of the carnage, was former U.S. Representative Ron Paul. He published an article dismissing the protests as a sham, claiming that “the CIA, Mossad, and UK’s MI6 launched a regime-change operation in the form of violent protests.”

That line was a gift to the regime’s security apparatus, wrapped up with a pretty red bow. In a country where the judiciary routinely executes citizens for the crime of using Starlink terminals to dodge internet blackouts — labeling them “Mossad agents” no matter how the technology was actually used — the words of a prominent Western figure handed the executioners exactly the cover they needed.

When comfortable Western commentators write off real dissidents as foreign agents, they stop being anti-war and become active accomplices instead. They hand the regime’s executioners the moral and legal cover they need to pull the trigger. Classical liberal natural law is clear enough on this point: defending yourself against an active, ongoing aggressor is not itself an act of aggression — it is, rather, the vital termination of violence, an act of self-defense, full stop. A regime that hunts wounded protesters down hospital corridors doesn’t get to claim borders — none, at least, that any moral person is honor bound to respect.

When all is said and done, we must be fair. We must compliment the present Iranian regime on two counts. The first is a bit tongue-in-cheek, but does have a modicum of veracity; the second is heartfelt, with actual admiration.

To begin with, the Islamic government is very courageous. And we do not compliment them in this regard for shooting down their unarmed citizenry like rabid dogs. Rather, this dictatorship has taken on two nuclear-armed countries, one of which has actually used atomic bombs in a previous war. The other has a historical antecedent in Samson, who tore down the walls in a fit of rage. The atrocity perpetrated upon this second country on October 7, 2023, by an Iranian proxy, would more than justify outrage and a demand for justice.

The Islamic Republic did not have to engage in a war with these two powerful armies — one of them the most powerful on the planet, the other ranked number four. Talk about picking on a kid in the playground more than twice as big as you. The war was not forced upon Tehran; it was initiated by the IRGC. All the Middle-Sized Satan had to do to avoid the conflagration it now finds itself enmeshed in was refrain from initiating hostility. They called Israel the Little Satan and did their level best to obliterate it. They destabilized Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Gaza, Judea, and Samaria courtesy of their satraps — Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis. Israel did not initially attack Iran, or anyone else for that matter.

See Part 2 Next Friday

**The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly known as the Iran Nuclear Deal, is an international agreement reached in 2015 between Iran and the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council: China, France, Russia, the UK, and the US, plus Germany).