Irans rulers are discovering that defying the United States and its allies under President Donald Trumps second administration carries a price tag their crumbling regime may not be able to afford.
According to RedState, Tehrans reaction to Operation Epic Fury has raised an obvious question: do Irans leaders have a political strategy, or merely a death wish for their own regime. They can launch missiles and drones, but any fleeting show of force is dwarfed by the devastating retaliation they invite from a far superior military power, a reality that would deter any rational government concerned with the welfare of its citizens.
As Secretary of State Marco Rubio has emphasized, Iran is already paying dearly for its belligerence, not only through the degradation of its military capabilities but also through the accelerating collapse of its economy and basic state functions. I mean, Iran's economy is in a shambles, Rubio said, underscoring that the regimes strategic choices are driving it toward the brink.
Rubio detailed the scale of the crisis facing ordinary Iranians, describing 300 percent inflation, particularly on life-sustaining goods. They have dwindling revenues to meet even their own payroll. They have food shortages. They have a drought which we didn't cause. And they have a gasoline shortage, and a fuel shortage. All of these problems existed before all this began - they've just gotten worse. It will continue to get worse.
He then laid out the core reason for this downward spiral: the regimes ideological obsession with exporting terror instead of building a viable nation. One of the reasons why Iran is in a shambles is because every penny that this regime ever getsbe it through sanctions relief or through the oil they're able to get outthey invested in Hezbollah. They invested in Hamas. They spend billions of dollars supporting militias in Iraq, Hezbollah, and Hamas.
Rubio argued that those resources should be directed toward Irans own citizens and infrastructure, not foreign terror networks that destabilize the region and threaten American allies. They should be spending the money on the people, Rubio asserted, and building the country, but instead, they use it to sponsor terrorism. And he said the people of Iran were getting that. In fact, we have heard that from some of the people in their government, Rubio said.
The Secretary of State also made clear that Washingtons posture is a direct response to Tehrans conduct, particularly its disregard for prior agreements. Rubio said their behavior had to change before our response did because they violated the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). You can't have an MOU that's alive if they're violating the terms... The U.S. always remains open to a diplomatic solution. We've tried multiple times with Iran and we'll continue to try... but their behavior is what we're responding to and their behavior is
The deeper problem, as conservatives have long warned, is that Irans ruling class has no real concern for the Iranian people, only for preserving its revolutionary ideology and regional influence. If they cared about their citizens, they would not have butchered protesters in the streets, they would have accepted a reasonable deal years ago, and they would not be gambling the nations future on proxy wars and terror sponsorship.
Under President Trumps renewed pressure, Tehran is being forced to confront the consequences of those choices, and the regimes leaders are likely to discover that their mix of repression at home and aggression abroad is unsustainable. They're going to find out the hard way that this kind of behavior isn't going to work.
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