Raymond Klassen – Ideals and Identities

The attacks on Iran have killed the Ayatollah. Many Iranians rejoice – especially those who have fled the brutal regime. If the killing of the Ayatollah means an end to internal violence against Iran’s own citizens, there is reason to rejoice. As I heard today from one such person, “we are thankful to Donald Trump.” That person, in supporting Trump, articulated a story about Persian identity that the Islamic Republic did not embody, i.e. they are a humanistic people with a pluralistic social imaginary.

There are lots of commentary about Trump and the domestic resistance to the military action, some of which is based on seemingly poor strategy, and some of it based on illegitimacy, and some of it based on an argument that it is a distraction from the Epstein files. Churches have condemned the attack – mostly for reasons of the instigation of violence. Some have argued that it is a game of international politics between China and the USA in which Iran is treated like a linking piece on a Risk board.

These all have elements of truth. But since the biggest benefits to military action in the short and medium term are provided for Israel, it seems that treating Israel and Iran as the main players seems to be the most pertinent for a deeper understanding.

I am interested in the claim to regime change. What “regime” is being changed? Is it merely an effort to decapitate the revolutionary Islamic Republic? Or is there something more going on here?

Calls for “regime change” in Iran often emerge in moments of heightened confrontation between Tehran and Jerusalem. Assassinations, airstrikes, proxy escalations, each cycle revives the old question: if only the Islamic Republic were removed, would the region stabilize?

But that question rests on a thin reading of political reality. It treats regimes as personal tyrannies and conflicts as detachable from the narratives that sustain them. The deeper truth is more troubling: the Islamic Republic’s internal violence and the hardline Zionist posture of Benjamin Netanyahu are embedded in mutually reinforcing political theologies of siege. As long as that reciprocal structure remains intact, regime change will not be a surgical solution but a profoundly destabilizing gamble.

“Regime change is not subtraction; it is the reconstitution of legitimacy.”

Sacred Sovereignty in Tehran

The Islamic Republic of Iran was born in revolution. Its founding vision fused Shi’a theology, anti imperial nationalism, and clerical guardianship under the doctrine of velayat e faqih: authority does not merely derive from popular will. It is understood as custodianship of an Islamic order under constant threat.

The internal coercive apparatus, especially the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, is therefore not only military. It is ideological. It protects the revolution from corruption, Western liberalism, internal dissent, and Zionism. Repression of protest movements, policing of women’s dress, and suppression of reformist politics are justified as necessary to prevent the revolution from decay.

“The enemy outside stabilizes authority inside.”

External enemies play a crucial role in this self understanding. Israel is framed as a civilizational antagonist and a symbol of Western intrusion. To question the regime in times of external threat can be cast as collaboration.

The Politics of Permanent Threat in Jerusalem

On the other side of the confrontation, the government of Benjamin Netanyahu has long centered its political identity on existential vigilance. Within Likud and the broader nationalist right, Jewish sovereignty is understood as fragile, historically imperiled, and constantly threatened by regional hostility.

Iran is portrayed not simply as a hostile state but as a potential genocidal threat whose nuclear ambitions must be stopped at all costs. This framing mobilizes voters, sidelines diplomatic risk taking, and privileges security maximalism.

“When sovereignty becomes sacred, compromise appears immoral.”

Israel is a democracy with vigorous internal debate. Yet even democracies can sacralize sovereignty when identity is bound tightly to survival.

Reciprocal Legitimation

The crucial connection between Tehran and Jerusalem is not equivalence but reciprocity. The Islamic Republic invokes Zionist aggression to justify repression. Netanyahu invokes Iranian hostility to justify hard security doctrine. Each side’s rhetoric empowers the hardliners on the other side.

“They become reciprocal legitimators through antagonism.”

When Iranian leaders call for Israel’s destruction, Israeli hawks gain credibility. When Israeli strikes target Iranian assets, Iranian hardliners gain proof that the revolution is under siege. Each escalation becomes evidence of the other’s malign nature.

The Illusion of Decapitation

It is tempting to imagine that removing a Supreme Leader would collapse the Islamic Republic. Yet Iran’s system is institutional, not merely personal. The IRGC controls vast economic assets. Clerical networks shape succession. Constitutional mechanisms exist for leadership transition.

History offers caution. Power vacuums can empower military actors, regional factions, or rival ideological currents. A nationalist backlash could unite broad segments of the population against perceived foreign interference.

“Legitimacy cannot be air dropped.”

The Complexity of Transformation

If genuine change were to come in Iran, it would likely be gradual, internally driven, and institutionally negotiated. Civil society movements, generational shifts, economic pressures, and elite fractures would matter more than decapitation strikes.

But transformation would unfold within a regional environment shaped by Israel-Iran antagonism. Reformers would struggle against accusations of treachery if the siege narrative remains intact.

“The hardest political work is not decapitation. It is desacralization.”

Conclusion

The Islamic Republic’s internal violence and Netanyahu’s hardline Zionism are not identical systems. But they are connected through a shared reliance on existential threat as a source of legitimacy.

As long as each side’s authority is nourished by the hostility of the other, dramatic attempts to overthrow one regime risk intensifying the structure that sustains both. Regime change is often imagined as liberation through removal. In reality, it is transformation through complexity, institutional, cultural, regional, and psychological. Only when sacralized narratives loosen their grip does meaningful transformation become conceivable rather than catastrophic.

Perhaps it is this regime that needs to be changed: we don’t need to attach sacred purpose to national identity. And if there is to be social and political security in the Middle East, perhaps the larger powers might also desacralize national citizenship.