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Source: https://www.wsj.com/opinion/irans-regime-is-down-but-it-isnt-out-d29a4eb7?mod=opinion_lead_pos7
Iran's Regime Is Down, but It Isn't Out
(Wall Street Journal) Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takeyh - For Tehran, nuclear diplomacy had overwhelmingly been about deterring the U.S. and Israel - and acquiring sanctions relief and the time required to build long-range ballistic missiles, a well-armed proxy empire, and industrial-scale uranium enrichment. Unlike earlier presidents, who engaged in diplomacy primarily to avoid war or the embarrassment of Iran going nuclear, Mr. Trump has shown he isn't scared of conflict. For Mr. Trump, this campaign was surely in part about restoring national honor after all the years of ignominy, of watching the Islamic Republic kill Americans while Washington did nothing. Critics who see his Iran policy as reckless likely never felt as acutely as the president the shame that came with Iran's unanswered malevolence. Some in Washington still don't understand that the 12-day war changed everything. Israel and Iran are and will remain at war. An Israeli consensus has developed: The Jewish state will have a continuous need to degrade the clerical regime's proxies and home defenses, which could shield revitalized nuclear and ballistic-missile programs. Until recently Israelis didn't care about regime change in the Muslim world, since they had such low regard for the potential for Muslim political evolution. The Islamic Republic's unrivaled antisemitism married to ballistic missiles, dogged nuclear aspirations and lethal proxies changed Israeli minds. Only the collapse of the Islamic Republic offers the Jewish state relief from this existential struggle. Mr. Gerecht is a resident scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Mr. Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.