A new factor emerges, takes center stage in Iran.

For more than four decades the Iranian regime has been investing heavily in increasing its influence in the region, interfering in the affairs of Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and even Yemen and North Africa.

To further its ends, it has invested heavily in its relations with Bashar Assad, enabling it to provide arms, supplies and financial support through Syria to its Lebanese offspring, the Hezbollah. This has been a policy that has left nations across the region paying the price with their lives and from their pockets.

“The Iranian regime is a threat to the security and stability in the Middle East and Gulf countries”, according to Dr. Abdul Aziz bin Saqr, head of the Gulf Research Center.

The leaders of Arab countries have long appreciated this fact and repeatedly warned against the growing threat of the Iranian regime.

However, many in the International community have turned a blind eye to the meddling abroad and to the human rights abuses and extreme poverty of the people in Iran, talking of the rise of moderate elements such as President Rouhani, wishing to continue normal relations in order to make lucrative trade deals with the regime.   

‎The United States withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal on 8 May which sparked many debates over the nuclear agreement itself, should, one would hope, lead the international community to broaden its scope and turn its attention to the main question of what the correct policy now should be for dealing with the Iranian regime.

                                                                                                                                                   Particularly in the light of the massive popular uprisings that shook the regime and received global media coverage in late December and January when Iranians demonstrated in more than 140 cities throughout Iran, bringing the main actor to the scene, center stage, the people of Iran.  It is important to note the slogans that were repeatedly chanted: “down with Khamenei” and “down with Rouhani”, “hardliner, reformer, the game is now over”.  Indeed, the protesters completely rejected the notion of any moderation inside of the clerical regime.

The ongoing nature of the protests also gives the lie to the claims that the nuclear agreement helped the Iranian people and their welfare. The Iranian economy is in total shambles.

Not a day goes by that the Iranian state press does not publish stories of workers and civil servants who are striking or protesting after not being paid for sometimes as long as 23 months.

In fact, the Iranian government cannot respond to the people’s needs because there is no money. All the money, including the economic windfall from the relief of sanctions related to the nuclear agreement, has been plundered by the ayatollahs and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, or used for backing the Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, and financing terror groups such as Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen.

The situation is so unstable that a very senior ayatollah, Javadi Amoli addressed the officials of the regime on April 27 and said: “If there will be an uprising, all of us will be thrown into the sea.” He added, “Of course many of the officials escaped, many have created a safe place to get away but we have nowhere to escape to.”

In a nutshell, a new factor has come into Iranian politics, the people’s factor. This is the mullahs’ nightmare and their Achilles heel and also the missing link in the US foreign policy which has been looking for a strong alternative to the existing regime that it can support. The people are ready and determined to play their part. International policymakers take note,