Breaking the strategy of warmongering

Op-ed views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author.

At the call of the opposition, the National Council of Resistance Iran, (NCRI), Tens of thousands of Iranians will rally in New York on Tuesday, September 23, calling for the activation of the snapback mechanism. Snapback has the potential to dismantle the regime’s geopolitical engine of warmongering and conflict, both in the region and beyond.

For more than three decades, the Islamic Republic has pursued a strategy designed, in part, to cover up domestic repression and mass killings. At the heart of this strategy lie the slogans “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.” Its pillars are nuclear deterrence, ballistic missile capability, and a network of proxy forces — together forming the backbone of this aggressive doctrine.

The activation of snapback and the reinstatement of six UN Security Council resolutions against the regime– put on hold following the 2015 JCPOA agreement with the regime -will, without doubt, have an immediate impact on the Iranian society. This comes at a time when the country is in a state of revolt and unrest, where any spark could ignite the powder keg of discontent. That powder keg is defined by deep poverty affecting more than two-thirds of the population, runaway inflation above 42 percent, mass unemployment, water shortages, and recurring power outages.

Snapback forces the Iranian dictator, who has long tried to maintain a posture of “neither war nor peace,” onto a crossroads:

• Path one: Abandon the nuclear program and, in its wake, scale back missile development and support for proxy forces — an option Khamenei equates with “surrender.”
• Path two: Withdraw from the NPT and move openly toward developing a nuclear weapon — a choice that would bring dangerous and widespread conflict.

Voices within the regime are already splitting into these two camps, with rhetoric sharper than ever before. Gholamhossein Karbaschi, former mayor of Tehran, has warned that the situation after snapback may be even more dire than in 1988, when the regime, weakened by successive defeats in the Iran-Iraq war, faced the threat of overthrow by its opposition People’s Mojahedines Organisation of Iran (PMOI). That year, Ayatollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic, was forced to accept a UN ceasefire resolution with Iraq, describing it as “drinking from the poisoned chalice.”

Karbaschi stated: “Mr. Pezeshkian must be granted full authority. If necessary, he should go to the Supreme Leader and to any other decision-making bodies to secure the powers required for this mission, so that he can bring peace and a dignified life to the people. On this mission, he must meet and negotiate with senior American and European officials and play the same role that the late Hashemi Rafsanjani once played in 1988, when he persuaded Khomeini to accept the ceasefire.”

Khamenei, however, in his August 24, 2025, speech, rejected any possibility of negotiations with the United States, declaring that “there is no resolvable issue between us and America,” and claiming that Washington only seeks to force Iran into surrender. The memory of 1988 is telling after Khomeini accepted the ceasefire, he called it “drinking the poisoned chalice,” and the regime subsequently carried out the massacre of 30,000 political prisoners to terrorize society and prevent an uprising in response to the retreat in war. Today, however, assessments suggest that Khamenei is in a far weaker position than Khomeini was then, making it unlikely that he could implement repression on such a massive scale.

If Ali Khamenei refuses political surrender, the shadow of war will undoubtedly loom over his regime. This is all the more critical given that President Masoud Pezeshkian has openly admitted that Iran cannot withstand a war.

Hamid Enayat is an Iranian analyst based in Europe. Human rights activist and opponent of his country’s regime, he writes on Iranian issues.

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