How a women-led resistance can end Iran’s nuclear threat

At the start of this year, the International Atomic Energy Agency warned that the Islamic Republic of Iran was “pressing the gas pedal” on its nuclear activities. In response to its latest censure by the IAEA’s board of governors, the Iranian regime announced plans to expand its nuclear facilities in ways that would further accelerate the pace of its uranium enrichment. This came after more than four years of those facilities enriching the material to 60% fissile purity, putting some of Iran’s stockpiles just a short technical step away from weapons grade.

The pending upgrades threaten to narrow Iran’s “breakout time” for nuclear weapons capability. Furthermore, recent intelligence reports have revealed the existence of another clandestine Iranian program to develop nuclear warheads. The window of opportunity for halting Iran’s progress toward nuclear breakout is rapidly closing, and Western powers must take decisive action now.

Washington doesn’t need to deploy troops, drop bombs, or provide financial or military aid. All it needs to do is support the Iranian people’s right to choose their own leaders.

But the nuclear threat is only one of many pressing issues related to the Islamic Republic. As it develops, so too does Tehran’s strategy for redirecting its regional force projection following the overthrow of its key regional ally, Bashar al-Assad. Meanwhile, the Iranian regime is actively working to cultivate broader international relationships that might threaten the Western-led world order.

The international community has long clung to the notion that diplomacy can solve the nuclear crisis. But negotiations with Iran have repeatedly proven fruitless, and there has been no meaningful progress toward re-implementing, much less expanding, the 2015 Iran nuclear deal since the United States pulled out of it in 2018. President Trump has declared his interest in developing a “Verified Nuclear Peace Agreement” now that he has reclaimed the Oval Office, but his efforts to achieve it are now appropriately backed up by a policy of “maximum pressure” on the regime.

Trump has said that he would prefer a new agreement over “bombing Iran to smithereens,” but the choice is a false one. The options are not war or an agreement that Iran will surely violate; a far better solution is for the United States to facilitate regime change in Iran.

We have already witnessed the appetite for regime change. In September 2022, a popular, nationwide uprising presented the greatest challenge to the theocratic dictatorship since its inception 43 years earlier. The backlash resulted from the horrific killing of Mahsa Amini by the morality police, but it was only one in a series of demands for regime change, including earlier uprisings in 2018 and 2019.

One of the common refrains in those protests was a phrase long associated with the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (also known as MEK) and its political coalition, the National Council of Resistance of Iran: “Death to the oppressor, whether Shah or Supreme Leader.” To those who have followed the opposition to the Iranian regime, the use of this slogan was clearly to signal support for the MEK and the NCRI leader Maryam Rajavi.

It is no accident that so many of the protesters were women. Rajavi herself emphasized those women’s role earlier this month in a speech to roughly 20,000 Iranian expatriates rallying in Paris and in an international conference at the headquarters of NCRI on February 22 in the run-up to International Women’s Day. She will no doubt do so again when the NCRI stages another demonstration in Washington, D.C., on Saturday. The Trump administration should pay close attention to the message from the Paris event and the major demonstration in Washington, expected to be attended by thousands of Iranians and to the enduring message of the NCRI.

Rajavi’s detailed 10-point plan promises Iranians not only equal rights, civil liberties, religious tolerance, and democratic governance but a definitive end to the regime’s nuclear program. Western policymakers need to commit to standing with the Iranian people and recognize that Iran’s women are leading the charge to overthrow the clerical regime.

Washington doesn’t need to deploy troops, drop bombs, or provide financial or military aid. All it needs to do is support the Iranian people’s right to choose their own leaders.