Surgical Military Strikes on Iran Would Fail To Foster Democratic Change

posted on: Feb 24, 2026

By: Ghassan Rubeiz / Arab America Contributing Writer

I received a letter from one of my regular readers in response to my latest column, where I argue against a war with Iran. I quote:

“The only way democracy, human rights, and dignity can prevail in Iran is through outside force to overthrow this dictatorship. I expect and hope that a massive strike — not a war, but a short, decisive strike — will topple the regime, rid the region of these ayatollahs, and give the Iranian people the chance to govern themselves freely. Enough of the murdering of thousands of innocent civilians. Enough.”

“With Iran weakened, Hezbollah will be finished as a military force, and peace and prosperity will return to Lebanon.”

I understand the moral urgency behind these words. The Iranian regime’s brutality toward its own people and its destabilizing reach across the region are well-documented grievances. But righteous anger, however justified, does not constitute a foreign policy. And the belief that a surgical military strike can plant the seeds of democracy in Iranian soil is historically unsupported; it is also dangerous.

In the Jan-Feb 2026 issue of Foreign Affairs, Stephen Kotkin astutely argues that the real threat to authoritarian rulers is not the West — it is stagnation, corruption, and their own governance failures. 

Those who wish to see an American-Israeli surgical strike on Iran should pause at the metaphor of “surgery”. In medicine, a surgeon replaces a diseased heart or a failing kidney only after years of training, with a prepared recipient, a sterile environment, a recovery plan, and an entire medical team on standby. Even then, transplants fail. The “medical model” of implanting democracy has no equivalent infrastructure in the domain of politics — and the record of attempts speaks for itself.

Democracy must be domestically and carefully grown, not forcibly installed. It is hard work, and it takes generations. We must trust the people and wait for them to do the reform at their own pace.

Democracy is not reducible to elections and free markets. It requires the development of multiple policies and programs of empowerment and wellbeing: an active and resilient civil society; the full recognition of women’s rights; progressive education that cultivates intellectual curiosity and critical thinking; a practice of religion rooted in human compassion rather than state coercion; respect for the state’s monopoly on the legitimate use of force; robust protection of minorities; a legally structured and equitable distribution of income; free trade tempered by progressive taxation; meaningful access for marginalized groups to economic and social opportunity; regional collaboration; and a genuine commitment to environmental sustainability. These foundations cannot be delivered by a surgical airstrike, much less by carpet bombing.

To expect the Trump administration and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to oust the Iranian leadership and simultaneously lay the groundwork for Iranian democracy is not optimism — it is flawed magical thinking. Both governments are consumed by formidable domestic pressures and questionable motives: deepening political polarization, mounting national debt, and visions of the future that are, at home and abroad, increasingly contested. Both face growing isolation in the international community. Neither has resolved — or shown serious interest in resolving — the Palestinian crisis that continues to fuel regional instability. Given all of this, one must ask directly: are Washington and Tel Aviv genuinely interested in seeing Iran emerge as a strong, open, and truly independent state? Indicators point to the contrary.

There is no doubt that a strike on Iran would produce a moment of triumphalism for both leaders. But victory will be temporary. The plans sitting on generals’ desks address the mechanics of the strike — they do not address the morning after – or the year after. What fills the vacuum when a regime collapses under external pressure? Who governs in the aftermath? Who reconciles the ethnic, sectarian, and ideological fissures that the ayatollahs, for all their failures, have suppressed by force? The absence of honest answers to these questions should give even the most hardline  observer reason to hesitate.

The historical evidence is unambiguous. Foreign military intervention has not produced democracy in any Middle Eastern state. Not in Iraq, not in Libya, not in Afghanistan. In each case, the removal of a regime by external force produced not a democratic opening but a prolonged crisis — sectarian or ethnic conflict, state collapse, or authoritarian retrenchment. Why would Iran be different? And why would the fragile conditions necessary for democratic development emerge faster in the chaos of war than they have in the relative stability of peacetime?

The impulse to reach for military force — to save democracy, ensure stability, prevent a nuclear war and punish non-compliant regimes — reflects a cluster of interconnected failures in political planning: authoritarian mode of thinking; excessive suspicion; a refusal to accept that durable security cannot be achieved by force; an impatience with the slow and uncertain work of diplomacy; a triumphal and transactional understanding of international relations that mistakes dominance for influence. It also reflects a striking absence of the self-scrutiny required to examine one’s own motives, interests, and record — and to adjust to the emerging realities of a multipolar world.

The Iranian people deserve freedom. They have shown, consistently and at great personal cost, that they want it. But they will have to build it themselves with the necessary time. The role of outside powers, if they are serious, is not to bomb Iran into democracy. It is rather to stop arming its neighbors indiscriminately, to pursue consistent diplomacy, to lift the burden of sanctions from ordinary Iranians, and to support — quietly and patiently — the civil society actors inside Iran who are doing the slow, dangerous, necessary work of change.

That is not a satisfying answer for those who want results now. Democracy building is a complicated domestic process, not to be rushed coercively by an external agency.

See a original article here, Why War with Iran Is Not a Historic Opportunity
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Ghassan Rubeiz is the former Middle East Secretary of the World Council of Churches. Earlier, he taught psychology and social work in his country of birth, Lebanon, and later in the United States, where he currently lives. He has contributed to political commentary for the past twenty years and has delivered occasional public talks on peace, justice, and interfaith topics. You can reach him at rubeizg@gmail.com

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Arab America. The reproduction of this article is permissible with proper credit to Arab America and the author.

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