Israel’s military strike on Iran in mid-June, “Operation Rising Lion,” alongside U.S. attacks on nuclear sites, exposed the Islamic Republic’s military vulnerabilities and proved the regime to be a paper tiger. But this success has triggered a dangerous response: Tehran is now striking back—not just with missiles and threats toward its neighbors, but with mass arrests, executions and repression at home.
From Azerbaijan and Iraqi Kurdistan to the streets of Tehran and Baluchistan, Iran’s targets are not random. They are chosen to signal strength, distract from weakness and restore control—whether through violence, propaganda or both. The regime sees its enemies as foreign and domestic, and often treats them the same way.
To prevent a wider crisis, Washington and Jerusalem must act quickly to deter further repression and aggression.
The United States and Israel can help prevent these potential disasters through different strategies. Washington should threaten further sanctions against Iran. For its part, the Jewish state can expand its publicized “enforcement plan,” which already includes preventing nuclear advancement, missile production and support for anti-Israel proxies, to include repression of the Iranian people or attacks on Azerbaijan or Iraqi Kurdistan.
Washington could bolster Kurdish defense with radar systems and pursue trilateral security ties with Israel and Azerbaijan, an idea proposed by Israeli parliamentarians and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office in the past.
By protecting neighboring states, Washington and Jerusalem can strengthen alliances in the region and further deteriorate Iranian influence by subverting its policy of belligerence.
Iran’s targets are often chosen not because of their actions, but because they are convenient. When weakened at home or abroad, the regime frequently lashes out to reassert deterrence, whether by bullying neighbors or cracking down on its own people. For example, following an Islamic State attack in Kerman that killed 100 Iranians, Iran launched missiles against a Kurdish businessman in Iraqi Kurdistan and Baluchi separatists in Pakistan. Likewise, a month after the start of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests in the fall of 2022, Iran staged large-scale military exercises on the Azerbaijani border that included practicing crossings of the Aras River that divides both countries.
Regime officials have threatened Azerbaijan and Iraqi Kurdistan, while state media have published a flurry of articles agitating against both. But the most pressing threat is to the Iranian people.
Iran has already begun a brutal crackdown. Nearly 700 people have been rounded up and several executed after being accused of spying for Israel. Iran’s judiciary also announced changes to its espionage laws to remove constraints and allow judicial, military and intelligence agencies to take “more sweeping actions.”
Read the rest at JNS.
Joseph Epstein is the director of the Turan Research Center at Yorktown Institute.
