Iran: a second Syria, Lebanon or Iraq? 

1. At present the US mulls how to go ahead with Iran. Namely how to end its Jihadist regime.

 Section [2] below compares Iran to 3 of its allies recently defeated militarily in the middle-east, down to regime changes - at least at the level of internal power politics (Lebanon).

 Sections [3-6] describe a short SWOT analysis of Iran’s present situation.

2. Comprising several ethnic regions

2.1 Iran’s territory comprises several ethnic regions, which in many cases are contiguous to them brethren ethnic regions across the Iranian border e.g. Kurds, Azeri, Baluchi and Afghani. In case of a regime change in Tehran, they are likely to merge accordingly to form larger ‘small’ states.

This is fine and efficient in the world of web-commerce, thus which derides layers of bureaucracy like the EU (Still a gossip club) is piling up these days – trying to deny the sovereignty of its member states.

2.2 This also holds true for Syria - which has been partitioned between Kurds and Arabs:

2.2.1 The Syrian Ba’ath regime collapsed neatly and dissipated into exile.

2.2.2 When Syria collapsed there was no political campaign of sovereign defiance and no sign of large-scale mobilization.

2.2.3 The regime also had no partners and no active sympathizers abroad.

2.2.4 There was no large-scale Shiite population, inside Syria, to form an Iranian base for overtake.

2.3 This also holds true for Iraq – which has maintained its territorial integrity, based on Iranian support, which is a de-facto exportation of the Iranian Shiite Jihadist revolution. The Iraqi Ba’ath regime was removed in a large-scale military operation in 2003.

2.4 This also holds true for Lebanon – which lost its Hezbollah Leadership, yet Hezbollah remains mostly intact, and under the surface still gives the tone, without any minority trying to eliminate it. This is while Hezbollah remains an Iranian prong for all purposes.

3. Strength: Will Iran hold together?

3.1 Iran seems to be very defiant.

3.2 Iran has a large army, plus large military prongs in Iraq (the Popular mobilization forces) and Yemen (the Houthis) which together can sandwich Saudi-Arabia, while encircling the Oil principalities of the Persian Gulf.

3.3 Iran is also the by-far largest territory and country in the middle east and slightly more populated than Turkey’s (90 vs. 85 million people).