The resurgence of street protests in Iran has revived a familiar reflex in Washington. Should the United States intervene decisively and force political change from the outside? President Donald Trump, never inclined toward ambiguity, has encouraged aides to brief the press on military and non-military options. The suggestion is unmistakable. If pressure once pushed Venezuela to the edge, why should Iran be different?
The problem is not just that Iran is different. It is that the Venezuela strategy itself never worked. At its most aggressive, US pressure weakened the Venezuelan economy but failed to dislodge the regime. It produced endurance, not collapse. Iran is larger, more cohesive, and far better positioned to retaliate. Repeating that approach would not refine a proven tool. It would magnify its limitations.
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What Venezuela actually taught Washington
The US strategy toward Venezuela rested on three assumptions. Sanctions would fracture the ruling elite. International recognition of an alternative leader would confer internal legitimacy. Economic collapse would force a political rupture.
None of these assumptions held. Despite sweeping oil and financial sanctions imposed between 2017 and 2019, the Maduro government retained control of the armed forces and security services. According to IMF estimates, Venezuela’s GDP shrank by more than 70% over a decade. The political system adapted anyway. Sanctions narrowed formal revenue streams but expanded informal ones. Loyalty was rewarded through access, not legality.
The opposition, recognised abroad, failed to translate diplomatic support into domestic authority. Over time, the regime learned how to govern scarcity and weaponise it.
Iran’s leadership has studied this record closely. It has lived under sanctions for decades and built parallel systems to finance trade, procure technology, and move energy. Expecting economic pressure alone to produce regime fracture ignores that institutional memory.
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Why Iran cannot be boxed in
Venezuela’s vulnerability flowed from isolation. Its economy relied overwhelmingly on a single export. Its regional leverage was limited. Iran operates in a different category.
It sits astride major energy routes and maintains influence across West Asia through aligned militias and political networks. Roughly one-fifth of global oil trade passes through the Strait of Hormuz. Any serious escalation carries immediate consequences for energy markets and inflation.
That constraint matters. The White House may treat energy volatility as a secondary concern. Markets will not. Even limited military action risks price spikes and renewed pressure on global growth. Venezuela never presented that degree of systemic exposure.
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The illusion of clean military options
The options reportedly placed before the president appear varied: symbolic strikes, leadership decapitation, or sustained degradation of Iran’s security apparatus. Each fails for different reasons.
Symbolic strikes satisfy the need to act. They rarely alter outcomes. Iran’s repression is decentralised. It relies on local intelligence units, militias, and judicial mechanisms. A single night of strikes does little to disrupt that machinery.
Decapitation strategies misread how authoritarian power works. Removing senior figures does not dissolve control. It reallocates it. In Iran’s case, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps would likely emerge stronger, not weaker. Recent history offers no encouragement otherwise.
A sustained campaign, short of invasion, risks something worse. Destroy enough of the security apparatus and the state does not transition smoothly. It fragments. Libya remains the clearest warning. Iran’s size, internal diversity, and arms capacity mean the fallout would be wider and harder to contain.
Non-kinetic pressure has sharp limits
Cyber operations, information campaigns, and efforts to restore internet access appear less escalatory. They also deliver modest results. Iran has repeatedly shown it can adapt to cyber disruption and impose digital blackouts when needed.
External amplification of opposition voices may help morale. It does not substitute for organisation. More importantly, visible US involvement reinforces the regime’s claim of foreign conspiracy. Venezuelan authorities relied on that argument relentlessly. Iranian leaders would deploy it with greater credibility, drawing on a longer history of external intervention.
Allies will not underwrite escalation
One of the least discussed constraints is regional reluctance. Gulf states host US assets but show little appetite for becoming targets. Missile and drone attacks on regional infrastructure in recent years have hardened that caution.
Access to bases, airspace, and logistics cannot be assumed. In Venezuela, Washington could act largely alone. In Iran, it cannot. Without allied buy-in, any campaign loses credibility and sustainability.
The choice Washington prefers not to face
The reality is stark. There is no external option that delivers what US rhetoric often promises. Iran’s protests reflect deep economic failure. Inflation has exceeded 40%. The currency has collapsed. Energy shortages and unpaid wages have eroded legitimacy.
Authoritarian regimes, however, often survive such conditions if their coercive core remains intact.
The choice facing Washington is not between action and inaction. It is between actions that over-promise and strategies that accept limits. That means calibrated sanctions tied to specific behaviour, diplomatic coordination with Europe and regional actors, and practical support for information access that does not pretend to be liberation.
Sanctions reshape, rather than dismantle, authoritarian economies. The lesson is consistent. Pressure without a viable internal political alternative rarely produces democracy.
Trump’s instinct is to act visibly. The strategic test is restraint informed by evidence. Venezuela was not a success waiting to be repeated. In Iran, its failures would be larger, messier, and harder to reverse.