Whether Israel’s recent attack on Iran is partly motivated by revenge for Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre of Israeli civilians, it is certainly intended to prevent a worse catastrophe — namely, a move by Tehran’s terrorist regime to annihilate Israel with nuclear weapons.

For decades, Republican and Democratic administrations have unanimously committed to preventing Iran from possessing a nuclear weapon. Yet despite international agreements and years of further negotiations, Iran has come perilously close to achieving its goal of becoming a nuclear weapons state, just as North Korea had despite years of endless international talks and agreements with the West.

The Kim Jong-un regime now brandishes its nukes whenever South Korea or the U.S threatens retaliation for its latest international outrage. The world has to live with that continuing nuclear nightmare, but Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, whatever his faults of domestic governance, decided not to allow Iran to repeat the North Korean example when he acted to eliminate the Ayatollah’s existential threat.

But Israel’s action has achieved far more than ending or significantly setting back Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions.  It has also seriously weakened the domestic credibility and ruling power of an already extremely unpopular regime.  The Iranian population rose up en masse in 2009 to demand political change and urgently asked the U.S. for nonmilitary support. But Barack Obama declined the unique opportunity to do the people of Iran and the world a favor by helping the peaceful transition of power.

Now, Netanyahu’s violent response to Iran’s threat of ultimate violence has re-opened the door to nonviolent political change in Iran. This time, the West must not allow the opportunity to pass and should offer all the economic, diplomatic, and informational support needed to end the Islamic Revolution regime that has wreaked such death and destruction not only in Israel but throughout the Middle East and the world.

President Trump can correct Obama’s timid refusal to support a democratic political transformation, which his predecessor now admits was a major historic mistake, and earn himself the Nobel Peace prize he so openly covets.  Trump may discover the relative feasibility of siding with a committed freedom-loving population to achieve peaceful political change, and eliminating a mortal threat to the U.S. He may reconsider his awestruck paralysis in the face of Russian and Chinese aggression against the Western international order and reclaim America’s true greatness beyond his boastful slogans.

Regime change in Russia will not prove as readily achievable, since the majority of the Russian  people seem to support Vladimir Putin’s aggression against Ukraine, according to a report by the Atlantic Council. But that domestic favorability is almost certainly upheld by the support Putin is receiving from the world’s two competing superpowers. China has explicitly aligned itself with Putin’s war aims in return for Russia’s support for its expansionist intentions toward Taiwan in their joint declaration of a “no-limits strategic partnership.

The Trump administration’s support for Putin’s ambitions is slightly less explicit, at least formally, but its policies on ending the conflict have consistently favored Russia’s position. Even Trump’s threats to walk away from his “peace-making” efforts and let Russia and Ukraine “fight it out” suggest he will also end U.S. military support for Ukraine.  Conceivably, Putin’s brazen spurning of Trump’s efforts could bring about a change in his star-struck admiration for Putin.  If so, he could turn on him the way he has America’s and his own former allies

With China, despite the totalitarian nature of Xi Jinping’s regime, the possibility of relatively peaceful political change is enhanced by the Chinese population’s aspirations for political liberalization. That yearning was demonstrated in the 1980’s leading to the bloody crackdown in Tiananmen Square and in hundreds of other Chinese cities.

If Trump were to reinvigorate the efforts of Radio Free Asia, Voice of America, and the other information outlets he is presently undermining, he would find a receptive Chinese audience–especially if the people of Iran show the way.

When China makes its historic transformation, its support for North Korea’s murderous dictatorship will end and regime change will also occur in that cog of the new axis of evil.

By Joseph Bosco