How regime change in Iran can lead to a more peaceful and prosperous Middle East.
By Neville Berman
Iran is a Persian country with a history, culture and civilization that goes back nearly 3,000 years. The Muslim conquest of the 7th century spread Islam to Persia. Currently the world’s Muslim population is approximately 2 billion people, of whom approximately 85% are Sunni Muslims. The majority of the population of 89 million are Shia Muslims. They constitute the majority of the 15% of Shia Muslims in the world.
In 1935, Reza Shah Pahlavi, the founder of the Pahlavi dynasty, renamed Persia and called it Iran. Iran has the third largest oil reserves in the world. It is one of the five founding member countries of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries known as OPEC. Iran is 80 times larger than Israel. It is strategically situated bordering 7 countries, and has maritime access to both the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf. Considering the world’s dependence on oil, Iran should be one of the most prosperous countries in the world from exporting vast quantities of oil. Instead of prosperity, Iran is now on the brink of economic collapse and its currency is almost worthless.
How did this happen?
To understand the present situation, one has to look at the history of the country over the past 75 years. In 1951, the Iranian government under Mosaddegh, nationalized the Ango-Iranian Oil Company. This became the catalyst that led to a CIA backed coup that overthrew Mosaddegh in 1953. He was replaced by Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran who was pro America. Following the coup, major US oil companies broke the previous British monopoly on Iranian oil production, and gained access to the Iranian oil market. The Shah’s attempt to liberalize the country by adopting Western norms and behavior were initially welcomed, but gradually turned millions of religious conservative Iranians against his policies that clashed with Islamic values. The hugely uneven distribution of wealth resulted in unrest that sparked widespread repressive measures by the Shah. The end result was the Iranian Revolution and in January 1979 the Shah was forced to flee. During the revolution the American Embassy in Tehran was attacked and overrun. Fifty-two American diplomats were seized as hostages. They were held captive for 444 days. Iran became an enemy of America.
A month after the Shah was forced to flee, Ruhollah Khomeini returned from exile in Paris, and became the Supreme Leader of Iran with the title of Ayatollah. He immediately turned Iran into a Shiite theocracy. All normal relations between America and Iran and between Israel and Iran ended. In March 1979, Habib Elghanian, the wealthiest Jew in Tehran was arrested and executed after a sham trial. All his properties and possessions were seized by the State. Dozens of other wealthy Jews were arrested and forced to pay enormous sums of money to be released. The Jews in Iran became powerless.The widely used slogans “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” symbolized the regimes rejection of American and Israeli interference and influence in Iran’s internal affairs. All the assets of the American oil companies in Iran were nationalized. In April 1979, Iran was renamed the Islamic Republic of Iran.
In September 1980, Iraq under the leadership of Saddam Hussein, invaded Iran. The war was seen by both America and Russia as an opportunity to make huge profits. America sold billions of dollars of arms to Iraq, and Russia sold billions of dollars of arms to Iran. Neither America nor Russia saw any benefit in ending the war. Approximately 300,000 Iranians and an equal number of Iraqis were killed in the war and hundreds of thousands were injured. Eight years after the war started, it finally ended in a stalemate. In June 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini died. He was replaced by Ali Khamenei who became the Supreme Leader of the Islamist Republic of Iran and continues to rule to this day.
In a sort of a reverse Midas touch situation, Khamenei, adopted policies that metaphorically speaking turned gold into lead. The State religion of Iran is the Twelver form of Shiite Islam. They believe that 12 divinely appointed Imans are the successors to the Prophet Muhammad and that the 12th Imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, who disappeared in the 9th century, is miraculously still alive, and will reappear at the end of time. Global justice and peace under Sharia law will then be established. Khamenei has a fanatical belief that what he calls the Zionist entity needs to be destroyed before the 12th Iman will return.
Khamenei authorized spending billions of dollars on building a nuclear program that is clearly aimed at producing nuclear weapons. In 2006, the United Nations imposed economic sanctions on Iran for failing to suspend its uranium enrichment program, and for non-cooperation with the inspections carried out by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
In 2015, President Obama entered into an agreement with Iran known as the JCPOA deal. The agreement immediately released billions of frozen dollars belonging to Iran, and ended the UN sanctions against Iran. In return, Iran agreed to limits on its uranium enrichment program, and allowed inspections by the IAEA. In February 2025, President Trump, fed up with continual Iranian lies about its nuclear program, and refusal to allow inspections in certain sites, announced a policy of “maximum pressure” on Iran. He imposed American sanctions on Iran. In the meantime, Khamenei spent vast amounts of money financing, training and arming proxy terrorist organizations in countries across the Middle East. The idea was to create a crescent of a “ring of fire” of proxy armies that would at some point in time, eliminate Israel.
In addition to all the financial problems, Iran is also presently experiencing a severe water shortage. The irony of the situation is that nearly 3,000 years ago, the Persians solved their water problems. They developed a water system known as the qanat – pronounced Kah-Naht. It was based on providing water by constructing gradually sloping underground tunnels to allow water from aquifers on hills and mountains to flow down and across areas that could then be inhabited, and on which agricultural production could thrive. The underground tunnels reduced evaporation to a minimum. The qanat system relied on gravity and the flow of water could be controlled by opening and closing tunnels. The qanat system sustained a thriving Persian society for thousands of years. The network was vast and covering between 250,000 – 350,000 km. It was truly a groundbreaking success of immense proportions. Parts of the qanat system are still operational, and between 8-15% of Iran’s current water supply comes from a system that was constructed thousands of years ago. Israel can help Iran to solve its water crises. Israel has experience and expertise in building and operating desalination plants, and is a world leader in recycling sewage water for agricultural use. It has also developed drip irrigation and modern water management systems based on up to the minute computerized data.
Israel has no border dispute with Iran, and there is an ancient history of help going all the way back to Cyrus the Great, who conquered the Babylonians, and then helped Jews to return to Jerusalem to build the Second Temple. Before the fall of the Shah, there were normal relations between Israel and Iran. It is time to restore these relations, and restart flights from Tel Aviv to Tehran that actually land in Tehran instead of dropping bombs on Tehran. Joining the Abraham Accords is very much in Iran’s interest. It will change the Middle East for the benefit of hundreds of millions of people. The exiled Crown Prince Pahlavi has said he would expand the Abraham Accords to be the Cyrus Accords – hearkening back to the historical ties between the Jewish and Persian people
In June 2025, Israel responded to all the nefarious actions by Iran and their proxy terrorist groups, and attacked Iran directly. In a pinpoint aerial attack, Israel destroyed the Iranian air defenses, and assassinated several leading nuclear scientists and prominent military leaders. With full Israeli control of Iranian airspace, Israel began attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities and launch sites of intercontinental missiles. The United States took advantage of the lack of air defenses and dropped 14 bunker-buster bombs that destroyed the underground uranium enrichment sites in Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan. In 12 days, tens of billions of dollars invested in Iran’s nuclear program was destroyed.
Instead of building desalination plants and improving the lives of the Iranian people, the Mullahs were obsessed with trying to destroy Israel. It was and is a disastrous losing strategy with devastating consequences for the Iranian people and the entire region. Instead of peace and prosperity, death, destruction and poverty resulted. The people of Iran are fed up with the policies of their government. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians, perhaps millions, are openly protesting against the Iranian government. The government has resorted to shooting thousands of protestors in a desperate attempt to cling to power.
Regime change in Iran will open the possibility of ending Iran’s nuclear program and the lifting of sanctions. This will result in peace and prosperity returning to Iran. In order to stabilize the economic situation, a new currency will need to be introduced in Iran. All the terrorist entities that Iran has supported and sustained under the leadership of Khamenei will not survive. It could be the beginning of a new Middle East.
Without regime change in Iran, tens of thousands of demonstrators are likely to be killed, and the Middle East will remain a ticking time bomb of terrorism and instability. The window of opportunity to bring about regime change in Iran has opened, but will not remain open for long. Let us hope that the foreign leaders who have the power to support the protestors and accelerate regime change in Iran, have the wisdom and courage to make the right decisions. The end of the rule of Khamenei, coupled with Iran joining the Abraham Accords is the surest way to ensure a more peaceful and prosperous Middle East.
*Feature picture: High Stakes Faceoff. US President Donald Trump (l) and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (r)
About the writer:
Accountant Neville Berman had an illustrious sporting career in South Africa, being twice awarded the South African State Presidents Award for Sport and was a three times winner of the South African Maccabi Sportsman of the Year Award. In 1978 he immigrated to the USA to coach the United States men’s field hockey team, whereafter, in 1981 he immigrated to Israel where he practiced as an accountant and then for 20 years was the Admin Manager at the American International School in Even Yehuda, Israel. He is married with two children and one granddaughter.
While the mission of Lay of the Land (LotL) is to provide a wide and diverse perspective of affairs in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world, the opinions, beliefs and viewpoints expressed by its various writers are not necessarily ones of the owners and management of LOTL but of the writers themselves. LotL endeavours to the best of its ability to credit the use of all known photographs to the photographer and/or owner of such photographs (0&EO).
