The U.S.-Israeli strikes have degraded the state apparatus of Iran, but the clerical regime has endured the onslaught. Meanwhile, despite the weakening of the regime, the anti-regime opposition has been unable to seize the moment and spark revolutionary upheaval inside Iran. This scenario underscores a gap in the United States’s strategic calculus pertaining to the internal dynamics of Iran.

Now that this gap has been identified, U.S. policy makers need to understand a fundamental reality that “Iran is more than Persia.” Otherwise, they may overlook the non-Persian ethnicities that constitute about half of Iran’s population and territory, and could become potential allies of the U.S.