For nearly half a century, Washington has treated the Islamic Republic primarily as a problem to be managed: Contain its nuclear ambitions, deter its proxies, sanction its institutions, disrupt terrorist networks, and periodically negotiate when escalation appears dangerous. That framework is increasingly inadequate. The more consequential national-security question is no longer simply how the United States should deal with the Islamic Republic while it survives, but what political and security landscape will emerge if the system begins to disintegrate.

Twenty-five years after 9/11, Washington — now led by the Trump administration — still has not fully absorbed one of the central lessons of modern national security: Political Islamism is not merely a regional ideology; when institutionalized by a state, it can become an engine of transnational instability.