The drumbeat of escalation against Iran has grown louder in Western capitals, from fresh sanctions rhetoric to renewed strike speculation. Beyond the headlines, a dangerous shift is occurring in the strategic thinking of policymakers. The old Neoconservative framework of “regime change”, which assumed one could swap a government while keeping the nation intact, is being shadowed by a far more perilous drift toward policies that risk state collapse.
Whether driven by the momentum of broad sanctions or a lack of viable alternatives, the current trajectory suggests that Western powers are risking a repetition of the “Libya Model” in Iran. A sober analysis of data, geography, and demographics indicates that this path would not lead to democracy, but to a geopolitical catastrophe that creates a security vacuum from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf.
The Libya Mirage vs. The Iranian Reality
The allure of this strategy rests on a kind of amnesia about the outcome of the 2011 NATO intervention in Libya. Sold as a humanitarian necessity, the removal of central authority did not produce a liberal democracy. Instead, it shattered the state’s monopoly on violence. Over a decade later, Libya remains a fractured territory where rival militias compete for control and human trafficking networks operate with relative impunity.
Attempting to replicate this outcome in Iran involves a profound misreading of scale. Iran is not Libya. It is a nation of nearly 90 million people, roughly thirteen times the population of Libya in 2011. Geographically, it sits atop the Strait of Hormuz, a critical artery through which a major share of globally traded oil passes each day.
In contrast to the isolated Gaddafi regime, a destabilized Iran would not implode neatly. It would likely erupt across borders. The collapse of central authority in Tehran could plausibly trigger large refugee flows toward Europe and create conditions conducive to extremism and narcotics trafficking. From a purely Realist perspective, the cost of coexisting with a difficult Iranian state is significantly lower than the cost of managing a major zone of ungoverned instability in the heart of Eurasia.
Sanctions and the Fragility Trap
Some advocates of “maximum pressure” argue that economic strangulation creates leverage for democratization. The economic data suggests a different outcome. While sanctions have undeniably devastated the Iranian economy, driving high and persistent inflation and eroding the national currency, they have failed to produce political liberalization.
In practice, these policies create what economists call a “fragility trap”. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned that geoeconomic fragmentation and the weaponization of trade are fracturing the global economy. In Iran, this dynamic systematically hollows out the middle class. By destroying the economic foundation of independent civil society, Western policy eliminates the very social stratum historically required for stable democratic transitions.
As citizens are pushed into a struggle for biological survival, facing documented obstacles to accessing some critical medicines and shrinking purchasing power, their capacity for organized political activism diminishes. They rarely become builders of stable institutions; survival takes over. Thus, the current policy does not weaken the grip of the state; it weakens the resilience of the society.
The Security Dilemma and the Civilizational Turn
The West’s approach can also misread the nature of the Iranian polity. Iran increasingly acts as a civilizational state, viewing itself as the custodian of a historical continuity under siege. This shapes threat perception and makes external pressure read as existential.
Political theorist Carl Schmitt argued that when a state faces such a threat, its natural reflex is not liberalization, but the state of exception, a suspension of norms to ensure survival. This framing matters because domestic radicalization can deepen the civilizational posture.
As politics harden, Tehran has fewer incentives to hedge and more incentives to lock in with other civilizational powers, especially China and Russia. That gravitational pull can weaken emerging regional understandings with Arab neighbors and turn Iran into a persistent arena for East and West power projection, with local interests squeezed by great power rivalry.
In that climate, external threats of military action, sabotage, and policies aimed at destabilization are unlikely to empower reformers in Tehran; they tend to validate the security apparatus. Each threat reinforces the narrative that the country is facing a war for its existence, justifying the securitization of domestic politics. In this context, the West is not acting as the midwife of Iranian liberty, but as the architect of its securitization.
The human cost of this strategy is often dismissed as collateral damage. Yet treating the Iranian population as mere leverage in a geopolitical struggle is not only morally questionable but strategically counterproductive. It alienates the very population the West claims to support, fueling a nationalist rally round the flag effect that strengthens the central government against foreign interference.
A Realistic Way Forward
If the goal is regional stability and global security, the fantasy of destabilization must be abandoned. A realistic policy toward Iran requires three concrete shifts.
First, acknowledge the security dilemma and negotiate on the issues that can be verified. A workable framework should center the nuclear file on enrichment limits, monitoring, and compliance, while opening a parallel regional track that links deescalation to reciprocal steps by all parties. In practice, that means pairing verifiable Iranian restraint with clear commitments to reduce escalation by Israel in the region, especially in southern Lebanon, consistent with Security Council resolution 1701.
Second, de-weaponize the civilian economy. Broad measures that punish the general population should be rolled back in favor of targeted restrictions and credible humanitarian channels. A thriving Iranian middle class is a better long term partner for peace than an impoverished populace dependent on the state.
Third, prioritize regional integration over isolation, and insulate it from great power competition. Security in the Persian Gulf cannot be imported from Washington; it must be built through sustained regional dialogue that lowers incentives for alignment with external blocs and preserves space for pragmatic cooperation.
Washington and European capitals can lower the odds of a wider conflict by publicly ruling out any policy aimed at state collapse and by pursuing deescalation through a phased package with verifiable benchmarks. One track can focus on nuclear transparency, including expanded monitoring and step by step relief tied to compliance. A second, parallel track can move the Palestine file from a zero sum arena into a regional framework led by Palestinians themselves and backed by neighboring states.
Under such an arrangement, Iran could commit to a verifiable halt to financial support and material assistance for armed non-state actors in the region, while retaining its declared diplomatic support for Palestinian self determination through political and humanitarian channels. Israel, in turn, would be expected to implement internationally recognized commitments, with progress assessed against clear, public benchmarks.
The choice is no longer between a pro Western Iran and a hostile Iran. The actual choice is between a functioning state that can be negotiated with, and a stateless abyss that exports chaos. As the ruins of Libya testify, breaking a state is easy; living with the consequences is the hard part.
Mahdi Motlagh is a policy analyst and researcher on civilizational state theory, historical legacies, and Middle East governance. He can be reached at motlaghgrmini@gmail.com.
