An Agreement Without the Iranian People Is Only Buying Time for the Islamic Republic
S. Rouzbeh
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S. Rouzbeh asks whether peace can be made with a government whose greatest victim is its own people. Drawing on the lesson of Munich and the Islamic Republic’s record, he argues that an agreement made without the Iranian people would offer the regime time to rebuild and continue its repression.

S. Rouzbeh – Can one reach an agreement with a government whose first and greatest victim has been its own people?

Can one speak of peace when the people who have paid for decades of repression, imprisonment, executions, poverty, corruption, lies, internet shutdowns, bullets and humiliation are nowhere to be seen in this agreement?

Is an agreement struck behind closed doors, without the Iranian people having any role, really a path to stability, or merely a fresh opportunity to rebuild the very structure that has repeatedly shown it will use every political and economic respite to continue repression, expand its regional influence and buy time?

These questions matter all the more when we return to the brief but fundamental words of Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi. On 5 February 2026, corresponding to 16 Bahman 1404, he wrote in a message: ‘The only acceptable agreement is one in which the Islamic Republic surrenders to the Iranian people.’ He also stressed that such an agreement could ‘bring peace to the region and the world’.

This is not an emotional slogan; it is a precise political position. The central issue facing Iran is not merely a nuclear file, a regional crisis or a diplomatic dispute between the Islamic Republic and the West. The central issue is the existence of a government that is at war with its own people from within, and has confronted the region and the world with one crisis after another from without.

The lesson of Munich: a warning the world forgot

To understand what the world faces today, we must return to September 1938. In those days, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and the leaders of France sat down with Hitler and Mussolini in Munich. Europe feared war. The memory of the slaughter of the First World War was still fresh. So they decided to appease Hitler and prevent war by giving Nazi Germany part of Czechoslovakia—the Sudetenland. Chamberlain returned to London proudly, held up the agreement and declared: ‘I have brought peace for our time.’

Eleven months later, Germany invaded Poland, and the Second World War began, leaving around fifty million dead.

The lesson of Munich is not that one should never negotiate. It is this: when the other side sees tension not as a cost but as a tool, and even an objective, concessions will not bring peace; they will only embolden it. Hitler saw the Munich Agreement as a sign of Western weakness, not goodwill. He launched the next crisis with greater confidence. The Islamic Republic proclaims the same belief from its platforms, both at home and internationally. It proclaims its own victory and the defeat of America and Israel.

The fundamental difference between the Islamic Republic and ordinary dictatorships

Here we must state plainly a reality often overlooked in Western analyses: the Islamic Republic is not an ordinary dictatorship.

An ordinary dictator fights to survive. A crisis is a cost that he tries to reduce. If the pressure is great enough, he is willing to make a deal, because his primary aim is to remain in power.

But the Islamic Republic’s ideological structure is something else. A significant part of this government’s leadership, from its founder to the currents at its hard-line core, regards confrontation with Israel, support for Hezbollah, the expansion of influence in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, and resistance to the ‘system of domination’ not as political choices but as religious duties.

In this worldview, the liberation of Jerusalem is the ultimate goal. Conflict with the ‘enemies of Islam’ is a sacred path. And, in the beliefs of some currents within this government, fomenting crises and confrontation are prerequisites for, or even precursors to, the ‘Advent’. This apocalyptic thinking, though not all officials express it in the same way, is a real presence in this government’s decision-making structure.

When the ruling ideology sees calm as defeat and crisis as victory, no diplomatic agreement can extinguish this inner drive. A signature on paper does not change this driving force; it merely gives it time.

This was the very difference that made negotiations with Hitler meaningless. He, too, saw war as an ideological duty, not a choice from which bargaining could dissuade him. Chamberlain thought that by giving up the Sudetenland, Hitler would be satisfied. But anyone who sees the conquest of Europe as a ‘mission’ will never be satisfied.

The historical pattern: agreement, respite, rebuilding

Over nearly half a century, the Islamic Republic has shown that crisis is not a political mistake for it; it is a means of survival. Yet a look at the government’s diplomatic history reveals a recurring and troubling pattern: agreement, respite, rebuilding, and then a return.

In 2003, under pressure following the US invasion of Iraq, the Islamic Republic temporarily suspended uranium enrichment. The world saw this as a sign of flexibility. The pressure eased. Enrichment resumed.

In 2015, the JCPOA was signed. Billions of dollars in frozen funds were released. Economic pressure eased. During the same period, Hezbollah grew stronger, the Houthis gained power in Yemen, the military presence in Syria expanded, and the missile programme continued. The domestic apparatus of repression, too, remained untouched.

Each time the pressure has eased, this government has moved not towards genuine reform, but towards rebuilding its machinery of power. This pattern is no accident; it is structural.

The Iranian people are not a sideshow in this equation; they are the central issue. They have paid the price for years. From its very beginning, this regime has been nourished by blood. From November 2019 to the 2022 uprising and the years that followed, thousands of Iranian families have faced the killing, imprisonment, execution and wounding of loved ones, the blinding of people, security threats, forced migration and bereavement. Young people have been killed in the streets, political prisoners executed, and grieving mothers threatened; each time, the government has tried to hide the truth by cutting communications, shutting down the internet, manipulating the narrative and intimidating families. As we can see, some documents relating to the massacres have only recently emerged, and more will come to light.

So when it is said that an agreement without the Iranian people has no legitimacy, this is not a ceremonial phrase. It means that no foreign power, even if it enters negotiations with the aim of reducing tensions, has the right to remove the suffering and wishes of the Iranian people from the equation.

An agreement written solely between governments, while ignoring the people who are its victims, is politically incomplete and morally suspect. Such an agreement might conceal the fire beneath the ashes for a while, but it will not remove the ashes themselves. Some frozen funds might be released, the regime’s economic pressure might ease, and the government might be better able to pay the salaries of its repressive forces and proxy networks. But if the structure of power remains the same and the ideology is left untouched, sooner or later its behaviour will be the same too.

Where does the crisis lie at its root?

This is why Prince Reza Pahlavi’s words matter. He shifts the issue from “reaching an agreement with the regime” to “the regime’s submission to the people”. This change of perspective is crucial. For as long as the Islamic Republic is not accountable to the Iranian people, any foreign agreement will address only part of the problem, not its root.

The root of the crisis is in Tehran: in a system that does not regard the Iranian people as owners of their country. How can a government that calls its own people “rioters”, “agents of foreign powers”, “seditionists” or “enemies of God” be a trustworthy partner for peace? A government that does not honour its obligations to its citizens and has killed thousands: why should it remain faithful to its international commitments?

The Iran question is not only a matter for Iranians. Each time the world has ignored the suffering of the Iranian people and focused only on managing the crisis with the Islamic Republic, the crisis has returned in a new form: in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, the Persian Gulf, the nuclear file, hostage-taking, assassinations, cyberattacks, energy insecurity and regional instability.

The world faces two paths:

In the face of such a system, the world’s question should not be only, “How can we reach an agreement with the Islamic Republic?” The more pertinent question is: “How can we prevent an agreement from becoming a tool for rebuilding the very crisis it was meant to contain?”

Today, the world stands at a crossroads:

The first path: once again accommodate the Islamic Republic to manage the crisis temporarily. Ease the pressure. Release the money. Enjoy a few years of relative calm, and then face a greater crisis—one that may this time be more nuclear, more regional and more costly. For a government with an apocalyptic ideology has no reason to stop once it has recovered its strength.

The second path: this time, accept the reality that lasting peace comes through the Iranian people, not through saving the Islamic Republic. This means that any agreement must be tied to the Iranian people’s fundamental demands: freedom, national sovereignty, genuine elections, free media and an end to repression. In conclusion, free elections under international supervision must be held, and Iranians’ right to determine their own future must be entrusted to their true representatives.

In closing

The Islamic Republic may make promises again. It may put on a diplomatic smile again. It may once again buy time with words such as “engagement”, “de-escalation” and “agreement”. But experience has shown that each time the pressure has eased, this government has moved not towards genuine reform, but towards rebuilding its machinery of power. And this time, it is closer than ever to nuclear weapons.

A government that regards the liberation of Jerusalem as a religious duty, considers Hezbollah its ideological shield, and sees crisis not as a problem but as a test of faith, will not change by signing a piece of paper. Munich did not change Hitler either.

Munich was a warning. Iran today is another warning. If the world does not hear the voice of the Iranian people, tomorrow it will have to pay a heavier price for that same failure to listen—a price that this time may cross Iran’s borders. And, as they themselves have said, they will act beyond the region.

Real peace begins when the Islamic Republic backs down—not before foreign powers, but before the Iranian people. And this is the meaning of the sentence that must be taken seriously:

The only acceptable agreement is one in which the Islamic Republic submits to the Iranian people.

History does not always repeat itself; but it returns with a harsher face to those who failed to learn from it.

This warning is not a call to war; it is a warning intended to prevent a greater war. The issue is not that the world should not negotiate; it is that the world must not once again ignore the root of the crisis and make a deal only with its branches. If the aim is lasting peace, it must be accepted that peace will not be built by saving the Islamic Republic; it begins with restoring the right to decide to the Iranian people. An agreement that excludes the people of Iran may bring a few brief moments of apparent calm, but in practice it merely shifts the crisis into the future—a future whose cost will not be borne by Iranians alone.

Source: https://srouzbeh.com/en/posts/archive-ff8e9298-efe5-ed06-47c0-381307e96fb0
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