Kazem Kazerounian, Ph.D., Mohammad Mohaddes, Ph.D., Hossein Saiedian, Ph.D.
The roar of missiles has subsided into a fragile, fifteen-day silence. As of April 10, 2026, the Islamabad-brokered ceasefire has offered a weary world a brief moment to breathe. But for Iran’s ninety-three million citizens, the central question remains unchanged: how to bring about the regime’s overthrow by the Iranian people themselves, without the international community becoming ensnared in a wider conflict.
While diplomats debate the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and the contours of nuclear enrichment, the regime continues its internal war unabated. At dawn in Tehran, the state still speaks the only language it truly knows—the language of repression and political execution.
We have now witnessed the devastating results of two distinct failures. For decades, the policy of appeasement was pursued under the hope that the theocracy would moderate. Instead, we saw a regime that became more repressive, accelerated its pursuit of nuclear weapons, and expanded its network of proxy terror. Perhaps most damaging was how this policy actively constrained the real alternative; to please Tehran, the West placed the organized Iranian resistance on terrorist blacklists, effectively shackling the only movement capable of challenging the mullahs from within. Simultaneously, the promotion of the “reformist” myth injected life into the regime, providing it with a diplomatic shield to buy time while the state continued to crush domestic dissent.
Conversely, the recent forty-day war demonstrated a fundamental truth: while foreign bombs can devastate infrastructure, they cannot deliver regime change. The regime, for its part, has failed to rally the population behind its destructive policies. Yet it is working assiduously to exploit the current crisis as an “emergency” shield—tightening its grip on power and suppressing internal dissent, including the 2026 January uprising, under the pretext of national security.
This strategy is not new; it is encoded in the regime’s DNA. During the eight-year Iran-Iraq war, once Iraq withdrew from Iranian territory and declared readiness for peace, the clerical leadership repeatedly rejected viable ceasefire offers and peace initiatives from neighboring Arab countries and the United Nations, choosing instead to extend the carnage. For them, the war was a “divine blessing” used to eliminate political alternatives and silence any voices of freedom that dared to challenge the new theocracy.
If appeasement is a mirage and war is a trap, what is left? The answer is the “third path”—a solution the Iranian resistance has proposed for forty-five years, and one that is now more urgent than ever.
The backfire of external force
The Iranian regime does not merely tolerate external conflict; it thrives on it. Today, it welcomes foreign aggression to “one-ify” its fractured leadership following the death of Ali Khamenei. By cynically turning a fight for freedom into a fight for the “homeland,” the regime attempts to categorize all internal dissent as treason. Foreign military intervention, despite its intentions, almost always backfires. It gives credence to the “fifth columnist” ploy while destroying the vital infrastructure, the bridges, power plants, and schools, that Iranians need for a stable future. History in the region has proven that democracy cannot be air-dropped or imported; it must emerge organically from the heart of a rebellious society.
Reliance on foreign power vs. reliance on the people
As the collapse of the clerical regime looks increasingly inevitable, a critical debate has emerged over who will lead the transition. The choice is between a return to the past or a march toward a modern republic. The monarchist camp, led by Reza Pahlavi, relies on a strategy of foreign endorsement and social media branding rather than grassroots mobilization. This reliance on external intervention is a family legacy; both his father and grandfather came to power through foreign-backed coups in 1953 and 1921, bypassing the democratic aspirations of the Iranian people. Today, this camp seeks to “sprint” back to power by pleading to foreign powers to “crown” a new leader, yet there is no evidence of a sustained, organized struggle on the ground within Iran to support these claims.
The real momentum for change lies elsewhere: with the organized internal resistance. The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), and its main constituent, the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), have spent no fewer than 12 years performing the grueling work of building “resistance units” in every province. This is the force the regime truly fears. In fact, the regime’s entire architecture of warmongering, from its nuclear and missile programs to manufactured regional conflicts, is designed to divert international attention away from its domestic fragility. By executing MEK members even amidst the fog of external war, the regime has signaled that its true enemy is not a foreign military, but an organized, battle-tested, combat-ready internal movement capable of mobilizing the people. Their path to victory is not paved by foreign decrees, but by the sacrifice of 100,000 activists over forty years. Their slogan is now heard in every street: “Death to the dictator, whether Shah or Supreme Leader.”
A global consensus for a republic
The “third path” is far from a fringe movement or a mere academic alternative. It is the only viable exit from the failed binary of foreign-led war and fruitless appeasement. While the world has cycled through decades of ineffective negotiations and weeks of devastating bombardment, this globally recognized political alternative has been waiting at the gate. Following Khamenei’s death, the NCRI introduced a provisional government designed to bridge the gap to a new era. This structure is built upon a concrete, six-month roadmap to transfer sovereignty back to the people through free elections for a national, constituent assembly under United Nations supervision.
This transition is rooted in Maryam Rajavi’s Ten-Point Plan, which mandates a secular republic, the separation of religion and state, complete gender equality, the self-determination of national ethnicities, and a non-nuclear Iran. The credibility of this roadmap is evident in the sheer scale of its global endorsement. The provisional government immediately received support from twenty-nine prominent American leaders, over 1,200 international dignitaries and fifty-seven Nobel Laureates.
To date, the Ten-Point Plan has earned the formal support of 129 world leaders, including former presidents, vice presidents, and prime ministers, along with over 4,000 bipartisan lawmakers across the globe. Most significantly, it has secured the support of parliamentary majorities in 43 legislatures, including the United States House of Representatives through House Resolution 166. Such a broad coalition of support among Nobel laureates and democratic legislators is not a mere gesture of solidarity; it is the recognition of the NCRI on the world stage as a competent and credible governing alternative.
Peace is the presence of freedom
Any international agreement reached during this ceasefire must put human rights front and center and condemn the domestic purge as well as the ongoing executions of protesters and dissidents. It would be a moral failure of enormous proportions. If the world is serious about regional stability, it must realize that a non-nuclear and peaceful Iran would only be possible if the regime were to be replaced by its own people. A ceasefire that merely halts external missiles while the internal gallows continue to run is a victory for the arsonist, not the victims.
The international community does not need to provide money, weapons, or put boots on the ground. It simply needs to grant political recognition to the Iranian people’s right to self-determination and acknowledge their organized resistance. We must align our policies with the movement that has survived forty-five years of repression through a steady and principled struggle.
Peace in the Middle East does not start with a temporary ceasefire between governments. It starts with a free and democratic Iran. It is time to support the establishment of a democratic, secular, and non-nuclear republic, which remains the only path toward a genuinely stable and peaceful Middle East.
About the authors:
Kazem Kazerounian, Ph.D., is a professor and former dean at the University of Connecticut
Mohammad Mohaddes, Ph.D., resides in Ashraf 3, Tirana, Albania
Hossein Saiedian, Ph.D., is a professor at the University of Kansas