Iran is on fire.

The regime is shooting protesters.

It's cutting the Internet.

It's daring the world to do something.

And the question that all of that raises,

what may be the central question for us outsiders looking in from the outside. Is the most basic one? Is the

Islamic Republic? Is this regime that has ruled Iran for 47 years? Is it actually

fellible? Can it be brought down? Or does it have some kind of structural advantage? And I'm going to

try and argue that it has such an advantage given to it by its particular brand of

Islamist political ideology, basically a willingness to burn the house down, that makes it much,

much more durable than Westerners want to believe. The Chancellor of Germany has said this regime

is on its way out. President Trump has been very gung-ho about Iranians continuing to protest and help is coming, he said.

But in fact, maybe this regime actually has advantages that if we don't understand, we won't be helpful to ordinary Iranians,

who we know that most ordinary Iranians want change, want this regime gone.

I want to also say something personal

for a moment. I'm watching this as an Israeli, as a Jew, as somebody who lives in this region,

who spent years trying to understand this region without turning human beings into symbols.

Just because they're my enemies doesn't mean they're not complicated three-dimensional human beings

with stories that they're embedded in and understandings of the world around them.

It's very easy to talk about Iran in these abstractions, in these symbols.

It's a regime.

It's a nuclear file.

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