Second, the United States should exploit Iran’s vulnerability to internal unrest. It should find ways to encourage labor unrest by, for example, facilitating quiet support by U.S. organized labor to Iranian unions. In the 1979 revolution, strikes by workers in the oil sector were one of the precipitants of the fall of the Shah. We should also engage officers in military and security services and encourage those who have organizational or personal differences with the core ruling clique around Khamenei to dissent or split with the regime.

Third, the United States and its friends and allies should work key pressure points, particularly Iran’s overwhelming dependence on oil revenues to fund its budget. We should induce Saudi Arabia and other friendly oil-producing states to raise production and drive international prices downward for an extended period, thereby exacerbating Iran’s already difficult budgetary situation. Developed countries should redouble export controls and financial sanctions to prevent Iran from modernizing its oil infrastructure.

Fourth, the United States should step up surrogate broadcasting that underscores the corruption, hypocrisy, and brutality of the Iranian regime. We should help ensure access by opposition forces to the Internet and social media. Where possible, we should forge connections between Iranian groups and civil society in the West, particularly youth organizations and intellectual activists.

Though these approaches cannot produce quick results against a strong and determined regime, they can put leaders on the defensive, stress their systems internally, and impose costs by increasing the demands on internal security organizations. This can immediately undercut efforts by Iran to exploit the wider crisis in the Middle East and over time tip the scales in favor of democratic change.

A DIFFERENTIATED strategy of this kind will sorely test the implementation capacities of the United States. The president should appoint a senior official to oversee an interagency group with the sole responsibility of implementing this regional strategy. The full range of U.S. government departments and agencies should be involved in this effort. If implemented successfully, this strategy will put the United States on the side of reform, help friendly states with the challenges of democratization, and defeat opportunistic moves by hostile regimes and their extremist allies.