Victory over the kingdom of evil

Interviewed by Alan Rosenbaum

A country rich in natural resources becomes a place where its citizens collapse into poverty, while a small ruling circle of clerics and professional murderers enjoys an immense fortune. A country that once was the great Persian Empire is today ruled by a gang that invests its great wealth to build an extensive terror network that, at its peak, spanned across Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, Egypt, the Sahel region, Sudan, Yemen, and more. The United Nations has developed a counterterrorism strategy to be executed by the big powers and the enlightened nations. Not one of the Iranian-led terror victims has yet been finally free.

This, according to Shraga Biran, is the tragic story of the Iranian people and the victims of terror, including the Jews worldwide. 

In a wide-ranging interview with the Jerusalem Post, Biran, a distinguished lawyer who founded one of Israel’s leading law firms and serves as the founder of the Institute of Structural Reforms, says that the Ayatollahs and the Revolutionary Guards have not only oppressed the people of Iran but have stripped them of their opportunity to live with dignity, while terror networks across the region continue to celebrate and thrive. 

“This is a story of a mechanism that robs the Iranian people to fund terrorism across the Middle East, Africa, and beyond. The poverty in Iran and global terrorism are two sides of the same coin.”

In Biran’s view, the end of international terrorism—whose primary victims are Arabs and impoverished populations—requires the dismantling of Iran’s murderous networks. Liberation, he says, will not come through internal reforms, international agreements, or toothless sanctions, but only through decisive external intervention that removes the Ayatollahs and the Revolutionary Guards. The hatred of Israel harbored by terror groups, and their aim to destroy it—combined with a form of Hitler-style antisemitism that has evolved into Islamist terrorism—are creating a shared destiny and a common interest among Jews and Arabs in confronting the world’s leading exporter of terror.

The world’s leading powers have already defined terrorism in the same terms. As U.S. President Donald J. Trump described it, terrorism is “a plague upon all civilized nations,” while Chinese President Xi Jinping has stated that “we must strike hard against all forms of terrorism, address both its symptoms and root causes, and work together to eliminate the breeding ground of terrorism”. There is shared recognition across rival systems that terror is a global threat requiring a coordinated global response. The framework, the consensus, and the capability already exist. What remains absent is not agreement, but the will to act upon it.

The fight against terror has been left to the states whenever they have been confronted with it. The United States removed the leadership of Al-Qaeda, but they remain alive as a group. The fight against the terror of Afghanistan has continued as a rivalry between states. But ultimately, the Taliban is running Afghanistan.

The Hezbollah leadership has been removed, but their brutal activity continues as a direct part of the state terror of Iran. The crash of the brutal reign of the Iranian-Assad regime in Syria has come to an end, but still, some of the terrorist elements have not given up on a future return to power. ISIS is still active in Iraq. The brutality in the Sahel against millions; the brutality of the civil war in Sudan, torturing millions, has not been halted by international counterterrorism activities, led by the United Nations.

“The international force established by the United Nations must be implemented by the major powers—the United States, the People’s Republic of China, and other so-called ‘enlightened’ nations across Europe, Asia, and beyond.”

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

The promises of the monarchy, the great powers, and the Islamic Revolution that were made to Iran’s citizens in recent history were all trampled, leading them into deep disillusionment.

Iran’s Constitutional Revolution of 1905–1911 was an attempt to impose a constitution and a parliament on the ruling monarchy, but it was suppressed. This was the first uprising of its kind in the Middle East—a revolution aimed at establishing a constitution, a parliament, and limits on the ruler’s authority.

Decades later, in March 1951, Mohammad Mosaddegh, the country’s democratically elected prime minister, used his constitutional authority to pass legislation nationalizing the British-owned oil company (AIOC).

However, the 1953 coup, known as Operation Ajax—which was undertaken with the assistance of the CIA and MI6—overthrew Mossadegh and restored absolute power to the Shah.

The coup, which toppled Mossadegh and strengthened Shah Pahlavi, led to 26 years of repression (1953–1979) by SAVAK, the Iranian secret police. This repression culminated in public anger that led to the Islamic Revolution in 1979, in which the Shah was ousted by Ruhollah Khomeini, the Islamist cleric who led one of the rebel factions.

The leaders who seized power in 1979 faced a choice: to transform a country with a rich cultural heritage and a capable population into a prosperous, democratic, liberal, and well-functioning state, and to form an elected government, as they had promised. But they seized the nation’s wealth, confined the population within walls of poverty through religious fundamentalism, and expanded their control through global terrorism—subjugating local populations by every available means of repression under a regime of terror.

The ayatollahs chose the latter. They plundered Iran’s wealth, impoverished its people, and used the Iranian nation’s resources to finance a global network of terrorism headquartered in Tehran.

Iran today is controlled by a two-headed monster: on one side, the military-economic arm of the Revolutionary Guards, which has built a system of control, repression, and persecution. On the other side is the religious-ideological arm, controlled by the Supreme Leader, which has taken over the country’s economic, religious, and governing institutions by creating a sophisticated system controlling the country's centers of power.

The monster, operating under the banner of the “Islamic Republic,” has taken control of Iran’s structure of governance and its immense wealth by appropriating state assets, revenue sources, and the mechanisms of governance and control.

The tragedy of the Iranian people is twofold. Beyond the oppression of its people and the plunder of its natural resources, the Islamic regime has effectively advanced terrorism across the Middle East and the world—an enterprise that requires vast financial resources. For 47 years, the regime in Tehran has taken the national wealth of its people and turned it into an infrastructure of destruction.

Iran’s total financial commitment to terrorism is estimated to be more than $700 million per year to Hezbollah, up to $350 million annually to Hamas, hundreds of millions of dollars provided to Iraqi militias and the Houthis respectively, and $50 billion into Syria — all while its own population faces chronic food insecurity, slum housing, unemployment, and poverty.​

Apart from the suffering inflicted upon the Iranian people, most victims of the terrorism and wars fueled by the Iranian regime are Arabs and Muslims, particularly the most vulnerable among them. Here, too, the regime’s true nature is revealed: it speaks in the language of resistance, but in practice produces cycles of destruction, poverty, and dependence.

Iran’s economy is dominated by two largely opaque power centers that have emptied the wealth of the country and expropriated it for themselves, allocating it between the Ayatollahs and the IRGC.

The first is a network of foundations and endowments tied to the Supreme Leader. These include institutions such as the Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order (EIKO), Astan Quds Razavi, and Bonyad Mostazafan, which together control between 50% and 60% of the country’s GDP.  Though often presented as charitable or religious bodies, they function as sprawling conglomerates with interests in real estate, energy, telecommunications, finance, construction, mining, manufacturing, and logistics. Originally built from confiscated assets or religious endowments, they have evolved into powerful holding groups with privileged legal status, major landholdings, and limited fiscal oversight.

The second is the economic empire of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Beyond its military role, the IRGC has built a vast commercial presence in infrastructure, energy, logistics, and industry. At the center of this system is Khatam al-Anbiya, the largest contractor in Iran, which is involved in engineering, construction, oil and gas, pipelines, petrochemicals, transport, dams, ports, and telecom infrastructure. Around it sits a broader ecosystem of cooperatives, pension-linked funds, and investment bodies that channel capital into real estate, banking, insurance, and strategic industries.

They operate through holding-company pyramids, front companies, joint ventures, contract capture, and privileged access to assets and state resources. The result is a political economy in which the lines between the state, the military, religion, and private property are deliberately blurred. 

Other entities exercise more overt control over the populace. The IRGC itself is the primary protector of the regime, while the Basij, a massive paramilitary volunteer militia, provides domestic surveillance. The Quds Force is the external operations arm responsible for regional proxies (Hezbollah, Houthis, etc.), ensuring the Supreme Leader’s influence extends beyond Iran's borders. Radio and television are state-controlled, and private broadcasting is prohibited.

The Iranian regime reached its peak when it took control of Syria, turning it into a de facto extension of its rule under a level of brutality without precedent. Iran simultaneously developed Hezbollah—the central arm through which it exerts control—positioned as a terrorist force directed both against the United States and against Israel.

At the same time, Hamas has achieved complete control over a sovereign territory through its own militant networks. Although this reflects a divide between a Persian-Shiite system and an Arab-Sunni one, this sectarian gap has not prevented Iran from using Hamas as another arm in its web of international terrorism.

The height of Iranian terror resides in the Middle East: the Houthis in their war against Saudi Arabia; the Hamas terror; terrorist activity in the Sahel, a semi-arid belt in Africa that includes Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, and Eritrea; and the immense bloodshed in Syria.

The Iranian clique succeeded in imposing its authority over the local terror gangs—their leadership, their ideology, their propaganda, their training, and their weapons, including cutting-edge military technology—so that the entire system became one of state terror, rather than separate groups supposedly brought to the leader’s table.

Antisemitism plays a central role within the Iranian system. The Iranian regime and its affiliates position Jews and the State of Israel as primary targets in propaganda, recruitment, and the construction of legitimacy for their actions. Antisemitism is not merely ideological hatred—it is a tool of governance. It serves to whitewash internal repression, redirect public anger, and sustain a permanent state of emergency.

Antisemitism is a foundational pillar of the  Iranian state. Supreme Leader Khamenei hosted convicted Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy, called the murder of six million Jews “an unprovable and mythical claim,” and the regime held three state-sponsored Holocaust cartoon contests in 2006, 2016, and 2020 that drew over a thousand submissions promoting blood libels, Jewish conspiracy theories, spreading Mein Kampf and portraits of Hitler across the streets of Teheran and calls for Israel's destruction. 

In 2020, Khamenei's official channels published a poster calling for “the final solution” against Israel — a deliberate invocation of Nazi terminology. This ideological DNA runs through every proxy Iran built. Hamas’s founding charter cites the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as fact and proclaims that “the Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews and kill them.” 

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah declared that “if we searched the entire world for a person more cowardly, despicable, weak and feeble in psyche, mind, ideology and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew — notice, I do not say the Israeli”; the Houthi flag reads “God is great, Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse on the Jews, Victory to Islam,” with its founder citing Khomeini's call that the Islamic world could only be safe from Jews “by eradicating them.”

Islam, at its core, is imbued with a liberalism that includes cooperation with the Jewish people. To transform this religion into one that hates Judaism—effectively adopting murderous antisemitism—serves to manufacture a shared enemy, much like in Europe’s darkest periods. 

The use of Nazi-style antisemitism by Muslim terror is not intended solely to fulfill impulses of looting, murder, rape, and torture within the system of international terror. Rather, it follows the formula: “Strike the Jews in order to control the Arabs.” What do the inhabitants of the Sahel, the destitute people of Darfur, or the millions who were displaced from their homes in Sudan have to do with the State of Israel—other than to create envy, hatred, and a shared purpose for sustaining an empire of terror? What connection do the Houthis and distant Yemen have, despite everything, that leads them to write in their Sarkha: “Death to Israel, a curse upon the Jews”?

But there is also another despicable objective behind the creation of antisemitic terror worldwide and the persecution of Jews everywhere—the attempt to revive, especially in Europe (parts of which collaborated during Hitler’s time), hatred toward Jews. Anyone who does not fight this international terror of the murderous Iranian clique to the end will come to understand, as Hitler understood just before the Reichstag fell. Likewise, these murderers must know that the civilized world will fight them to the end in order to eliminate the plunderers of Iran and the architects of brutal terror who harm tens of thousands under a satanic umbrella that keeps hundreds of millions in miserable poverty. Those unwilling to join this effort should expect that anyone caught in this network within their own countries will eventually raise a hand against them as well—those same righteous Europeans.

Iran is one of the most resource-rich countries in the world. It holds 209 billion barrels of oil and 34 trillion cubic meters of gas, and sits on the Strait of Hormuz, through which 21% of global oil flows. Its diverse mineral reserves include dozens of strategic resources, estimated at $27.3 trillion. Iran spans 1.6 million square kilometers of diverse land, a third of which is arable, and includes 29 UNESCO World Heritage Sites. With 93 million people, high literacy, and a strong STEM base of engineers and scientists, Iran possesses all the foundations of a major economic power.

Yet the gap between potential and reality is stark.

Saudi Arabia, with only modestly larger oil reserves (267 billion barrels vs. 209 billion barrels), produces nearly three times as much oil — 9.5 million barrels per day compared to Iran’s 3.3 million. This has translated into a $1.24 trillion Saudi economy, compared to roughly $400 billion in Iran, with per-capita income seven times higher. In gas, the contrast is even sharper. Iran shares the world’s largest gas field with Qatar, yet extracts barely 2 billion cubic feet per day, compared to Qatar’s 18.5 billion. Qatar turned this into 20% of global LNG exports and a per-capita GDP of $76,700. Iran exports virtually no LNG, consumes most of its gas inefficiently, and has even faced supply shortages. The pattern repeats across regions and economic sectors. The UAE built a $552 billion economy with 77.5% non-oil output and per-capita income near $50,000 — nearly ten times Iran’s. Even Oman outperforms Iran on a per-capita basis. Looking globally, in 1977, Iran’s economy was larger than those of Turkey and South Korea. Since then, Iran’s GDP has grown just 190%, compared to 2,370% in South Korea and 872% in Turkey.

There are two clear reasons for this: the export of terror and the rulers’ personal gains.

Firstly, the Islamic Republic was designed not as a conventional nation-state, but as a vehicle for exporting terror. Its institutions — from the Revolutionary Guards to the Quds Force — are structured to project power abroad, not to build prosperity at home. Its economic system, controlling up to half of GDP, generates the off-book revenues that sustain this mission.

Secondly, the concentration of economic and political power in the hands of the Ayatollahs and the IRGC has enabled the systematic extraction of national wealth for private benefit. Control over major industries, state assets, and financial networks allows those in power to operate beyond transparency or accountability, turning key sectors of the economy into instruments of enrichment. This structure does not merely produce inefficiency — it institutionalizes corruption, prioritizing regime survival and personal gain over national development, while the broader population bears the cost.

The cost is measurable. Since 2011, Iran has spent approximately $100 billion to export terror. The broader economic damage — from sanctions, lost investment, and isolation — exceeds this by an order of magnitude. For every $1 spent externally, the population has lost about $10 in economic output.

The tireless exportation of terror, with the corruption and personal abuse of wealth by the regime’s heads, creates deep poverty in Iran. The transformation of the country's wealth into prosperity would not require new resources — only the end of their extraction.

The United States, the biggest power the world has ever seen, is surrounding the diabolical concentration of evil. Will they let them stay, or let them go? The decision is a choice between going in the footsteps of God, which is, as it is stated, “God calls for the persecuted” (Ecclesiastes). Or God forbid…

If they shall not surrender, will they not continue the bloody road of murder, torture, looting, and terror? The Iranian regime has already started the process of destruction and is on the way to being stopped from implementing its brutality. Now, the question is whether we should let them go to hell.

There is a clear, conceptual, legal, and operational basis for an international response to the crimes of the Iranian regime against the Iranian people, the Jews worldwide, and the State of Israel. Following the September 11 attacks, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1373, aimed at institutionalizing the fight against international terrorism—not only through condemnation, but by targeting sources of financing, organizational networks, state safe havens, and the operational capabilities of those who carry it out. Terrorism does not grow in a vacuum; it relies on money, infrastructure, institutions, and political protection. Iran represents the clearest case in which this logic should have been fully applied—not against a single cell or isolated organization, but against a regime that has turned an entire state into a hub of terrorist power.

Unfortunately, the world has taken a softer approach. Instead of dismantling the terror infrastructure through the tools created by the UN, the world preferred partial sanctions, loose agreements, conferences, diplomatic formats, and pressure mechanisms that were easy to circumvent. These measures ultimately served as minimal cover for the UN’s declared war on terror. In practice, Iran bypassed sanctions through various channels, generating flows of illicit funds.

What was required was direct action against Iranian forces, alongside a genuine effort to prevent them from financing themselves and their terror networks. In recent years, significant blows have been dealt to these networks through the actions of Israel and the United States, which have applied substantial force. This shift reflects an understanding that sanctions alone are insufficient to prevent mass violence. Such actions represent a practical implementation of the UN’s own framework for combating terrorism.

History shows that hesitation in the face of violent regimes—especially those built on a fusion of ideology, repression, and military-economic power—does not buy peace; it merely buys time for the regime. While historical comparisons should be made cautiously, the central lesson is difficult to ignore. When the world replaces decisive action with delay, the cost is ultimately paid in greater bloodshed.

Indeed, following targeted actions against key figures in Iran’s terror apparatus, signs of anticipation have emerged among segments of the Iranian public regarding the potential end of the regime. A population that has endured the broken “historical promises” of the past century is now looking not for calls to protest, but for concrete actions—particularly in the face of entrenched systems of repression and violence directed against them. The war against worldwide terror, headed by the devils from Tehran, must be a worldwide effort against worldwide terror. The sporadic attacks on terror centers are ineffective in the long term.

Yet, paradoxically, the very countries that remained neutral during World War II— those that failed to provide refuge or avenues of escape from the death camps and the Holocaust— refuse to join a total war against international terrorism and antisemitic terrorism.

In 1944, when emissaries pleaded with the Roosevelt administration to save the remnants of European Jewry—some 12,000 Jews per day being deported from Hungary to Auschwitz—the American decision was that bombing the railways and bridges to Auschwitz did not justify diverting strategic air resources. Moreover, framing the war as being fought on behalf of the Jews was itself seen as sufficient reason to reject such appeals.

History may not repeat itself, but in every era it reappears in different forms—often in the mindset of egomaniacs who cannot see beyond their own immediate interests.

One of the more troubling arguments in international discourse is the call to avoid confrontation in the name of oil security and stability around the Strait of Hormuz. However, available data suggest this concern is overstated. Global oil consumption stands at about 105.2 million barrels per day (EIA), while supply is already exceeding demand, with an expected surplus of roughly 1.9 million barrels per day. This growing surplus helps ease pressure on potential disruptions in Hormuz. 

This is not only a Western concern. The primary victims of this dynamic are Arab and Muslim populations across the region, alongside persistent antisemitic violence against Jews worldwide. Allowing energy blackmail to dictate policy rewards the world’s leading state sponsor of terror and perpetuates cycles of escalation.

The world is no longer dependent on Hormuz as it once was. Land-based alternatives already exist and are being used, such as Saudi pipelines to Yanbu, alongside southern routes via Oman to Gwadar and Asian markets. Today, global energy markets are diversified, and alternatives exist.

All of this is unfolding during an era of extraordinary progress in technology and artificial intelligence—progress from which the Iranian people, and other populations under Iranian-backed terror regimes, remain largely excluded. 

Cooperation between the world’s major powers—particularly the United States and China—is essential to eradicate international terrorism. Both leaderships have, in different ways, addressed the need to confront terror decisively. The international agenda must acknowledge that terrorist infrastructures have never been fully dismantled; they have always been left partially intact. Yet the solution today is not fundamentally different from that used against fascist terror a century ago. Modern “soft” approaches—agreements, diplomacy, conferences—while not necessarily ill-intentioned, have proven ineffective and at times even harmful, granting terrorism room to operate.

The key to ending worldwide terror lies in the establishment of an international force, grounded in UN mandates, with a clear mission: to restore law and constitutional governance, return national wealth to the public, and address the severe poverty affecting much of the population through sound social policy – to crush, finally, the terror governance in Iran and worldwide altogether. To liberate Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, and the African states from terror, poverty, and cruelty, and enable them to start a new road to the new era with the new wealth that is now spreading worldwide.

US President Donald J. Trump has sought to marshal the unprecedented power of his country to confront what he describes as state-sponsored terrorism, with the stated aim of liberating the people of Iran. The effort, as framed by its supporters, also extends to relieving millions in Asia and Africa, who they argue are burdened by the influence of Iran’s policies, and to combating antisemitic extremism, including the presence of imagery glorifying figures such as Adolf Hitler in Tehran.

President Trump initiated a historic war, together with Israel, against the evil regime to liberate the Middle Eastern states from terror that still prevails there, and to liberate Iran and its people.

Only one member of the United Nations – the State of Israel- has been threatened by another member of the UN – the Islamic Republic of Iran, with total and complete destruction of the state and its people. Iran declared war on Israel on October 7,  with brutal rape, torture, and murder, through its Hamas proxy, and with its partner, Hezbollah, attacking Israel’s North. 

The current campaign against Iran represents the high point of cooperation between the State of Israel—led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—and its allies. In the aftermath of the October 7 attack, carried out by Iran’s proxies, the United States extended unprecedented support. This partnership reached its apex as Washington and Jerusalem worked in close coordination to impose an extraordinary siege on Iran, paving the way for a decisive blow against its terror network.

The State of Israel and the Jewish people must fight to bring about the end of the encirclement by the murderers from Iran and this entire system, and to free the entire world from the severe plague of terrorism that has attempted to revive  Hitler’s doctrine. It is unacceptable that the theory of cooperation—like that of some Jews in the United States and parts of the political community, who turned their backs on the fate of the Jewish people—will repeat itself. Anyone today in the 21st century, who allows antisemitism to raise its head, while images of Hitler are displayed in a country that is a member of the UN, and antisemitism is celebrated worldwide, must be confronted by nations.

The largest siege in world history surrounds the leftovers of the terrorist gang in the bunkers of Tehran.

The gigantic concentration of power appears as a messianic quest to crush terror — a mission cast in near-divine terms, as if illuminated by a higher purpose. The USS Abraham Lincoln, USS Gerald R. Ford, USS Tripoli, Ohio-class SSGN, USS George H.W. Bush, the USS Boxer, 13 military bases, a Marine Corps on the way, and more of the USA military machine – are all ready to blockade Iran by sea. They must act, and not release their grip on the regime, until it is gone from this world.

There is no other way. The snake must be killed and its head cut off in its own lair. This is in the interest of the entire world, of humanity, of the Jewish people, and of U.S. President Donald J. Trump, representing the best of humankind, and upon whom has fallen a divine mission—to restore the course of human history to the right path.

Shraga F. Biran is the Founder of the Institute of Structural Reforms