America's Venezuela Playbook Won't Work in Iran

You know Iran’s leaders are worried about the implications of last weekend’s US raid in Venezuela when the editor of the hardline Javan newspaper feels he has to write a polemic — headlined Iran Is Not Comparable – Don’t Waste Your Time — saying there aren’t any. But whether the Islamic Republic is ripe to fall from an external US or Israeli nudge is a much more complicated question.

These two deeply unpopular regimes have bonded over their hostility to the US ever since the 1980s, and most recently in their common need to circumvent energy sanctions. It’s possible that last weekend’s smash-and-grab extraction of President Nicolas Maduro from Caracas to New York may have jeopardized yet another link in Tehran’s rapidly shrinking web of alliances, together with a substantial financial investment.