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From: www.newsmax.com
By Luis Fleischman

As with many contemporary challenges, the case for foreign intervention in Iran has a clear precedent: NATO’s intervention in the former Yugoslavia against the regime of Slobodan Milošević.

That regime did not pose a direct military threat to NATO.

Rather, the intervention was moral and humanitarian, undertaken in response to mass violence, ethnic cleansing, and a campaign of systematic brutality that followed the breakup of multiethnic Yugoslavia and Milošević’s ambition to create a “Greater Serbia.”

These interventions marked a turning point in global politics.

They legitimized the principle that protecting civilian populations can supersede absolute national sovereignty, and they eroded the traditional distinction between internal repression and international conflict when fundamental human rights were at stake.

In 1995, NATO launched Operation Deliberate Force, a sustained air campaign against Bosnian Serb military targets.

Four years later, in 1999, NATO conducted Operation Allied Force, striking Serbian military infrastructure and regime assets in Kosovo to protect ethnic Albanian civilians facing mass slaughter.

These actions forced Serbia to negotiate the Dayton Accords, ended the Bosnian war, and compelled Serbian forces to withdraw from Kosovo. The Milošević regime ultimately collapsed.

While the region continues to face political, ethnic, and institutional challenges, it has not experienced large-scale interstate or civil war since.

Notably, this model of intervention has been applied in Libya in 2011 (with the support of a UN Security Council Resolution) but has not been replicated in other humanitarian catastrophes — such as those in Sudan or Nigeria — where the international response has been limited largely to economic sanctions rather than military action.

Iran as the Next Test Case

Iran presents a compelling opportunity to revisit the Balkan precedent.

Current tensions between the United States and Europe may complicate transatlantic coordination. Ideally, the U.S. administration would succeed in persuading European allies to participate in a targeted air campaign against regime military bases and Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

Like the Milošević regime, the Iranian theocracy has carried out mass killings of its own citizens, slaughtering tens of thousands in a matter of days.

Some observers have compared these atrocities to Babi Yar, where more than 30,000 Jews were murdered by the Nazis in 1941, or to the death toll inflicted by Argentina’s military junta during its seven-year rule.

From a human-rights perspective, the moral case requires little elaboration.

Unlike the Milošević regime, however, Iran poses a direct and ongoing threat beyond its borders. The Islamic Republic destabilizes the Mideast, threatens Israel, and endangers Western interests — including those of the United States, Europe, and Latin America.

In Europe, Iran’s criminal and terrorist activities are well documented. In Latin America, Iran and Hezbollah maintain an entrenched presence.

If NATO proves unwilling to act, the United States and Israel should not rule out acting independently. Iran’s proxy forces — pro-Iranian militias in Iraq and Syria and the Houthis in Yemen — have repeatedly attacked U.S. forces and American allies, including Saudi Arabia, and threaten U.S. partners throughout the Persian Gulf.

Should the United States choose not to intervene, Israel may have little choice but to act alone. From Israel’s perspective, a political settlement in Gaza and the disarmament of Hamas will remain impossible so long as the Iranian regime continues to arm, fund, and direct its proxies.

Moreover, Israel should not be expected to continue, as it has for the past two decades, to endure the persistent threat posed by Iran’s advancing nuclear program and its sponsorship of terrorism on its borders

It also goes without saying that a nuclear-armed Iran would constitute a grave global threat, triggering regional proliferation and dramatically increasing the risk of large-scale war.

Multiple pathways exist for action — by NATO, by the United States and Israel, or by Israel alone.

What is beyond doubt, however, is this: for the sake of the Iranian people, regional stability, and global security, the Iranian regime must come to an end.

Luis Fleischman, Ph.D., is a professor of Sociology at Palm Beach State College, co-president of the Palm Beach Center for Democracy and Policy Research, and the author of the book “The Middle East Riddle: The Peace Process and Israeli-Arab Relations in Changing Times.”