https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahsa_Amini_protests
> otherwise the populace can just ignore their government's foreign policy decisions
It's a murderous regime. It's not a government that you can write letters to and vote away.
There's so much historical precedent for this working. If a consortium of Western militaries show up and say "join us fighting against your government or when we win you'll be killed/exiled as a traitor" the population will flip immediately.
It's not as if we don't do this already, we just quietly orchestrate violent revolutions and install people loyal to the west. This method would at least be more honest about it.
Perhaps that's what the countries wish would happen - but there's dictatorships all around the world that don't enjoy the pointy end of the international community's proverbial sanction stick.
Iran simply has to stop being an international nuisance and people would happily return to doing business there.
In the past decade, we've had two US Administrations that desperately sought to warm relations with Iran. Ball is/was in Iran's court, and so far they keep forcing people to punish them...