Iran’s crisis: We can’t look the other way
We cannot look the other way to the unfolding crisis in Iran. Blood has run in the streets of Tehran and provincial cities as the Islamic regime has turned its vengeance on its own people.
Thousands have died in this predictable but avoidable carnage. And it’s not over yet.
The world now waits nervously to see whether U.S. President Donald Trump will follow through on threats to topple the reviled Ayatollah Khamenei regime or adopt a “wait-and-see” approach, attempting instead to manage a wounded but still dangerous Islamic Republic.
Repression has weakened the opposition, but the regime as well. The country is ready to implode.
For nearly half a century, Iran has lived under the yoke of the Ayatollahs and a theocratic regime that has turned back the clock on the country’s future. It has used politicized Islamic dogma to suppress women’s rights, trample human rights, and pursue a brutal agenda of executions and public hangings reminiscent of a darker era. Yet its downfall may stem less from its repression than from a self-inflicted economic collapse and the plunging rial — a crisis that now touches even those who previously avoided politics.
Tehran’s bloody crackdown evokes China’s Tiananmen Square. It’s easy to be outraged, but it’s even easier to “change the channel” and watch something more pleasant than state-sanctioned barbarism. Families have had to search through body bags and then pay to retrieve the corpses of loved ones from the government ghouls who run the Revolutionary Guard. This is a regime of terror, driven by what can only be called a cult of death.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres cautioned, “maximum restraint at this sensitive moment and calls on all actors to refrain from any actions that could lead to further loss of life or ignite a wider regional escalation.”
Significantly, during the height of the crisis, the United States pressed for a U.N. Security Council meeting. U.S. Ambassador Mike Waltz stated that “the level of violence, the level of repression that the Iranian regime has unleashed on its own citizens … has repercussions for international peace and security.” He added, “The Iranian people are demanding their freedom like never before in the Islamic Republic’s brutal history.”
Addressing the council, dissident and former political prisoner Massih Alinejad added that millions of Iranians need “real and concrete action” against a regime that doesn’t understand the language of diplomacy. She faulted the U.N. for not responding “with the urgency this moment demands” and challenged the secretary-general, “Why are you afraid of the Islamic Republic?”
Iran’s Western enablers have long rationalized that the regime, despite its faults, brings a form of status quo stability. That’s for the oil business especially with China, which not surprisingly remains Iran’s largest trading partner.
But where are the multinational brigades of Palestine protesters from the “river to the sea” crowds that rocked campuses and cities across the world for the past year? Are they not interested in Iran’s fate and spilled blood?
Iran’s importance remains unrivaled in the Middle East. Long before the Ayatollahs seized power from the former Shah, Iran was a fast-improving socioeconomic success story fueled by petrodollars. As such, women did not face legislative oppression, or much, if any, religious oppression. Iran was a geopolitical lynchpin in a very unstable Middle East. Since the Iranian revolution in 1979, Iran has become a state sponsor and paymaster to the triple entente of terrorism ranging from Hezbollah to Hamas and the Houthis.
The world still faces a clear and present danger from the Islamic Republic, weakened as it is from domestic pro-demonstrations as well as the massive losses it suffered from U.S. and Israeli air attacks during the Israel-Iran war in June. Despite the largely destroyed early-stage nuclear program, the Islamic Republic retains conventional forces capable of regional havoc and crushing domestic dissent.
Trump warned, “It’s time to look for new leadership in Iran.”
Iran’s exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi has urged the world to support pro-democracy protesters seeking to topple Iran’s regime, stating he is confident that “the Islamic Republic will fall, not if, but when.” He told the media, “The Iranian people are taking decisive action on the ground. It is now time for the international community to join them fully.” He has positioned himself as a moderate political alternative, advocating a constitutional monarchy and a secular society.
Will we again see reluctance or realpolitik in dealing with the Mullah regime?
The flickering flame for a free Iran lights the path ahead.
John J. Metzler (jjmcolumn@earthlink.net) is a United Nations correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He is the author of "Divided Dynamism: The Diplomacy of Separated Nations; Germany, Korea, China."