“For the tens of thousands of Iranian protesters who have taken to the streets across Iran to demand freedom, it’s déjà vu all over again,” Sarah Stern writes in the Jewish Journal. “The last time Iran’s maltreated populace tried to break free from Islamofascism during the Green Movement in 2009, the mullah regime orchestrated a brutal crackdown with the tactical consent of the impotent West.”
Stern didn’t write this this week, as massive protests have broken out again across Iran.
No, she wrote it in 2018.
Indeed, the story of the Iranian people’s desperate fight for liberation is a long one.
It started in 1999–2000 with student protests, again in 2009–10 with the Green Movement, in 2017–18 with protests over economic distress, in 2019 following a sudden spike in fuel prices, in 2021 amid shortages of water and bread, and again in 2022–23 with the ”Woman, Life, Freedom” protests triggered by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini.
Now it is happening again.
Sparked by Iran’s ailing economy, tens of thousands of Iranians have taken to the streets since Saturday, chanting slogans that leave no doubt about their rage: “Death to the dictator.”
These brave protesters must be thinking what previous protesters thought: Can this time be different?
We’re all thinking the same thing: Could this be the moment when the Iranian masses finally break free from the chains of their oppressors? Or will this be just another protest that will fizzle out for lack of Western support?
President Obama’s disgraceful failure to support the Green Revolution in 2009 set the tone. Since then, support from the West has been too much empty rhetoric and not enough action.
The West has always been faced with a dilemma: If its support is too visible, the Iranian regime will use it to delegitimize the protesters. But that hardly means the West shouldn’t do anything.
On the contrary, we should double down on the stuff that has a real impact, from sharper economic sanctions to ensuring internet access and satellite connectivity to targeting those that provide Iran’s security forces with tools of repression, like surveillance technology.
There is also a lot of money in seized Iranian assets that could be used to help workers participating in strikes and boycotts.
The point is: We’ve learned that real change in Iran won’t come from a single dramatic moment of protest, like the fall of the Berlin Wall. This regime is too shrewd and its security forces too powerful. Real change is more likely to result from an erosion of the regime’s control through an accumulation of debilitating measures.
The economic sanctions, which are contributing to the inflation and currency collapse, must be tightened.
We must step up our support for Iranian diaspora dissident groups. These groups can provide material and moral assistance to protesters without being tainted as foreign proxies.
Every time we’ve seen Iranians demonstrate, we’re reminded that we’ve essentially ignored their plight in our fight against the regime. That fight was always global: We must stop the world’s number one sponsor of terror from obtaining nuclear weapons. As crucial as that goal is, the Iranian people have always had an even bigger one: regime change. They know that without taking down the theocratic thugs who have poisoned a great nation, nothing good can happen on any front, nuclear or otherwise.
The West, which has been weakened by a suicidal anti-Western streak among its leftist flank, does not seem too eager to help. As Melanie Phillips writes in JNS, “the West has been all but silent. There have been no demonstrations in its streets chanting ‘Free, free Iran!’ or ‘Death, death to the IRGC!’. For most of the week, the mainstream media simply ignored these tumultuous developments.”
We’re left, once again, with the last great hope: America. If President Trump is serious about his legacy, there’s nothing more valuable he can do than invest more resources and political capital in the liberation of the Iranian people. The big question now: With the protests turning deadly, will Trump deliver on his warnings to “hit back hard” at the regime, and how far will he go?
The only predictable thing about Trump is that he’s unpredictable. After his daring attack on Iranian nuclear facilities in June, Iranians don’t need more bunker busters. To gain their freedom, now they need regime busters. Will Trump be the one to wear the regime down until its fall becomes inevitable?
The street protests are electrifying. They move our hearts in solidarity with the Iranian people. But we’ve been there before. The Iranians don’t need another déjà vu. This time they need victory.
