When the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement erupted in September 2022, Iranian security forces embraced a new tactic: They fire grapeshot at protestors’ faces with the aim of blinding and maiming them. The psychological impact of such injuries, they calculated, would terrorize the public and force them to return to their homes.
If the regime reconsolidates control, Iranians can also expect a reign of terror.
More than three years later, an economic protest has escalated into an attempt at revolution. While the regime still has the upper hand, one thing is clear: Regime security forces and the Iraqi, Afghan, and Lebanese mercenaries they hired to suppress Iranian protestors have killed thousands and wounded far more. With reports of Iranian paramilitaries and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corpsmen entering hospitals to murder wounded Iranians, many Iranians likely are afraid to go to hospitals or get treatment they so desperately need. If the regime reconsolidates control, Iranians can also expect a reign of terror and so will begin to flee the country.
President Donald Trump may either be replicating President George H.W. Bush who, in February 1991, called on the Iraqi people to rise up, only to walk away when they did, or he might instead be following the path of President Bill Clinton, who decided to end the Serb slaughter of Kosovar Albanians, only to then realize it would take the Pentagon six weeks to get its Apache helicopters in place and ready to fly because his own Defense Department previously had believed the president’s own rhetoric about not putting boots on the ground. With the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group pushing toward the northern Indian Ocean from the South China Sea, Iranians soon will know what Trump intends.
Either way, though, he should help the Iranian people, especially those who took to the streets for freedom and liberty and now face real injury because of it. The U.S. Navy maintains two hospital ships: the USNS Mercy homeported in San Diego, California, and the USNS Comfort based in Norfolk, Virginia. He should order one to Dubai to offer free medical care for any Iranians who reach there. Such missions are why such assets exist. While kneejerk opponents of any such move may worry about Iranian targeting of such ships, this is unlikely for two reasons. First, Iran is loathe to upset the United Arab Emirates, which holds billions of dollars in Iranian investment and accounts. Second, the Emirates already allows U.S. military assets to dock or pass without incident because the Iranian government does not want to provoke a retaliation they cannot survive. Almost every U.S. aircraft carrier or amphibious assault vessel that has visited the Persian Gulf has docked at Jebel Ali in Dubai. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is far more likely to be concerned by the Lincoln than the Comfort or Mercy.
The value of treating Iranians will be not only humanitarian but also important for showing the world exactly what happened and the intent of the clerical regime in maiming and mutilating men, women, and children.
The value of treating Iranians will be not only humanitarian but also important for showing the world exactly what happened.
There is also recent precedent. Less than a month after Trump returned to the Oval Office, the USS Devastator and U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Clarence Sutphin Jr. rescued five Iranians after the M/V Shayesteh cargo ship sank in the Persian Gulf. Six months before, sailors attached to the USS Theodore Roosevelt Strike Group rescued two Iranian sailors, providing them with medical care, food, and water onboard the carrier.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth sees himself as a soldier’s soldier, but sometimes non-kinetic assets can advance U.S. interests far more than simply playing Whac-A-Mole with the Revolutionary Guard. For the sake of the Iranian people, dispatch the hospital ships now.
