The Debt We Owe the Dead

The number arrived at 3:47 a.m. Not from an algorithm. Not from a government source. Not from the intelligence community. From a doctor in Tehran who had stopped counting bodies two days earlier because counting had become an act of self-destruction. He had watched colleagues break down in operating theaters. He had seen security forces drag wounded protesters from hospital beds and execute them in hallways. He had run out of body bags, then run out of hope, and finally run out of the capacity to bear witness without losing his mind.

Thirty thousand. In 48 hours.

Two senior officials from Iran’s Ministry of Health told Time magazine that as many as 30,000 people were killed on the streets of Iran on January 8 and 9 alone. German-Iranian surgeon Amir Parasta compiled hospital records showing 30,304 protest-related deaths registered in civilian hospitals during those two days. This count excludes deaths recorded in military hospitals, bodies taken directly to morgues without hospital registration, and casualties in locations the network of physicians could not reach. The actual number is almost certainly higher.

If the figures hold, January 8-9, 2026, represents the deadliest 48-hour period of political killing since the Babyn Yar massacre of September 1941, when Nazi Einsatzgruppen murdered 33,771 Jews in a ravine outside Kyiv over two days. This comparison is not rhetorical excess. It is not hyperbole designed to shock. It is arithmetic. The Islamic Republic of Iran has now killed more of its own citizens in two days than the Shah’s government killed in the entire 14-year period leading up to the 1979 revolution. The regime that came to power promising justice has delivered slaughter on a scale that would make SAVAK operatives recoil.

The killing was not chaotic. It was systematic. Body bags ran out across the country. Eighteen-wheelers replaced ambulances. Security forces deployed DShK heavy machine guns, the same Soviet-era weapons designed to shoot down aircraft, against crowds of unarmed civilians. Rooftop snipers picked off protesters in intersections. Trucks mounted with automatic weapons rolled through neighborhoods. The regime turned its cities into kill zones and its security forces into execution squads.

In Kurdish regions, witnesses reported that the triggermen spoke Arabic, not Persian. The regime had imported its murderers. According to The Media Line, Iraqi Shiite militia members were recruited to help suppress Iranian protesters, receiving $600 each for their services. By January 11, more than 60 buses, each carrying about 50 fighters, had crossed the Iran-Iraq border. Nearly 5,000 militia fighters from Iraqi paramilitaries entered Iran to help the Revolutionary Guards crush their own people. When the regime’s own soldiers hesitated, Tehran brought in foreign mercenaries who had no compunction about killing Persian civilians.

Hospitals became execution chambers. Security forces in full riot gear stormed Imam Khomeini Hospital in Ilam, attacked medical personnel with tear gas and shotgun pellets, and executed wounded protesters in their beds. Doctors from southern Iran reported that security forces had “finished off” patients who had been admitted for treatment. At Tehran’s Farabi Hospital, the head of the facility reported that the number of patients with pellet-related eye injuries surged to around 1,000 on January 9 alone, compared with about 55 cases in the preceding days. Nearly 200 injured people were transferred to other hospitals due to capacity constraints. All beds were filled. Stretchers were borrowed from other facilities. Patients were placed in hallways. And then security forces came to kill the survivors.

The Hippocratic oath met the muzzle of a Kalashnikov. Medical professionals who tried to save lives became targets themselves. Witnesses reported that wounded protesters avoided hospitals entirely out of fear of arrest, choosing to bleed out in apartments rather than risk execution in emergency rooms. The network of Iranian doctors who compiled the death toll did so at extraordinary personal risk, knowing that their documentation could cost them their lives.

And then the regime did what it always does. It cut the internet. It severed the telephone lines. It plunged 88 million people into informational darkness. The blackout has now exceeded 400 hours, making it the longest and most severe communications shutdown in the Islamic Republic’s history. Connectivity dropped to roughly two percent of normal levels. Cellular and landline services experienced persistent disruptions, making it nearly impossible for Iranians to connect with loved ones or the outside world. Digital transactions ceased. Banks could not function. Pharmacies could not verify prescriptions. The internet outage disrupted everyday life while concealing mass murder.

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s X account continued posting throughout. The rest of Iran went silent. The regime could broadcast its propaganda to the world while ensuring that the world could not see what was happening on its streets. This was not a communications failure. This was a deliberate strategy to commit atrocities under the cover of digital darkness.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi issued a warning on January 9 about the possibility of a planned “massacre under the cover of a sweeping communications blackout.” She had already heard testimonies reporting hundreds of dead. She was right to fear the worst. The worst came. And it was far more terrible than even she had imagined.

This is not a protest. This is a war. And President Donald Trump must now decide whether the United States will fight it.

President Trump has made his position clear. “We are locked and loaded and ready to go,” he declared on Truth Social at 2:58 a.m. on January 2, 2026. “If Iran shots [sic] and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue.” The phrase “locked and loaded” is a classic military expression meaning a weapon is armed, ammunition is in place, and it is ready to fire. International relations scholars described the wording as an explicit threat that could be interpreted as readiness for military action.

Trump has repeated and amplified this message throughout the crisis. He has warned Tehran that killing protesters will trigger American consequences. He has invoked military options. He has promised to stand with the Iranian people. He told CBS News he was looking at “very strong options,” including possible military involvement. He called Khamenei a “sick man” who should “run his country properly and stop killing people.” He declared that “it’s time to look for new leadership in Iran.”

Senator Lindsey Graham, generally hawkish on foreign policy matters, argued that “on the peace and standing up to evil front, President Trump is on pace to surpass the great Ronald Reagan.” He added: “A weakened Iran, a nation run by religious nazis, is due to President Trump’s efforts to isolate Iran economically and to use military force wisely. It is time to Make Iran Great Again.”

The question is no longer whether the President means what he says. The question is whether his administration possesses the strategic architecture to convert rhetoric into results. Hope is not a strategy, and outrage is not a policy. Tweets are not troop deployments. The Iranian people do not need our sympathy. They need our logistics, our communications infrastructure, and our economic warfare. They need to know that the world’s most powerful nation will back its words with action.

The moment is urgent because the regime has now crossed a threshold from which there is no return. Supreme Leader Khamenei acknowledged in a speech broadcast on state television that “thousands” had been killed, some in what he called an “inhuman, savage manner.” This is an admission so uncharacteristic of the Islamic Republic that it signals either supreme confidence or supreme desperation. Khamenei blamed Trump, calling him a “criminal” responsible “both for the casualties and the damage.” He accused the United States of seeking to “devour Iran.” He made no mention of the brutal tactics of his own security forces.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian came to Khamenei’s defense, saying any aggression directed at the Supreme Leader would be seen as “all-out war” against Iran. Top Iranian General Mohammad Bagheri threatened to “cut off” Trump’s hand over potential military strikes. These are not the words of a confident regime, but of a government that fears it may not survive.

The protests began on December 28 with bazaar merchants striking over the currency collapse. The rial had plunged to a record low of 1.4 million per dollar. Inflation reached 50 percent, and bread prices rose 15 percent in a single month. Shopkeepers in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar, the traditional economic heart of the nation, shuttered their stalls in protest. Within days, the demonstrations spread to all 31 provinces. Workers, students, Kurds, Baluch, Azeris, and Arabs joined, as did women who had marched under the banner of “Woman, Life, Freedom” in 2022. The merchant class that had bankrolled the 1979 revolution turned against the regime it had helped create.

This uprising differs fundamentally from its predecessors. The 2009 Green Movement focused on electoral fraud and reform within the system, while the 2019 fuel price protests were a reaction to a specific economic grievance. The 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom movement addressed social issues and the oppression of women. This uprising differs in that it is an existential challenge to the Islamic Republic itself. Protesters chant “Death to Khamenei” and “Death to the Dictator,” wave the Lion and Sun flag of the pre-revolutionary monarchy, invoke the Pahlavi dynasty, and demand not reform but revolution.

When the bazaar moves, the country moves. that is the lesson of Iranian history—and the merchants have moved. The IRGC intelligence apparatus warned that the protests were “unacceptable,” language that signals a loss of confidence in the regime’s capacity to maintain control. Reports emerged of security forces defecting to the protesters, while videos showed soldiers refusing to fire on crowds. The regime imported Iraqi militiamen precisely because it could not trust all of its own forces to carry out the massacres.

The regime cannot pay its security forces adequately, nor can it fund its proxies at previous levels. The economy has been hollowed out by decades of mismanagement, corruption, and sanctions. Capital flight reached $80 billion between 2018 and 2024, and unemployment hovers around 25 percent. Young Iranians see no future under theocratic rule. The social contract between the regime and its people has shattered.

The June 2025 war exposed the regime’s military vulnerability in ways that cannot be undone. Israel struck Iranian territory directly. The United States struck Iranian nuclear facilities in Operation Midnight Hammer, damaging Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. The vaunted air defenses that Tehran had purchased from Russia and China proved inadequate, while its ballistic missile forces that were supposed to deter attack failed in their mission. The regime’s deterrent collapsed in just 12 days of combat.

The proxy network that Tehran spent four decades building is decimated. Hezbollah has been decapitated, its leadership eliminated by Israeli precision strikes, its arsenal depleted, its fighters exhausted. Hamas has been dismembered in Gaza, its military infrastructure destroyed, its senior commanders killed. Assad’s regime in Syria has fallen, removing Iran’s most important Arab ally and the land bridge to Lebanon. The Houthis in Yemen are isolated, their supply lines disrupted, their utility to Tehran diminished. The “Axis of Resistance” that was supposed to project Iranian power from the Mediterranean to the Arabian Sea has been shattered.

The Islamic Republic is weaker than it has been at any point since 1979. Its military has been humiliated, its proxies gutted. Its economy has collapsed, its people have risen, its own security forces waver. This is the moment. It is unlikely to be repeated in our lifetime.

We have been here before. On December 13, 1981, tanks rolled down the streets of Warsaw. General Wojciech Jaruzelski declared martial law. Solidarity, the trade union that had swelled to nearly 10 million members—roughly 30 percent of Poland’s entire population—was crushed. Thousands of activists were interned as the movement was driven underground.

Reagan recognized the moment for what it was: “This is the first time in 60 years that we have had this kind of opportunity,” he declared at a meeting of the National Security Council. “There may not be another in our lifetime. Can we afford not to go all out?” The fight of the Polish people for freedom reminded him of the first Americans who fought for independence from Britain. “It is like the opening lines in our own Declaration of Independence,” Reagan said. “When in the course of human events. ... This is exactly what they are doing now.”

The White House introduced economic sanctions against both Poland and the Soviet Union. But Reagan and CIA Director William Casey understood that sanctions alone would not be enough. They needed to keep Solidarity alive.

In November 1982, Reagan signed a presidential finding authorizing Operation QRHELPFUL, a covert program to support the Solidarity underground. Over the next seven years, approximately $20 million flowed into Poland through CIA channels. The agency smuggled printing presses for underground newspapers, radio equipment for clandestine broadcasts, and communications gear that let activists coordinate despite government surveillance. The National Endowment for Democracy channeled an additional $9 million through trade unions and NGOs. Radio Free Europe broadcast 18 hours daily in Polish.

The goal was explicitly not regime change by external force. The goal was to ensure that Solidarity survived and that the infrastructure of democratic resistance remained intact until internal pressure could succeed. This would be a war of ideas, fought with printing presses and broadcast transmitters rather than tanks and missiles.

The results speak for themselves. In June 1989, Solidarity won 99 of 100 seats in the Senate and all 161 seats it was permitted to contest in the Sejm. In December 1990, Lech Walesa became president of a free Poland. Within two years, the Soviet bloc collapsed, the Berlin Wall fell, and the Soviet Union itself dissolved.

Total cost: less than $30 million over eight years. Zero American casualties. One hundred million people liberated. Compare this to the $5 billion spent on the Afghan mujahideen, which produced a Soviet defeat but planted seeds of conflict that persist today. The Polish model yielded a NATO ally.

This is the model to be followed. It worked against a superpower-backed regime with one of the most effective secret police forces in the communist world. It can work in Iran against a regime that is weaker, more isolated, more hated by its own people, and more vulnerable than were the Polish communists.

The administration must deploy all elements of American power in a coordinated campaign to support the Iranian people and accelerate the regime’s collapse. This means information warfare to break the blackout, economic warfare to starve the regime of resources, diplomatic isolation to delegitimize the government internationally, military posture to deter escalation, and support for opposition forces to build the alternative. Each element reinforces the others; none is sufficient alone. Together, they can achieve what decades of containment and negotiation have failed to accomplish: the end of the Islamic Republic.

Information Warfare: Break the Blackout. The regime’s kill switch on the internet is its primary weapon of repression. Tehran has learned through hard experience that what the world cannot see, the world cannot condemn. During the November 2019 protests over fuel prices, authorities implemented a near-total internet blackout and crushed the demonstrations within 48 hours. Estimates suggest that between 300 and 1,500 protesters were killed during that crackdown, but the exact number will never be known because the blackout prevented documentation. The regime took that lesson to heart.

The current blackout is the most severe in the Islamic Republic’s history. Iran’s government has created what analysts describe as “their own Great Firewall that blocks everything but approved traffic.” There are only two companies that connect Iran to the internet, making blocking access relatively straightforward for the regime. Connectivity dropped to roughly two percent of normal levels. Circumvention tools such as VPNs have allowed limited online communication, but not at a scale sufficient to coordinate nationwide resistance or document atrocities comprehensively.

Starlink has already proven decisive in piercing this darkness. SpaceX activated free service for Iran following President Trump’s intervention with Elon Musk. Starlink accounts that were previously inactive now have connections, and subscription fees have been waived. According to Ahmad Ahmadian, executive director of the technology nonprofit Holistic Resilience, the service is “plug and connect ... just put the satellite terminal somewhere that has access to a clear view of the sky, and you’re good to go.”

Thousands of Starlink terminals have been smuggled into Iran over the past several years through clandestine networks, including the Middle East Forum’s Iran Freedom Project, which has deployed over 470 terminals inside the country. Estimates suggest there are around 50,000 Starlink receivers in Iran. These terminals now provide the only window to the outside world. The videos of bodies stacked in morgues, the footage of security forces executing protesters in hospital beds, the images of 18-wheelers replacing ambulances: all of it emerged through Starlink connections.

Mehdi Yahyanejad, an Iranian activist whose nonprofit Net Freedom Pioneers has helped smuggle units into Iran, pointed to video that emerged showing rows of bodies at a forensic medical center near Tehran. “That showed a few hundred bodies on the ground, that came out because of Starlink,” he said. “I think that those videos from the center pretty much changed everyone’s understanding of what’s happening because they saw it with their own eyes.” This is not about information as a luxury, but information as a weapon against tyranny.

But current capabilities are not enough. Terminals cost $599, which is unaffordable for most Iranians living under hyperinflation. GPS jamming has degraded connectivity by 80 percent in some areas. The regime has deployed military-grade Russian and Chinese jamming equipment against the satellite signals, while Iranian security services have taken “extreme tactics” to both jam Starlink’s radio signals and GPS systems. SpaceX pushed firmware updates to counter the jamming, but the cat-and-mouse game continues. Security services also rely on informers to identify Starlink users, search internet and social media traffic for signs of satellite usage, and raid apartments with satellite dishes. Under a law enacted in late 2025, possession of an unlicensed Starlink terminal is punishable by up to 10 years in prison, or even the death penalty if the user is accused of espionage.

The breakthrough technology is Starlink’s direct-to-cell service, in testing since 2024. This capability allows ordinary smartphones to connect directly to Starlink satellites without requiring specialized terminal hardware. If deployed at scale for Iran, direct-to-cell could put satellite internet in the hands of tens of millions of Iranians overnight. The president should issue a directive mandating that SpaceX prioritize direct-to-cell deployment for Iran as a matter of national security—an action that could transform the information environment.

The administration should also fund a crash program to deploy additional Starlink terminals through existing smuggling networks. The Iran Freedom Project and similar organizations have demonstrated the ability to move hardware into the country, but they need resources. Every terminal that reaches Iran is a weapon against the regime’s information monopoly.
Simultaneously, the administration should surge funding for Voice of America Persian Service, Radio Farda, and the State Department’s Global Engagement Center. These institutions were built precisely for moments like this, but they, too, need emergency appropriations, expanded broadcast hours, and the resources to reach every Iranian who can access a radio signal or an internet connection.

Critically, at least one organization that worked to provide Starlink terminals to the Iranian people lost U.S. government funding under budget cuts. Some groups still have their support intact, but funding is uncertain and payments are often delayed. There was widespread frustration among career officials at the State Department over these cuts. This is precisely the wrong moment to reduce investment in Iranian connectivity. The administration should restore and expand all funding for programs that help Iranians communicate.

The regime fears information more than it fears missiles. Give the Iranian people the tools to communicate, organize, and document so that the world can see what is happening in the streets of Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz, and Tabriz. The Islamic Republic cannot survive transparency.

Economic Warfare: Starve the Beast. When President Trump left office in January 2021, Iranian oil exports had fallen to approximately 300,000 barrels per day under maximum pressure sanctions. The regime was bleeding economically, its foreign currency reserves were depleted, and its ability to fund proxies was severely constrained. The Islamic Republic was as close to financial collapse as it had been since the Iran-Iraq War.

Under the Biden administration, enforcement of oil sanctions collapsed. Iranian exports recovered to over two million barrels per day, primarily to China. This represented nearly $2 billion monthly flowing to the regime—money that funded the IRGC, subsidized Hezbollah, armed Hamas, and sustained the repression apparatus now massacring Iranian citizens in the streets.

The February 4, 2025, National Security Presidential Memorandum 2 directed Treasury to renew maximum pressure with the explicit goal of driving Iranian oil exports to zero. The memorandum called for expanded sanctions, support for internal opposition movements, and disruption of Iranian proxies. This directive must be enforced with the same intensity that characterized the first Trump administration’s approach.

Every Chinese refinery purchasing Iranian crude must face secondary sanctions, every shipping company transporting Iranian oil must be designated, every bank financing the transactions must be cut off from the U.S. financial system. Every insurer covering the cargoes must choose between Iranian business and access to dollar-denominated markets. The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control should designate Chinese sanctions-evaders systematically and relentlessly.

The “ghost fleet” of aging tankers conducting ship-to-ship transfers to obscure the origin of Iranian crude should be interdicted by the Fifth Fleet in international waters. These vessels operate without proper flags, without adequate insurance, and without legitimate documentation, meaning they are engaged in sanctions evasion on an industrial scale. The U.S. Navy has the capability to stop them; what is lacking is the political will to act.

Beyond oil, the administration should target the IRGC’s commercial empire. The Revolutionary Guards control an estimated one-third of the Iranian economy through a network of construction companies, telecommunications firms, energy enterprises, and financial institutions. This economic dominance makes the IRGC both the regime’s sword and its banker. The U.S. should designate every IRGC-linked entity, freeze every accessible asset, track the personal fortunes of IRGC commanders and their families, and force the security services to choose between funding their repression apparatus and protecting their personal wealth.

The economic pressure is already having an effect. The rial’s collapse to 1.4 million per dollar reflects the market’s judgment on the regime’s viability. Inflation at 50 percent makes daily life unbearable for ordinary Iranians, while capital flight of $80 billion over six years demonstrates the smart money is fleeing. The regime cannot pay competitive salaries to its security forces, maintain its infrastructure, or provide basic services to its population. Economic warfare accelerates this decay.

Diplomatic Isolation: Make the Regime a Pariah. The Islamic Republic of Iran should be treated as what it is: a criminal enterprise masquerading as a government. A regime that has killed 30,000 of its own citizens in 48 hours deserves not diplomatic recognition, but international condemnation, isolation, and eventual prosecution.

The U.S. should coordinate with the E3 partners (France, Germany, and the United Kingdom) to expel Iranian diplomats from Western capitals. These diplomatic missions, which serve as intelligence platforms and sanctions-evasion hubs, should be shuttered, and coordinated walkouts from U.N. sessions should occur when Iranian representatives speak. It should be made clear that the international community will not conduct business as usual with a government engaged in mass murder.

The European Union is already moving in this direction. On Thursday, at the first meeting of the 2026 Foreign Affairs Council, the 27 EU countries are expected to approve a new sanctions package against Tehran. The sanctions regime will most likely target human rights violations, as the definition of the Iranian Pasdaran as a terrorist organization is on the table. Although unanimity among the 27 member states is reportedly lacking, even partial European action sends a signal.

An international mechanism to document atrocities and preserve evidence for future prosecution should be established. The Commission for International Justice and Accountability, which gathered evidence against the Assad regime in Syria, provides a model. A case should be built against Khamenei, IRGC commander Mohammad Pakpour, Supreme National Security Council secretary Ali Larijani (described by former Iranian government officials as the “mastermind of the massacres”), and other senior officials now to ensure that when the regime falls, the architects of the January massacres face justice at The Hague.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Iran has stated that the evidence justifies investigating the possibility that the killings of protesters were crimes against humanity. She noted that the mandate of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran could be extended to investigate whether Khamenei should be referred for investigation by the International Criminal Court. This is not merely symbolic, but a signal to regime officials that their futures include prison cells.

Human rights organization Hengaw argued on January 13 that, based on its evidence, the massacres of protesters were crimes against humanity under customary international law and the Rome Statute. The organization documented that government forces, acting within a coordinated, widespread, and systematic policy of repression, committed acts including the premeditated killing of civilian protesters and the extensive and lethal use of force, resulting in mass killings across Iran. This legal framework matters because it creates accountability.

Military Posture: Credible Deterrence. The President’s statement that the United States is “locked and loaded” must reflect reality, not mere rhetoric. The regime must believe that further massacres, attacks on American personnel in the region, or escalation against Israel will trigger kinetic consequences that the Islamic Republic cannot survive. Deterrence works only when the adversary believes the threat is real.

The administration has already deployed significant assets to the theater. According to reporting, the Pentagon ordered missile launchers and F-15 fighters to the Middle East in addition to the aircraft carrier Lincoln. Two carrier strike groups, the USS Harry S. Truman and the USS Carl Vinson, are operating in the region. B-52 strategic bombers have rotated through Diego Garcia, and F-15E Strike Eagles have deployed to Jordan. THAAD and Patriot missile defense batteries are positioned across the Gulf states to protect both American forces and regional allies.

The message should be unmistakable: the United States possesses the capability to strike any target in Iran at any time with overwhelming force. Every IRGC headquarters, command bunker, air defense site, and naval base is within reach. The regime’s leadership should understand that they are not safe in their offices, their homes, or the underground shelters where Khamenei is reportedly hiding.

The purpose of this posture is not to initiate a war, but to prevent one. The regime must calculate that escalation will produce a response it cannot survive. President Trump’s willingness to order strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities in Operation Midnight Hammer in June 2025 established American credibility. The strikes damaged Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan and demonstrated that the United States will use force when necessary. That credibility must now be reinforced through visible military presence and clear communication.

The administration should also consider targeted options that stop short of general war but impose concrete costs on the regime’s capacity for repression. Cyber operations against IRGC command-and-control networks could disrupt the coordination of crackdowns, and electronic warfare could jam military communications during massacres. Precision strikes against regime assets outside Iran, including Quds Force operatives, weapons shipments, and command nodes, could demonstrate American reach without triggering a full-scale conflict.

The menu of options between “doing nothing” and “total war” is longer than the foreign policy establishment typically acknowledges. The United States can impose costs on the regime, protect Iranian protesters through deterrence, and signal resolve without committing ground forces or initiating a broader conflict. Strategic patience combined with demonstrated capability was a winning formula against the Soviet Union, and it can work against the Islamic Republic.

Supporting the Opposition: Build the Alternative. The Iranian opposition is fractured but not incoherent. It lacks a single organizational structure capable of coordinating nationwide action and operates largely from outside the country. It includes monarchists and republicans, secularists and religious reformers, ethnic nationalists and cosmopolitan liberals. But it shares a common goal: the end of theocratic rule and the restoration of Iran to its rightful place among nations.

Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi has emerged as the most prominent unifying figure, commanding respect across demographic and ethnic lines that no other exile leader possesses. His January 8 call for nationwide protests, urging Iranians to seize control over city centers and hoist the pre-regime Lion and Sun flag, triggered the largest demonstrations since 1979. His message of constitutional monarchy, federalism, secular government, and restoration of Iranian national identity resonates with a population exhausted by 45 years of theocratic failure.

At a Washington press conference on January 17, Pahlavi said sustained pressure could hasten the collapse of the Islamic Republic, which he described as a “hostile occupying force.” He called for governments to target the IRGC by striking its leadership and command networks, intensifying sanctions, and shutting down illicit oil shipping operations. He said he still believes President Trump’s pledge that “help is on the way” is valid and called the president “a man of his word.” One of his advisers confirmed that Pahlavi has held discussions with senior members of Congress, mainly Republican committee chairs.

The administration should establish direct channels of communication with Pahlavi and other credible opposition figures. These include Nobel laureates Narges Mohammadi (currently imprisoned in Iran) and Shirin Ebadi (in exile), labor leaders coordinating the strike movement, and representatives of the Kurdish, Baluch, Azeri, and Arab minorities who have joined the uprising. The Kurdish opposition alone represents a significant force; nine Kurdish political parties have unified behind the protests, an unprecedented development.

The goal is not to select Iran’s next government. That decision belongs to Iranians alone, and any perception of American imposition would be counterproductive. Rather, the goal is to ensure that democratic forces have the resources, coordination capacity, and international legitimacy to prevail when the moment arrives. This is exactly what Reagan did with Solidarity. He did not try to pick Poland’s leaders, but ensured that when the moment came, democratic forces were positioned to succeed.

The National Endowment for Democracy, the International Republican Institute, and the National Democratic Institute should receive surge funding to support Iranian civil society organizations. These institutions were created for precisely this purpose and have experience supporting democratic movements in hostile environments and networks that can move resources to where they are needed.

Strike funds should be established to sustain workers who refuse to report to regime-controlled enterprises. The bazaar strike that sparked this uprising depended on merchants being able to absorb the economic cost of closing their shops. If workers know they will not starve, they can continue striking, making economic support for strikers a key weapon against the regime.

Legal defense networks should be built to document arrests and advocate for political prisoners. As of mid-January, over 24,000 protesters had been detained, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency. Many face charges of moharebeh (waging war against God), which carries the death penalty. International legal support can slow the execution machinery, publicize cases, and create pressure for the release of prisoners.

Secure communications platforms should be provided to opposition coordinators. The regime’s surveillance apparatus is extensive, but encrypted communications can protect activists. Every dissident who can communicate securely is harder to arrest, while every network that can coordinate without interception is more effective.

None of this requires American boots on the ground or direct military intervention in Iranian internal affairs. But it requires American will, resources, and commitment to the principle that people who fight for freedom deserve support from the world’s leading democracy.

It is observable reality—not American propaganda—that the Islamic Republic of Iran is the source of instability in the Middle East. For 45 years, Tehran has pursued a consistent strategy of exporting revolution, supporting terrorism, and destabilizing its neighbors. The regime that Ayatollah Khomeini founded has never accepted the legitimacy of a regional order it has worked consistently to overturn.

Iran sponsors Hamas, which massacred 1,200 Israelis on October 7, 2023, and Hezbollah, which has turned Lebanon into a failed state and launched thousands of rockets at Israeli civilians. It sponsors the Houthis, who have attacked international shipping in the Red Sea and fired ballistic missiles at Saudi Arabia, along with a network of Iraqi militias that have killed American soldiers and now send fighters to massacre Iranian protesters. Every major terrorist organization in the Middle East traces its funding, training, or weapons back to Tehran.

Iran pursues nuclear weapons to flout external pressure and export terrorism with impunity. Despite the 2015 nuclear deal, despite international inspections, despite diplomatic pressure, the regime never abandoned its nuclear ambitions. The June 2025 strikes set back the program, but the knowledge and the intent remain. A nuclear-armed Iran would be a permanent threat to regional stability and global security.

Iran is the jailer of a great civilization. The inheritors of Cyrus the Great, of Persian poetry and mathematics and philosophy, of one of the world’s oldest continuous cultures, have been imprisoned for four decades in a theocratic state that denies them basic freedoms. Women cannot choose what to wear, minorities cannot practice their faiths freely, artists cannot create, journalists cannot report, academics cannot teach, and entrepreneurs cannot build. The human potential of 88 million people has been suppressed by a regime that prioritizes ideological purity over human flourishing.

Remove the Islamic Republic, and the regional calculus transforms overnight. The Houthis lose their patron and become a local Yemeni problem rather than a threat to international shipping, and the Iraqi militias lose their funding and their ideological direction. Gaza reconstruction can proceed without Tehran shipping weapons to the next generation of terrorists, Syria can stabilize without Iranian intervention, and Lebanon can rebuild without Hezbollah’s stranglehold.
Israel achieves security not through permanent war but through the elimination of the threat that makes war inevitable. The strategic logic that has driven Israeli policy for decades changes fundamentally if Iran is no longer committed to Israel’s destruction. The Abraham Accords, which brought normalization between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan, can expand to include a post-Islamic Republic Iran that re-joins the community of nations.

This is not fantasy, but history. Before 1979, Iran was Israel’s closest partner in the region, with the two countries cooperating on intelligence, trade, and strategic planning. Iranian Jews lived freely in Tehran, one of the oldest and most prosperous Jewish communities in the Middle East. Persian and Hebrew, both ancient languages of great civilizations, were spoken by peoples who saw each other as natural allies rather than mortal enemies.

Before 1979, Iran was America’s most important ally in the Persian Gulf. The Shah was a flawed ruler, but he was a modernizer who sought to bring his country into the twentieth century. Iranian students studied at American universities while American companies did business in Tehran. The ancient trade routes between Persia and the West hummed with commerce and cultural exchange.

The Iranian people did not hate America before 1979, and most of them do not hate America now. Rather, they hate the regime that tells them to hate America while stealing their wealth and murdering their children. They hate the government that chants “Death to America’ while enriching the Revolutionary Guards and impoverishing ordinary families. The regime’s anti-Americanism is a tool of domestic control, not an expression of popular will.

As they have made clear repeatedly, the protesters in the streets of Tehran, Shiraz, Isfahan, Tabriz, and hundreds of other cities are not asking for American soldiers, but for American solidarity. They are asking for the tools to communicate when their government cuts off the internet, the sanctions enforcement that will bankrupt their oppressors, and the diplomatic pressure that will isolate the regime internationally. They want to be certain that the world’s most powerful nation stands with them against the murderers in turbans who have ruled their country for four decades.

The cost for U.S. action is measured in millions of dollars. By comparison, the Reagan administration spent less than $30 million over eight years to support Solidarity, and the result was the liberation of Eastern Europe and the end of the Cold War. A comparable investment in Iran could produce comparable results: the liberation of 88 million people and the end of the Islamic Republic’s threat to regional and global security.

The cost of inaction can be measured in tens of thousands of corpses, families forced to pay for the bullets that killed their children, and protesters executed in hospital beds. It is measured in the young Iranians who will never see freedom because the world looked away when they desperately needed help.

There is also a strategic cost to inaction. If the United States fails to support the Iranian people now, after the President promised to stand with them, American credibility will suffer for a generation. Our allies will question whether American commitments mean anything, while our adversaries will conclude that American threats are empty. The message will be clear: America talks about freedom but does nothing when freedom fighters bleed in the streets. That message will embolden authoritarians everywhere.

Thirty-thousand dead, perhaps more. We will not know the true number for months, if not years. The regime is still killing, the internet is still dark, and the families who lost children on January 8 and 9 are still being forced to pay for the bullets that took those lives. Reports indicate that families must pay between 700 million and 2.5 billion rials per round to retrieve the bodies of their loved ones, depending on the caliber of ammunition used. The regime profits from the corpses it creates.

The dead include students who dreamed of a different future, workers who wanted to feed their families, women who refused to accept second-class citizenship. They include Kurds and Baluch and Azeris who demanded recognition of their identities, and doctors who tried to save lives but were killed for their compassion. They include ordinary Iranians who simply wanted to live in a country where the government serves the people rather than enslaving them.

The dead cannot be brought back. No policy, no intervention, no amount of American support can resurrect the 3o,000 who fell on January 8 and 9. Their lives are over, their dreams gone. Their families will mourn them forever.

But the dead can be honored by ensuring that their sacrifice produces the result they died for: the end of the Islamic Republic and the birth of a free Iran. They can be honored by breaking the information blackout, so the world knows their names and their stories. They can be honored by strangling the regime economically so it cannot fund the next massacre, and by isolating the murderers diplomatically so they face judgment. They can be honored by supporting the opposition so that democratic forces prevail when the regime finally falls.

The protesters who survived January 8 and 9 know the risks they face. One protester in Tehran told reporters, “I know there is a high chance I will be killed but I will still go because I want to take back Iran.” Such courage and sacrifice deserve American support. Those who are willing to die for freedom should not die alone and forgotten.

President Trump made a promise when he told the Iranian people that, if the regime killed protesters, the United States would come to their rescue, that America was locked and loaded and ready to go. He warned of strong action and called for new leadership in Iran. The Iranian people heard these words, took heart from them, and found courage in them.
Now they are waiting to see whether America keeps its word.

The playbook exists. Ronald Reagan showed us how to support a democratic movement against a brutal regime without American casualties or direct military intervention. Operation QRHELPFUL cost less than $30 million and helped liberate 100 million people. The same approach can work in Iran.

We have the tool: Starlink can pierce the information blackout, sanctions can strangle the regime economically, diplomatic pressure can isolate the murderers internationally, and military deterrence can prevent escalation. Support for the opposition can ensure that democratic forces are positioned to succeed.

The time has come, when the Islamic Republic is weaker than ever and militarily humiliated. Its proxies have been decimated, its economy has collapsed, its people have risen, and its security forces waver. We are witnessing the opportunity of a lifetime.

What is required is American will—presidential will—the resolve to convert rhetoric into action, promises into policy, and words into weapons against tyranny.

History will record what happens next. Will the United States stand with the Iranian people or abandoned them? Do American promises have meaning? Did 30,000 people died in vain or as martyrs for a freedom that was finally achieved?

We owe a debt to the dead. It is time to pay it.