« Good fences make good neighbors | Who wins the Brian Ross Trophy this week? »
January 20, 2019

President Trump provides a refreshingly different approach to Iran

By Hamid Bahrami

Since President Trump moved to the White House, the U.S. policy on Iran has shifted significantly from Obama's passive approach to a firm and effective stance.

The world has been challenged by Iran for at least four decades on various issues such as illegal nuclear program; exporting terrorism; and, more important to the international community, "the deteriorating human rights situation."

How can the world expect a totalitarian state to take international responsibility while critics of the status quo are met with daily executions.

The Iranian people started 2018 with protests in more than 100 cities across the country.  At least 30 were killed and thousands were arrested during this nationwide uprising.

For a rare moment, disregarded Iranian voices were echoed in the U.N. Security Council by former U.S. ambassador Nikkei Haley as she repeated Iranians' anti-regime chants during a meeting.  

The authors of Dear God Please Bring Freedom to Iran, a book written by human rights activists Mr. Randy Noble and Ms. Mehnoush Bakhtiari, believe that only the collapse of the ruling regime can save the Iranian people.  Mr. Noble says Democrats and the liberal media are so obsessed with hating President Trump's policies toward Iran, while, unlike Obama, he is standing up for the Iranian people.

"The book's goal is to raise awareness of the suffering of the Iranian people," added Mr. Noble.  

The book tells the stories of the victims of human rights violations in Iran.  These atrocities, rarely reported by the press, are just the tip of the iceberg of the regime's brutality.  Unknown political and religious prisoners in Iran have suffered much more than the rare cases that are reported in the bylines.  

Take for example the case of Saeed Masouri, an Iranian political prisoner imprisoned since 2001, serving a life sentence for supporting and cooperating with the opposition Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK).  A Google search on his name quickly reveals the bitter fact that mainstream media are not interested in such cases.  

In December last year, an Iranian political activist, Vahid Sayadi Nasiri, arrested and jailed for his messages on social media, died after spending 60 days on hunger strike.  Before his death, the world hardly knew him. 

Ms. Bakhtiari believes that the U.S. administration has supported Iranians.  However, she puts her finger on a crucial fact and says "despite imposed sanctions, the ruling regime still oppresses people."  

Even though sanctions have restricted the ruling regime's financial sources, they have yet to affect the theocracy's ability to create an intimidating atmosphere in the society.  

Today, many Iranians believe that the interests of the Iranian people and of the U.S. are aligned.  

Facts do not speak for themselves; they provide us with opportunities to calculate and decide whether taking action is necessary.  Secretary Pompeo fathoms this and seeks appropriate ways to listen to the Iranian people.  During his recent tour in the Middle East, Secretary Pompeo made clear that the U.S. top priority is to hold Iran's regime to account and to empower the nation's suffering people.  

"Our effort is to make sure that the Iranian people get control of their capital," he said.  

On Thursday, the State Department ran a campaign on social media to engage directly with the Iranian people in this regard.  Secretary Pompeo was questioned and called on various issues, most of which echoed the legitimate demand of the Iranian people to get rid of the theocracy.  

Iranian activists reiterated what the leader of the Iranian resistance movement, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, recently said on Twitter following Secretary Pompeo's remarks in Cairo.  

Designation of the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) and the Ministry of Intelligence (MOIS) as terrorist entities, referring the dossier of human rights violations in Iran to the U.N. Security Council and recognition of representation by the resistance movement, were the steps supported by most activists during the social campaign.  

Now Secretary Pompeo knows what Iranians expect.  The future will show whether he is willing to implement them.