In January, Donald Trump uttered the most fitting words of his presidency. As protesters filled the streets of Iran, he told them, “Help is on the way.” How they heard him through the government blackout is unclear, but his message was that their sacrifice could be worth it – that the most powerful man in the world was backing them.
The protesters now have good reason to feel betrayed. Before the Islamic Republic began killing thousands of fellow pro-democracy protesters, Trump raised a finger in support. This month, immediately after starting strikes in the name of removing from power the regime that committed the atrocities, he told it protesters, “When we finish, take over your government.” But he quickly dispelled such a notion recommend that he would happily make a deal with the existing government group. In other words, Iran’s democracy was never important. Then, on Friday, he dismissed the possibility of protesters overthrowing the government. “I think that’s a huge hurdle to climb,” he told Fox News.
When Trump thought the protesters could win, he made extravagant promises. After it became clear that they would not be able to overthrow the mullahs quickly, he considered them as allies. His external interpretation casts doubt on their prospects – potentially disappointing the very people he claimed to be defending – and he has dismissal alternatives such as Reza Pahlavi, son of the deposed shah of Iran. By refusing to apologize for the unfortunate attacks on civilians, he has reinforced the government’s claim that the United States does not really care what happens to the people of Iran.
The failure to nurture a democratic Iranian opposition is a legacy of the two sides of American foreign policy. Barack Obama distanced himself from the 2009 Green Revolution, when Iranians took to the streets to protest rigged elections. Resentful of the CIA’s role in the 1953 coup that ousted Mohammad Mosaddegh, he avoided encouraging the protesters or pledging support. (Truthfully, the opposition group did not really want American support, because the administration used the concept as an excuse to suppress the opposition.) When he began negotiating a nuclear deal with Iran, he seemed to believe that pressuring the administration against human rights abuses would only hinder diplomacy. He lost an opportunity to negotiate a bailout that might have protected Iran’s civil society or at least given activists some hope.
Presidents would not need to find a better way. In Communist Poland, the CIA quietly is provided the Solidarity movement with money and underground communication tools—fax machines, printers, computers—passed them through the AFL-CIO and the Vatican. In Czechoslovakia, Radio Free Europe advertisements notices of opponents to return to the country after the government suppressed them. None of this stopped Ronald Reagan from exchanging major arms control agreements with the Soviets. All of that patiently undermined the Warsaw Pact from within.
Where previous administrations were lax in targeting the enemies of the Islamic Republic, the Trump administration has diligently dismantled the machinery that the United States once used to support democratic movements abroad. His administration destroyed VOA, laying off 1,300 employees. Spent the last year trying hips National Endowment for Democracy, a government-funded foundation that funds civil society organizations in authoritarian states—independent newspapers, labor unions and human rights watchdogs. It also suggested remove the secretary of state for citizen security, democracy and human rights and dismissed the career officers who worked on the cover as “left-wing activists.” Courts in some cases have tried to restrain the hand of the administration—Tuesday, for example, the judge rejected administration attack VOA and order workers to return to work by next week—but the damage will not be easily repaired.
This campaign to suppress the federal bureaucracy has also undermined the cause of regime change in Iran. Kari Lake, who oversees America’s Global Media Corporation, which operates Voice of America, he boasted about the efficiency gained after reducing the organization’s Farsi-language broadcasting—from an hourly program to sometimes as little as 30 minutes day. According to news reports, he also refused to authorize the use of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty flyers capable of broadcasting to Iran during the height of the January protests (a claim that Ziwa has to be contested) When the United States attacked Iran last June, he was forced to do so remember several VOA Persian service anchors he had placed on administrative leave. When the conflict broke out, many of those workers were laid off behind on vacation. Given Trump’s hostility to civil society and an independent media at home, he would never seriously promote them abroad.
Iran was supposed to be the next chapter in the democratic revolution that ended the Cold War. For decades, protesters continue to return to the streets, knowing they may end up hanging from a noose or sleeping in a mass grave. By defying their oppressors, they advance American interests and what we used to call American values. They’ve still been treated like puppets for decades, and now Trump has played with their hopes, raising expectations he never intended to meet, asking them to risk their lives, then admitting, in so many words, that he never intended to. If regime change is the only permanent solution to Iran’s nuclear problem, then US foreign policy should begin and end with people willing to risk their lives to change it.
