Don’t Repeat Obama’s Mistake in Iran

Excerpt

The protests in Iran are persisting in the face of the regime’s indiscriminate violence. President Trump has vowed to strike Iran for killing protesters; he has also said he wants to have talks. The besieged but cagey mullahs, who have come to fear Mr. Trump’s unpredictable bellicosity, may offer appealing concessions. They may even agree to nuclear inspections, given the West’s and Mr. Trump’s earlier inclination to put the nuclear question above all others. The administration is at its own-designated fork in the road, with any decision carrying momentous ramifications.

Protests have spread to nearly all Iran’s provinces and cities. Even Persians are throwing themselves into a rebellion with a passion and fearlessness that we have seen in the past only from Iran’s ethnic minorities. Molotov cocktails, improvised flamethrowers and other makeshift weapons are being used against the security forces, whose martyrdom the regime hails. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his henchmen aren’t about to flee to Moscow or the holy city of Najaf, Iraq. They intend to shoot their way out of their predicament. Mr. Khamenei and his followers equate the survival of the Islamic Republic with the survival of Islam itself.

Mr. Gerecht is a resident scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Mr. Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.