The Deal With Tehran Comes at the Expense of Iranians

As Washington negotiates, Tehran executes.

Iran’s judiciary announced on June 22 that authorities had arrested more than 3,000 people since the start of the conflict on charges of collaborating with Israel. Other estimates have put the figure as high as 6,000. Nearly 800 of those arrests were carried out after the April ceasefire under a newly enacted law that broadens collaboration with “hostile states” to include providing internet access and posting content online, while authorizing harsher wartime sentences.

With the naval blockade lifted and the U.S. administration’s maximum pressure campaign easing, the regime is turning its attention to the last threat it faces: the millions of Iranians who want it gone and who viewed the war as a step toward that outcome. An Islamic Republic that survives two military campaigns in the space of a year and receives the resources needed to weather domestic unrest has little reason to offer concessions.

Executions and Crackdowns Surge

The regime executed at least 1,639 people in 2025, with some estimates reaching 2,159, including nearly 60 on political grounds. In 2026 alone, the Islamic Republic has executed more than 45 political prisoners on security charges, including public hangings held during the Persian New Year in March. That tally excludes the nearly 40,000 unarmed protesters killed during the January uprising.

Following the ceasefire and under a total internet blackout, authorities deployed terror proxies from Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Lebanon across Iranian cities to help regime forces man over 1,000 checkpoints. These operatives killed ordinary Iranians in at least two cities. As the prospect of a deal grew in late May, residents across Iran reported that morality police and plainclothes agent patrols had intensified arrests over mandatory head-covering laws, closed businesses over such violations, and increased phone inspections.

Tehran Invokes War To Justify Repression

During the Iran-Iraq War, neighborhood-based revolutionary committees established checkpoints, raided homes, and detained suspected dissidents, while thousands were imprisoned and executed on charges ranging from espionage to ideological deviation.

Authorities arrested some 21,000 people across Iran during and following the war with Israel and the U.S. last June, carried out under a near-total internet blackout that cut off communication nationwide. In the weeks that followed, the judiciary called for expedited handling of security cases tied to charges like moharebeh (“waging war against God”), a crime punishable by death.

Israeli Strikes Degraded Iran’s Repression Apparatus

Going beyond the regime’s military sites, Israeli attacks eliminated senior figures responsible for internal security, including leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, its affiliated Basij paramilitary organization, and law enforcement. The strikes struck their bases across Iran, in addition to hyperlocal strikes on mobile checkpoints in major cities. These were accompanied by a messaging campaign to the people of Iran that their freedom was within reach, and in return ordinary Iranians publicized intelligence on the whereabouts of local repression units.

Don’t Alienate the Last Leverage

The sanctions waiver issued by Washington as part of the recent Memorandum of Understanding enables the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to sell oil and receive payment directly, financing the very institution that oversees repression. The agreement contains no mention of the Iranian people.

Incentivizing the regime to comply with a deal from which it already benefits should not come at the cost of alienating the Iranian people, the only existential threat to the Islamic Republic. A parallel diplomatic campaign can still speak directly to Iranians, as it did during the early stages of the war, ensuring that Washington does not sideline its strongest leverage against the regime.

Doing so means preventing Iranians from once again being isolated when the regime shuts down the internet during the next inevitable period of war or internal unrest. Washington should establish a federal interagency working group to develop shutdown-resilient connectivity, including satellite internet, direct-to-cell technologies, and capabilities to counter the regime’s jamming efforts.

Janatan Sayeh is a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where he focuses on Iranian domestic affairs and the Islamic Republic’s regional malign influence. For more analysis from the author and FDD, please subscribe HERE. Follow Janatan on X @JanatanSayeh. Follow FDD on X @FDD and @FDD_Iran. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.