Jason Rezaian spent years reporting from Iran before being imprisoned by the regime. He says internet access is key to transforming the country—if only the US government would do something about it.
I mean, a lot of people go, “No, we love our people,” or, you know, the Israelis or Americans say, “No, we’ve got their back.” We say, “No, you haven’t. You haven’t done anything credible to support them.” How do I know that? Because their life gets worse and worse and worse, and you can’t just pin it on one group.
The Islamic Republic will pin it on America. We pin it on the Islamic Republic. In the middle, people are saying, “Hey, look, just help us.” And there have been many, many, many people who’ve said consistently, “If you’re gonna start this war, keep going to the end, because they’re gonna treat us much worse.”
When there is external force and pressure on an authoritarian state, and the Islamic Republic is a prime example, their response, their reaction, is always to take out more revenge and force on their population. It’s not an act of vengeance, it’s an act of survival.
The execution rate is as high this year as it was last year, and last year was the highest rate of executions that they’ve had since the early 1980s. It’s not rocket science. Unfortunately, I know and love a lot of people in that country, and I’m not willing to concede that their lives can be collateral damage in the ideological struggle between big powers.
Trump is in this boondoggle, for lack of a better word. He doesn’t seem to want to be in the war that he’s gotten himself into. It’s not totally clear why he’s in it in the first place. Israel is a critical X factor here, but the United States needs to untangle itself from this mess. How likely is a scenario where the Iranian regime essentially wins? It’s a real possibility, right? Then what comes from there? What does that mean for the Iranian people, for the geopolitical order?
I’m bullish on the future of the Iranian people. But when I say that, it’s a country that’s existed for basically 3,000 years, right? The short-term prospects don’t look particularly good. I think we have to have an approach to dealing with this country and supporting its society. Two separate things. Defang this regime, put it to sleep if we can, but not at the expense of the civil society and the livelihoods and life of the people in it.
Unfortunately, this is not an answer that is very satisfying to most people. This is not a two-month or a three-month or a five-month proposition. It’s something that we should’ve been investing in for 20 years or more, and we haven’t. I engage with people in the US government pretty regularly on these issues.
You’d be shocked at how few Iran experts there are for a challenge of this magnitude. We’ve deemed it this massive challenge. We really don’t put the same kind of resources into having expertise in it, having Persian speakers, you know, in government. There are probably more people who do strategic communications on Belgium than there are on Iran.
