Iranian ‘Hair Revolution’ Demands American Action

As the Iranian “hair revolution” intensifies in the aftermath of Mahsa Amini’s death following her arrest by hijab enforcers, Americans of good will are rightly asking what can be done to intensify the pressure against the Islamic Republic. It turns out that the answer is a lot, and the time to start doing it is now — beginning with President Biden.The commander in chief is waking up to the idea that, absent action, he could be in danger of repeating President Obama’s failure to back a similar protest movement in 2009. It was a shocking default: the American president standing silent as thousands of protesters were beaten and shot in the streets of Iranian cities. Sensing a need to act this time around, Mr. Biden’s treasury department this week issued a special exemption from Iran sanctions to SpaceX’s Elon Musk so he can distribute his Starlink services in Iran. Other American internet providers are now also exempt, free to help Iranian protesters communicate as the regime cuts off other internet services. Software providers can help Iranians bypass regime restrictions, and Mr. Musk will have to find ways to distribute his hardware, the Starlink mobile devices, to the protesters. Regime enforcers will not make it easy to do so. Capitol Hill can help with this. “Members of Congress can further support the Iranian people, strengthen their commitment to human rights, and enhance U.S. security by introducing legislation in the name of Mahsa Amini recognizing that it is in the national interests of the United States to help prevent atrocities against Iranian protesters,” the CEO of United Against Nuclear Iran, Mark Wallace, says. Social media giants like Twitter, meanwhile, are not yet being as helpful as they can, seeing that they provide platforms for the regime’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, as well as other Tehran officials and state-owned propaganda outlets. Twitter has in the past found reasons to block various high-profile American officials from using its services and banned a major newspaper, the New York Post, on the flimsiest of reasons. So, if Tehran’s move to shut down internet services to an entire country does not violate the platform’s rules, those rules could be considered worthless. As of now, Mr. Khamenei and other top Iranians can spew their falsehoods on American-based social media platforms even as the people of Iran cannot use Telegram, WhatsApp, and others to organize. An increase in public pressure on Twitter and the other platforms could, perhaps, help end this farce. Media giants are beginning to realize that interviews with the likes of President Raisi have lost the prestige they once carried. After Leslie Stahl’s much-panned “60 Minutes” interview with the leader, another high-profile television interviewer, Christiane Amanpour, turned down a chat with Mr. Raisi because she said he demanded she wear a hijab — something she has done in the past.The journalist-activist Masih Alinejad, who was first to lead the Iranian fight against the kind of strict dress codes for women that led to the death of Mahsa Amini, has long chided female Western diplomats for complying with the hijab rule while visiting Iran. Female power players such as a former European Commission foreign tsar, Federica Mogherini, and a former Swedish foreign minister, Ann Linde, have argued that they travel to Tehran to deal with “big issues,” which means they need to respect local laws that mandate hijabs. Ms. Alinejad countered that laws that oppress women are a huge issue that needs to be dealt with as well. The current uprising, following the death of the young woman at the hands of the morality police, shows how right Ms. Alinejad was all along, and how wrong are those who seek to reason and compromise with the oppressive regime. Yet, attempts at dealing with the Islamic Republic continue. Even as the Biden administration sanctions officials of Tehran’s morality police, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies is reporting that Washington plans to transfer $7 billion to Iran from South Korean-based accounts as ransom for the release of Americans held in the regime’s dungeons. “Paying for hostages is a dangerous policy that incentivizes the kidnapping of American citizens and is also a slap in the face to Gold Star Families who asked President Biden not to release any funds until all terror judgments are paid,” a FDD senior adviser, Richard Goldberg, says. Even as Iranians call to overthrow the regime, Mr. Biden is chasing a nuclear deal with Mr. Khamenei’s henchmen. The administration “remains categorically committed to mutual return to full implementation” of the 2015 nuclear deal, a senior state department official told reporters today, adding that the deal is “strongly in the U.S. national interest.”Intended “to put Iran’s nuclear program into a very well-monitored box,” the official said, the deal “was never intended to and did not address other points of concern about Iran’s policies.” In other words, dealing diplomatically with Amini’s killers is, yet again, meant to resolve the “big issues.” Beyond the humiliation entailed in begging for a time-limited agreement with a regime that clearly prizes a nuclear bomb above all, the real big issue is that such a deal would establish that the Islamic Republic — so hated in Iran’s bloody streets — is here to stay. The oppression of the current uprising is just beginning. It currently mostly involves the police, while the much more efficient Revolutionary Guards wait on the sidelines. If Washington truly intends to support the people of Iran, it should end its foolhardy diplomacy and announce instead that it will side with the brave people defying the mullahs: America should seek an end to one of the most oppressive and dangerous regimes of modern times.

Iranian ‘Hair Revolution’ Demands American Action

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