While some Iranians might be seeing the “beginning of the end” of the Islamic Republic, the question of the hour is whether President Biden is starting to realize that pursuing diplomacy with Tehran’s clerics may be seriously harming the prospects for democracy in Iran.

Mr. Biden’s national security adviser, Jacob Sullivan, invited an Iranian-American leader of the “hair revolution,” Masih Alinejad, and her husband, Kambiz Foroohar, to the White House today, signaling Washington’s growing support for the Iranian protest movement. 

“Spoke with @AlinejadMasih and @kambizf about the United States’ support for brave protestors taking a stand for justice for #MahsaAmini, and condemned the brutal and violent repression they are facing,” Mr. Sullivan tweeted afterward. “We will also continue to support Masih and other Americans targeted by Iran.”

The Iranian regime is believed to have Ms. Alinejad on its assasination list, after having made at least three attempts to kidnap her. This summer an alleged assassin dispatched by the Revolutionary Guards showed up at her Brooklyn home. The threat against her and Mr. Foroohar have not ceased.

“My two observations: @jakejsullivan is genuinely upset about #MahsaAmini death and under no illusions about brutal crackdown,” Mr. Foroohar tweeted after the White House visit. “How to respond is tricky but the USG needs to hear more from Iranians.”

Before today’s meeting, the American government mostly heard from Iranian-Americans who are avid supporters of diplomatic engagement with the mullah regime. Now even figures such as the Quincy Institute’s Trita Parsi express qualified support for the mass protest sweeping Iran, even as they continue to advocate engagement. 

“Even if unbridled repression quells the immediate manifestation of discontent, the challenges for the system are profound,” another White House confidant who has backed Iran diplomacy, the Crisis Group’s Ali Vaez, tweeted today in a long thread supporting Iranian protesters. 

Now in its third week, the anti-regime insurrection is widening. Launched in the aftermath of the killing of young Mahsa Amini, who was accused of improperly donning the mandatory headdress, it has adopted the theme that Ms. Alinejad has promoted for more than half a decade: that the strictly enforced Islamic dress code — “women apartheid” — is at the heart of the regime’s ideology, resulting in unending cruelty. 

Sure enough, a growing number of women are bravely risking arrest or worse by publicly removing and burning their Hijabs, and they are now joined by millions across Iran who simply want to end the regime’s 58-year rule. 

“After killing many protesters over the tragic death of ⁦‪#MahsaAmini‬⁩, people still taking to the streets to chant against the killers,” Ms. Alinejad tweeted today. “‎This is just the beginning of the end. ⁦‪#IranRevolution‬⁩ might [not] happen overnight, but it will.”

Mr. Biden, who has long vowed to place human rights at the heart of his foreign policy, was nevertheless also adamant about resurrecting the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that President Trump discarded in 2018. That goal is becoming ever more complicated, as the systematic violation of rights is increasingly hard to ignore.

It may get worse: As of yet, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has not fully joined police and Basij street thugs in a concerted effort to put down the protests. Confusion at the top, as rumors swirl about the deteriorating health of Supreme Leader Khamenei, may be the reason. Yet, sources in Iran say they fear a bloodbath once the Guards get fully engaged. 

The Islamic Republic is premised on the notion that the regime’s power is bestowed by Allah, and it abhors the ideal of a people-empowered government. “They are often explicitly contemptuous of democratic accountability, which they see as an occidental idea that denies divine agency,” two keen Iranian watchers, Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takeyh, write in the National Interest.

With Tehran’s current extreme leaders, “Biden and his advisors, who once bought into [President] Obama’s promise, may now be the first administration to not hold out hope that Iran might change,” Messrs Gerecht and Takeyh write. “Khamenei and [President] Raisi may have ended the four-decade search for ‘moderates’ that started with Jimmy Carter.”

Then again, “it’s unclear at present if the increasing human rights designations and tough talk indicates a course correction by team Biden,” a Foundation for the Defense of Democracy Iran watcher, Behnam Ben Taleblu, tells the Sun. 

“So long as the administration has at the heart of its Iran policy the resurrection of the JCPOA it will continue to be caught flat footed in response to protests in Iran and fail to live up to its own promise about a human rights-centric foreign policy,” Mr. Ben Taleblu says. 

Indeed, even as the administration yesterday announced the tightening of sanctions against Chinese and other global violators of the American embargo on Iranian oil exports, renewing the JCPOA remains its top goal. Washington failed to forcefully respond to an Iranian attack on Iraqi Kurdistan Wednesday. Fourteen people, including an American citizen, Omar Mamoudzadeh, were killed. 

Diplomacy with Tehran — and the prospect of showering its leaders with cash under a renewal of the JCPOA — confers legitimacy on a regime that, for the sake of America, the Mideast, and the Iranian people, needs to be gone.