The people of Iran have again taken to the streets, refusing to accept economic collapse and political indifference while their standard of living is stripped away. What began as shopkeepers striking over a plunging currency and unaffordable food prices has erupted into protests in city after city, a clear sign that ordinary Iranians have had enough of ruling clerics who put ideology before families. These brave citizens are standing up not for wokeness or foreign agendas but for bread, work, and the simple dignity every human being deserves.
Merchants closing their shops in Tehran’s bazaars and marketplaces were the spark, and the spark has ignited nationwide resistance, with footage and eyewitness accounts showing businesses shuttered and crowds gathering in commercial hubs. This is grassroots protest in the purest sense—shopkeepers, students, and everyday workers acting together because the regime’s mismanagement has pushed them to ruin. The spread of strikes and demonstrations should remind Americans that real change often begins with the productive class, not elites dictating from above.
The root cause is economic collapse: runaway inflation, a rial in freefall, and soaring food prices that make survival a daily struggle for millions of families. When citizens chant against corruption and mismanagement, they are pointing directly at policies that have enriched cronies and funded foreign adventurism while the pantry at home runs bare. The math is undeniable: economic disaster begets political unrest, and the ruling clerics own the bill.
Tehran’s response has been predictably two-faced—officials publicly call for unity and dialogue while security forces round up protesters and, in places, violence has already produced casualties. The regime’s reflex is repression, and every arrest and show of force risks turning economic grievance into a full political uprising. Conservatives who understand the cruelty of totalitarian systems should not be surprised; we have seen this playbook before.
Here at home, voices on the right like Fred Fleitz have rightly warned against hasty military adventures that would hand the regime an excuse to crush its own people and blame foreign enemies. Smart, principled conservatism means supporting freedom without playing into the regime’s propaganda—pressure, clear consequences for the Revolutionary Guard elites, and moral solidarity, not missiles that would rally the nation behind its oppressors. The objective must be to empower Iranian patriots, not to prop up Tehran’s narrative.
Patriotic Americans should cheer on the courage of Iranians who risk everything for liberty and basic economic sanity, and we should scorn the timid, appeasing posture of elites who pretend this is only an “internal issue.” Our sympathy must be matched by policy: targeted sanctions on regime enablers, sanctuary for dissidents, and support for independent media broadcasting the truth back into Iran. This is not interference in a cynical sense; it is standing with people who share our values of faith, family, and freedom.
Now is the moment for Republicans and conservatives in Washington to act decisively on principle, not for applause. Cut off the regime’s tools of repression, back the brave activists pushing for a future free from theocrats, and let America be the loud, moral voice that it used to be. The Iranian people are showing the courage generations of freedom-loving Americans admire—let us match that courage with clear, uncompromising support.
