The images from Iran are not a distant, abstract problem — they are a bloody, urgent reality that should awaken every freedom-loving American. What began as a righteous outcry after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in morality police custody exploded into nationwide demonstrations demanding dignity and basic human rights, and the world can no longer pretend this was only a local incident.
Behind the regime’s propaganda is a pattern of brutality laid bare by an independent UN fact-finding mission, which found systematic shootings, torture, sexual violence, and other abuses so widespread they qualified as crimes against humanity. The facts are ghastly: protesters shot at close range, children detained, and survivors permanently maimed — actions that expose theocratic tyranny for what it is.
Those who argue for restraint or “understanding” of Tehran should read the numbers and then rethink their moral calculus. International investigators and rights groups documented that hundreds were killed and tens of thousands detained during the crackdown — not the occasional excess, but a deliberate, organized campaign to terrorize a population into submission.
The slaughter in Zahedan is emblematic: security forces opened fire on worshippers and demonstrators in the Southeast, leaving dozens dead in what independent monitors called a massacre. This is not collateral damage from chaotic clashes; it is the predictable result when a regime values its power more than the lives of its citizens.
And Tehran has doubled down, using public executions and coerced confessions to send a message of fear — barbaric tactics aimed at breaking the human spirit. These televised punishments and secret trials prove that appeasement or dithering diplomacy only emboldens dictators who answer dissent with the gallows instead of reform.
Americans who cherish liberty should side openly with those who risk everything for freedom. The UN’s findings remove any plausible moral ambiguity: Iran’s rulers have perpetrated grave crimes, and the international community — especially our leaders — must stop treating the mullahs as a normal state actor and begin treating them as the criminals they are.
It’s time for conservatives who believe in freedom, faith, and the dignity of the individual to be loud and clear: support sanctions that target perpetrators, open safe channels for dissidents and defectors, and make it unmistakable that blood-stained regimes will not be tolerated in the family of nations. The fight for Woman, Life, Freedom in Iran is the fight of every American who still believes liberty is worth defending.
