CBN’s Jerusalem bureau chief Chris Mitchell went live this week to walk Americans through a crisis that should shock every freedom-loving citizen: a nationwide uprising in Iran and a regime answering with blackout and blood. Mitchell, on the ground and reporting from the region, stressed that what began as bread-and-butter economic protests has morphed into something far more consequential for liberty and regional stability.
The unrest began on December 28, 2025, and quickly spread from Tehran to all 31 provinces as ordinary Iranians—tired of corruption, runaway inflation, and a currency collapse—took to the streets in historic numbers. What started as economic grievance turned into a full-throated rejection of the clerical regime as demonstrators raised the old national flag and called for real change.
Predictably, the ayatollahs moved to silence the world by pulling the plug on the internet; on January 8 the regime engineered a near-total digital blackout to isolate citizens and hide its brutality. Monitoring groups and technical data showed an engineered collapse of connectivity designed to prevent Iranians from organizing and to choke off the flow of evidence to the outside world. This is the playbook of dictators who fear the truth more than anything.
In the chaos that followed, credible reports and leaked hospital data point to a catastrophic toll. Independent investigations and journalistic estimates vary, but the figures—ranging from thousands to tens of thousands killed and hundreds of thousands injured—paint the picture of a regime committed to survival at any cost rather than reform. The Iranian government’s own numbers and outside tallies diverge wildly, which only underscores how the blackout and arrests make independent verification nearly impossible.
The United States and its allies have begun repositioning assets as the world watches nervously: U.S. naval forces, including the carrier Abraham Lincoln, were moved toward the region amid stern U.S. warnings over potential executions and mass killings. This is not the time for Washington to feint or fiddle with half-measures—showing strength and a clear willingness to protect human rights and deter outside meddling is exactly what the Iranian people need to know they are not forgotten.
Conservatives should be unapologetic in calling the regime what it is: a tyrannical theocracy that will stop at nothing to keep power. We owe the brave Iranians on the streets more than empty words from the diplomatic corps; we owe them decisive pressure, targeted sanctions, and unwavering moral clarity that contrasts with the moral confusion of appeasers. America must side with freedom, not a brutal regime that murders its own people and exports terror across the region.
The media and the left’s reflexive sympathy for dictators who posture as anti-Western must be called out. Too many in legacy outlets downplay the courage of protesters and rationalize the regime’s violence as “stability maintenance” when in truth it is state terror. Real patriots stand with those who risk everything for liberty and should demand our leaders use all lawful means to back their cause.
If there is any lesson from history, it is that silence equals consent for evil. Christians, conservatives, and all who believe in human dignity should amplify the stories leaking out, pressure senators and representatives to act, and refuse to let the tyrants in Tehran get away with a modern massacre behind a digital curtain. America’s role as a beacon for the oppressed demands nothing less.
