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From the Editor: Don’t Forget the Iranian People

Aaron Kliegman

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People attend the funeral of the security forces who were killed in the protests that erupted over the collapse of the currency’s value in Tehran, Iran, Jan. 14, 2026. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

There are betrayals, and there are betrayals. When it comes to the long-oppressed Iranian people, Donald Trump is guilty of the latter, an act of abandonment so egregious that it’s not only morally shameful but also strategically damaging. Indeed, a broken US presidential promise would have been hard to stomach; the added loss of global credibility and strategic leverage is another story — one that could taint Trump’s legacy.

The US-Iran memorandum of understanding (MOU) has been scrutinized from all angles over the past week, but there has been little mention of the Iranian people, who in many ways are the most important factor to this whole conflict. Nearly every journalist and analyst who commented on the war since Feb. 28, when the US and Israel began striking Iran, has acknowledged that the mobilization — or lack thereof — of ordinary Iranians would ultimately determine the country’s future, regardless of how effective the military campaign turned out to be.

But the MOU states in the second paragraph the following: “The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran undertake to respect each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and to refrain from interfering in each other’s internal affairs.”

No call for ending political executions. No demand to stop systemic sexual violence against prisoners. No insistence that the regime must stop preventing families from retrieving the bodies of slain protesters. Instead, the US-backed document says no support for the Iranian people and, depending on one’s interpretation, not even any criticism of the regime’s human rights abuses.

On an unrelated note, the Iranian government has, under cover of the ceasefire, continued to ramp up its executions of people arrested on political charges, such as spreading propaganda and espionage. The regime’s message is clear: We are in charge and will not tolerate dissent.

Here it’s worth recalling how this conflict began. Demonstrations erupted in Iran on Dec. 28 over economic hardships. These quickly escalated into large-scale, nationwide protests calling for the downfall of the country’s theocratic, authoritarian system.

The Islamist regime responded with a vicious crackdown, arresting and murdering tens of thousands of demonstrators in the dark after imposing an internet blackout. The onslaught was one of the deadliest, most ferocious incidents of government violence in modern history, with much of the carnage taking place over just two days.

But this regime doesn’t just slaughter protesters. It’s security forces brutally rape and torture nurses who try and treat the wounded and then force their families to pay money to have their loved ones released — either dead or alive.

The point of such excessive cruelty is humiliation and intimidation, to break the will of a restless population so full of potential and ready for a better life if not for the regime’s incompetent governance and ruthless will to stay in power.

Amid the darkness of January, however, there was a bit of hope.

Before the mass slaughter of Jan. 8-9, Trump promised to come to the Iranian people’s “rescue” and “hit” the regime “very hard” if there was a violent crackdown. In the days that followed, he promised that “help is on the way” for the Iranian protesters being slaughtered by their own government, calling on the demonstrators to “keep protesting” and “take over your institutions.” Trump repeatedly issued such statements in interviews and social media posts.

For weeks nothing happened, but this was the context in which Trump built up US forces near Iran. While it was clear that the US and Israel were discussing war plans and addressing the Iranian threat more broadly, it’s not at all clear that Trump would have deployed military assets as he did without the impetus of the protests, which led him to begin issuing public threats to Tehran.

Then he struck. Of course, Trump chose to attack not as a humanitarian but for a variety of strategic reasons, such as preventing a regime hellbent on fulfilling its slogan of “death to America, death to Israel” from building up its nuclear and ballistic-missile programs to a point of virtual invulnerability.

However, Trump made clear in his remarks announcing Operation Epic Fury that he had the Iranian people very much in mind.

“To the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” he said. “Stay sheltered. Don’t leave your home. It’s very dangerous outside. Bombs will be dropping everywhere. When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”

Trump continued, “For many years, you have asked for America’s help, but you never got it. No president was willing to do what I am willing to do tonight. Now you have a president who is giving you what you want, so let’s see how you respond. America is backing you with overwhelming strength and devastating force. Now is the time to seize control of your destiny, and to unleash the prosperous and glorious future that is close within your reach. This is the moment for action. Do not let it pass.”

You know what happened next: decimation, Hormuz, ceasefire, MOU. And here we are.

Under the MOU, the regime will get billions of dollars it otherwise wouldn’t have received. Iran’s economy will remain in shambles, but the government will be able to avert a total economic collapse. Security forces may not get paid in full, but they will get more than before the deal was signed. Same for Iran’s terrorist proxies. And some of the funds will surely go toward rebuilding the nuclear and missile programs — slowly, quietly, in ways that won’t immediately raise alarm bells in Washington. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which controls huge swathes of the Iranian economy, will benefit.

Ordinary impoverished Iranians will get nothing. And those foot soldiers in the security apparatus will notice, recognizing the best-case alternative to oppressing their countrymen is destitution. The incentives for them to defect have been reversed, at least for now.

The regime cares about staying in power above all else and therefore fears its own people far more than US or Israeli bombs. As The Algemeiner has reported, Iranians overwhelmingly hate their regime but have increasingly lost hope in change.

The Mossad is no doubt working on new plans to foster revolution inside Iran, and hopefully the CIA is too. But despite all of Trump’s threats throughout this year, the Iranian people are now on their own to face the regime. After January’s massacre, they likely won’t come out into the streets without more organization — organization that the regime is making nearly impossible with its ability to shut off the internet and patrol the streets at night warning people not to protest.

Trump had a rare opportunity to help free a great and ancient civilization, cementing his place as a world historical figure regardless of his politics. It wouldn’t just be destroying a tyrannical death cult but allowing an especially capable people in a large, strategically located country to flourish and unleash their potential. The Middle East would be transformed, and the world would benefit. To use an economic term, the world’s opportunity cost of the Iranian people being stymied by the Islamic Republic is incalculable.

Trump still has time. This MOU may prove to be nothing more than a long pause to get past the US midterm elections, allowing Trump then to ramp up the pressure once again.

Maybe. I’m certainly hoping. More likely, however, is what my eyes and ears are telling me: The Trump administration caved, lacking the will to out-escalate Iran.

Either way, Trump has lost enough credibility over his repeated, unfulfilled promises to the Iranian people and threats to bomb Iran’s infrastructure that too few people believe what he says now.

Like Trump, the US officials currently leading the negotiations — JD Vance, Jared Kushner, and Steve Witkoff — don’t recognize the importance of ideology and seem to think they can find the key to unlock Tehran’s recalcitrance, if only they can figure out Iran’s “interests.”

But this is a regime that rapes and tortures nurses to the point of needing their intestines or uterus removed just for trying to help fellow Iranians who were shot while protesting. And many, though not all, of the leaders of this regime who oversee such horror do so with the confidence that the god of Islam is on their side.

The US administration has left the Iranian people at the mercy of this evil. Even if they and much of the media forget what is happening inside Iran, we certainly won’t.

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Aaron Kliegman is the executive editor of The Algemeiner.

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