In his 2017 historic speech before leaders of more than 50 Muslim nations gathered in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, President Donald Trump reset U.S.-Iranian relations by declaring his solidarity with the Iranian people. The president concluded his address with a prayer for “the day when the Iranian people have the just and righteous government they deserve.”
With thousands of Iranians pouring into the streets on Nov. 15 to protest a three-fold hike in gasoline prices, the president’s remarks about the Iranian people have assumed an urgency that we ignore at our peril. Having plundered Iran’s oil wealth and bankrupted its economy to advance a vision of Islam as a militant ideology, the country’s leadership has upped its violence against the Iranian people. The scale and scope of the regime’s crackdown was concealed by an unprecedented nationwide Internet blackout.
Fortunately, the blackout failed.