Where We Can Agree on Iran
How Americans of both political parties can come together to support the Iranian people.
Imagine a free, democratic, independent and wealthy Iran
giving full expression to the beauty of Persian culture and the brains and
spirit of its people. Imagine a political, clerical and military elite that
doesn’t steal its country’s patrimony while brutally repressing its own people
and terrorizing its neighbors. We are long-time friends who have disagreed
vehemently on the wisdom of President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran;
Dan is Obama’s former ambassador to Israel, and Mark is one of that agreement’s
most persistent critics. But we agree with equal passion that Americans,
regardless of party or position on the nuclear deal, should be supporting the
aspirations of Iranians to be free from their brutal and corrupt rulers. That’s
the dream of the tens of thousands of Iranians who have taken to the streets
this past weekend in dozens of cities across the country.
Iranians are on the streets voicing fury about
corruption, inflation and unemployment—but they are also directing their ire
against the regime’s foreign adventurism in Syria, Lebanon and Gaza and against
the billions of dollars provided to terrorist proxies like Hezbollah. The
Iranian clerical regime is a cruel, human-rights abusing, terrorism-sponsoring
menace that is destabilizing the Middle East, developing and proliferating
missiles and seeking nuclear weapons. It runs an economy so far incapable of
capitalizing on the relief of sanctions for the good of its people because it
is regime-controlled, socialist, centrally planned and stifling to private
entrepreneurship. Companies controlled by the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, his
Islamic Revolutionary Guards and the clerical establishment provide billions to
grease their corrupt patronage networks. They have permeated key sectors of the
economy, creating legal and reputational risks that have sidelined both foreign
and private Iranian investors.
One clear takeaway from these protests is that, as
outsiders, we don’t know enough. The causes of the protests are not monolithic,
their scale is significant but not necessarily determinative, the trajectory is
uncertain, the leadership unclear and the regime’s response is likely to be
repressive. We must approach these protests with humility in understanding their
ultimate meaning and impact. They are big, bold, widespread, impressive and
heartfelt—but we have no idea if these protests will mushroom into a genuine
threat to the regime. We hope so; any prospect of shortening this Iranian
regime’s lease on life should be welcomed. If this movement could lead to the
end of Khamenei’s regime, it would be a boon mostly for Iranians but also for
Lebanese, Iraqis, Syrians, Yemenis, Israelis, Palestinians, Saudis,
Emiratis—and for Americans.
There is no reason for anyone who worked in the Obama
administration or supported the nuclear deal to not embrace these arguments.
The rationale for the deal was to roll back this odious regime from the
precipice of a nuclear weapon so that the United States could confront other pressing
Iranian threats. The Obama administration’s belief that this was, and remains,
the best (or least bad) strategic call, given the nuclear threat, need not
lessen our antipathy for this thuggish regime nor our hope for its demise. Deal
supporters should also be open to dialogue with deal opponents, whose concerns
over nuclear restrictions that sunset, inspection rights of military sites that
might prove insufficient and a missile program that is expanding has led them
to raise valid concerns. Chief among these: the need for measures to augment
and extend the deal’s provisions to prevent the eventual development of an
industrial-size, advanced centrifuge-powered, near-zero nuclear weapons
breakout capability and intercontinental ballistic missile program in the hands
of this regime.
Nuclear deal supporters and opponents should resist the
urge to make this a “gotcha moment” for people with whom they have tussled on
Iran policy. This undermines the cause of ensuring broad, bipartisan support
for peaceful protests, and hopefully real political change. Let’s focus on the
Iranian people and what the United States and our European allies can do to
advance their aspirations, not our own political squabbles. We can all agree
that hundreds of thousands of people protesting massive regime corruption and
repression should worry autocrats all over the world, from Iran’s Khamenei to
Russia’s Vladimir Putin to Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
What is to be done? Americans of both parties should
speak up. Iranians, like dissidents everywhere, are looking for support from
abroad. The Trump administration’s early statements have been important—as have
statements from Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Bernie Sanders, and Republican and
Democratic lawmakers. More attention to their cause, and more media coverage,
may help stay the security forces’ hand and encourage governments to isolate
the Iranian regime.
But more is required. First, officials both current and
former should be flooding the airwaves on Persian-language television and radio
to express their support for the Iranian people’s human rights and aspirations.
Let’s provide details on the stolen assets held by regime and IRGC officials,
and the vast sums spent on Iran’s destabilizing regional interventions. U.S.
taxpayers have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Voice of America’s
Persian Service and Radio Farda. Let’s use them. Keep politics out of it.
Condemn the regime’s human rights abuses and corruption; don’t re-litigate the
Iran deal.
Second, Congress should pass a joint bipartisan
resolution modeled on the language it passed overwhelmingly in 2012 in the Iran
Freedom and Counter-Proliferation Act in support of the “efforts made by the
people of Iran to promote the establishment of basic freedoms that build the
foundation for the emergence of a freely elected, open, and democratic
political system.” It again should condemn the government of Iran’s “massive,
systematic, and extraordinary violations of the human rights of its citizens.”
Update the language and get 535 members of Congress to endorse it.
Third, the White House, with an assist from the
Republican and Democratic leadership in Congress, should use authorities in
bipartisan statutes to target the regime for corruption through the Global
Magnitsky Act and for human rights abuses through the many executive orders and
statutes on the books. The ongoing crackdown on the peaceful protests will
provide additional targets for designation. Make no mistake: Iranian regime
officials don’t like being the target of travel bans, the loss of access to the
global financial system or the infamy that comes with being named and shamed.
In this regard, our European allies are particularly well positioned to support
us given their impressive track record in calling out Iranian government
repression, and their countries’ more extensive business ties in Iran. To
increase the impact on those designated, they should deny the access to Europe
that many representatives of the regime desire.
Finally, the Trump administration, with bipartisan
backing, should use sections 402 and 403 of the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria
Human Rights Act, passed with overwhelming support in 2012, to threaten
sanctions against global entities that supply the Iranian regime with tools of
repression and censorship. The White House should seek to ensure that companies
like Telegram, Twitter and Instagram are not complying with Iranian regime
requests to block channels used by protesters to organize and communicate.
These companies can be on the right side of history by doing all they can to
give Iranians the access they need to evade regime surveillance.
No matter what we say and do, the regime will seek to
blame the United States for the protests. It is already happening. That is a
reason for being smart by keeping the Iranian people at the forefront to avoid
inadvertently weakening their initiative, but not for doing nothing. As a
further measure to debunk the regime’s claims and proving our support for the
people, the Trump administration should consider ending the blanket travel ban
on Iranian citizens.
This is an important moment. The Iranian protests could
contribute, one day, to a peaceful Iran leveraging the initiative of its
remarkable people to build a free and prosperous society, at peace with its
neighbors and the United States. That goal—even as we still argue about the
nuclear deal—should unite our fractious political elites, at least on one issue.
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