Iranians are fearful that the sacrifices they made in demonstrating against the regime will be erased if US President Donald Trump makes a deal with Tehran, two Iranians told The Jerusalem Post over the past week.
Speaking to Israelis is considered a criminal offense in Iran, and the Islamic regime has frequently accused individuals of ties to Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency to justify its campaign of executions. After masses of protesters were killed by the regime in January and thousands more arbitrarily arrested or disappeared, the Iranians who spoke with the Post did so on condition of anonymity.
Z. described the “great deal of hope” placed in Washington and Israel after Trump promised "help was on its way" in January.
"Iranian Patriots, keep protesting - take over your institutions! Save the names of the killers and abusers. They will pay a big price," the president promised as the regime's brutality suppressed demonstrations across the country.
While the regime acknowledged fewer than 4,000 deaths and blamed most of them on foreign-backed rioters, human rights groups and anonymous officials speaking to Western media have estimated the true toll at closer to 30,000. The regime’s internet shutdown, threats against victims’ families, and mass disappearances have made it difficult for the outside world to determine the full scale of the killings.
“The people of Iran are in a very bad psychological state and have little hope for the future,” Z., an older professional, wrote, adding that little had improved since Mojtaba Khamenei succeeded his father, Ali Khamenei, after the elder ayatollah was assassinated in February.
Khamenei reduced to little more than a face
Z. believes Khamenei has been reduced to little more than a face, and the country is not being run by the top commanders in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards. He is not alone in his suspicions, as countless reports have pointed to the growing power of Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and the IRGC’s alleged role in ensuring Khamenei was selected by Iran’s Assembly of Experts.
“People have no hope for internal reform within the regime, and their only hope is pressure and force from other countries. People had a great deal of hope in the United States and Israel and saw them as forces of liberation, but unfortunately, what is not discussed in American policy toward Iran is the terrible condition of the Iranian people,” Z. wrote. “If an agreement is reached, people will completely lose hope for changing the regime.”
Washington and Tehran are currently negotiating a deal which could see the regime handed $24 billion in frozen assets, the lifting of sanctions, and a waiver allowing the regime to freely sell oil, according to multiple media reports. Experts have previously warned the Post that such concessions would be a “lifeline” for the regime, which is on the brink of financial collapse.
He put little faith in reformists but was unopposed to putting a figure like former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a temporary position of power to fill the vacuum during a transitional period “until free elections are held.”
While accepting of such a reality, Z. noted that Ahmadinejad was considered “the right hand of the former Supreme Leader” and oversaw great political and economic pressure imposed on the Iranian people even if “he presented himself as a serious critic of the leader” after his presidency concluded.
Z. claimed that the majority of people he knew were hoping that the war would start again.
“The people of Iran were very happy about Trump returning to power and saw him as their savior, but now that trust has become very weak because of Trump’s recent policies. People believe America fought only for its own national interests, and in Trump’s recent positions, there is no sign of any support that would give people hope for regime change,” he concluded. “The Islamic Republic is not a normal or conventional regime. People cannot force the regime to change its policies through civil methods or civil activism, and therefore, people need outside force and assistance.”
Iranians 'no longer see any way out other than war'
X., an older Iranian whose young daughter was murdered on January 8 in a Western province of Iran, told the Post, “Eighty percent of the people no longer see any way out other than war.”
Since losing his daughter, X., like many Iranians, has faced mounting economic hardship. The internet shutdown has devastated the Iranian economy, which was already struggling to recover from the June war and years of tightening Western sanctions. At the same time, the Islamic regime’s continued funding of proxy groups left many promised social welfare programs unfunded, including measures introduced under the Family Support and Youthful Population Law, leaving millions waiting for assistance that never came. The $7 subsidiary offered to citizens in June has done little to touch the mass inflation in Iran.
“Right now, economic conditions are even worse than before January, and people are enduring all of this only with the hope that war might once again become the path to salvation, especially [for] families whose loved ones’ blood has been trampled on,” he wrote, adding that “everyone” was waiting for “Mr. Trump to finish what he started and uproot these people from the entire world.”
X. concluded, “We were not killed so that we would compromise, or praise the murderous system.”