In January 2026, the world saw the largest mass protests to erupt in the Islamic Republic since the Mullahs put Iran on the path to theocratic fascism in 1979. The protests began with street vendors, the bazaari, then moved on to students and the youth of Tehran, to women, men, the middle-aged, the rich and poor. Within two nights only, from January 8-10, at least 36,000 unarmed people were killed by members of the regime’s Revolutionary Guards (the IRGC, the regime’s volunteer militia), units of the Iraqi Shiite Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), the Lebanese Hezbollah, the Pakistani Zainabiyoun Brigade, and the Afghan Fatemiyoun Division. More than 100,000 were reported to be injured, and some 50,000 people arrested on the spot. Some of Iran’s military (which is separate from the IRGC) defected, others shot at unarmed people. According to an Iranian teachers’ union, over two hundred school children are among the killed. Body parts such as hair and scalps were sold on the black market;* bodies were loaded onto trucks, brought to the outskirts of the bigger cities, heaped up in piles, and burnt. Families were made to pay up to US$5,000 for the “funeral” of their massacred loved ones and subjected to sadistic demands, such as being forbidden to cry in public. The injured going to hospitals for treatment of gunshot wounds were assembled in yards and nearby streets—partly still on mobile infusions—then shot and killed.
Body parts such as hair and scalps were sold on the black market; bodies were loaded onto trucks, brought to the outskirts of the bigger cities, heaped up in piles, and burnt.
Mass arrests took place, with pending death sentences for muhāraba, “offenses against Allah”. The regime sentenced thousands who had partaken or were suspected to have partaken in the protests to death; executions still take place daily as I write. Prominent young athletes, artists, doctors and lawyers are among the executed. Not so well-known simple people as well—but the regime wants to make a point of executing celebrities.
Why all of this? The answer is simple: because they could get away with it.
The catastrophe that preliminarily ended in the shameful and terrible “Memorandum of Understanding” between the United States and the oxymoronically named Islamic Republic after a war that Trump and Netanyahu, very much left to their own devices, fought against the regime was accompanied by endless kid gloves treatment of the Islamic Republic from all actors of the “International Community”, predominantly politicians, NGOs, the official media apparatus and the inevitable social media influencers. It was framed by mindless “Stop the War”-cries, a great deal of compassion for the architect of the pogrom, Supreme National Security Council secretary Ali Laridshani (who was killed in an airstrike on March 17), as well as the Supreme Leader, Khamenei, himself.
Why all of this? The answer is simple: because they could get away with it.
German political magazine Der Stern composed the headline: “Donald Trump and Bibi Netanyahu – The Strategist and the Beast“, claiming not that a regime that has conducted the biggest massacre of unarmed civilians in the recent history of the Middle East and finances the greatest terrorism network in the world has “plunged the world into chaos”, but only the people willing to bring an end to it.
And it goes on: the Süddeutsche Zeitung, for example, found the tender description of Khamenei as a “dictator who knew how to write poetry”. The Ayatollah was titled as a “religious leader” on a par with the Dalai Lama, not as a mass murderer, tormentor and oppressor whose courts apply stoning and whiplashes as means of punishment. The German “Editorial Network” news agency noted instead that the Ayatollah’s “hallmarks were the black turban, denoting his descent from the Prophet Muhammad, his white beard, and his thin-framed glasses”. This makes one almost forget that Hitler’s hallmarks were his funny mustache, his German shepherd Blondie, and his undying love for Eva Braun.
This kind of lenience towards the Iranian regime could be heard not only from the usual useful idiots for the Islamists on the left of the political spectrum, but from well-established EU parliamentarians, UN and NATO apparatchiks, the BBC, CNN, the New York Times, and the churches. If having a heart for child murdering and women-hating religious fanatics wasn’t already a well-established fact for these people—see what is as good as silence on the Jihadist takeover of Somalia, the no less bloodthirsty persecution and massacre of Christians in Nigeria, or the organized child sexual abuse, rape, trafficking, and racial and religious targeting of thousands of young English girls by predominantly Pakistani men in the UK within the last few decades—one might actually be surprised.
Having a heart for child murdering and women-hating religious fanatics is already a well-established fact for the EU, the UN, NATO and the established media apparatus.
One may only cite the UN Secretary General’s congratulations for the Islamic Republic’s anniversary only weeks after the massacre, or the Pope’s hypocritical condemnation of the US and Israel’s targeted airstrikes while his patience with the IRGC seemed infinite in January 2026.
Trump, the bogeyman of a zombified establishment that hates Israel so much it makes excuses for a regime beating up women for showing their hair, was not in luck with his announced and justified goal for regime change (“nothing less than regime change“). And yet, the decisiveness within the “International Community” needed to topple a murderous regime was lacking. Too great was the delusion that opposing Trump and Netanyahu was more important—yes, moral, even—than getting rid of the worst regime in the world, whose people pay daily with their lives for “offenses against Allah.“
Here is a reason: the airstrikes took place in the shadow of the war between Gaza’s Hamas and Israel. How well the PR went for Israel in the past three years, is well known, despite so much mindless resentment against an imagined “Jewish control of the media”. Somehow the “anti-Zionists” had the upper hand in public opinion, especially among the affluent urban educated milieu, so much so that an explicitly, let’s say, negatively Israel-obsessed DSA-member was elected mayor of New York City, and sworn in on the Qur’an only 25 years after Islamist fanatics flew into the two towers of the World Trade Center with their only aim to kill as many “infidels” as possible.
Trump, the bogeyman of a zombified establishment that hates Israel so much it makes excuses for a regime beating up women for showing their hair, was not in luck with his announced and justified goal for regime change.
It therefore seems that getting away with the mass slaughter of unarmed protestors in cities like Tehran, Mashhad, Isfahan, Shiraz, Yazd, Qom, and hundreds of others, while the Persians begged the West to help them in not getting slaughtered and in getting rid of the theocrats was par for the course. The verbal shoulder-shrugging in official statements, the both-sideism, the half-hearted calls of UN and EU officials for the regime to “restrain itself” were the clearest signs of moral complicity with the Mullah regime (a term that the German news outlet Katapult recommends not to use, as it only contributes to “enemy-making”).
And finally, their reckoning paid off. Trump’s enemies had their way.
The Western Left‘s deathly pit they call a heart isn’t the real news here—nor was their zero interest in the anti-Hamas June 26 mass protests in Gaza. Their silence on Islamist brutality may be deafening, but their complicity with Hamas and the IRGC is something they have considered themselves proud of for almost three years. Destructive nihilism is their ideology of choice: no surprises here.
The real news is that Trump’s enemies have thoroughly failed the Iranian people— but they were not alone.
The first step to leaving the Iranian people to their fate was the catastrophic Memorandum of Understanding of June 17, a tell-tale sign of Trump’s readiness for capitulation. While the Memorandum is toast now, it is worthwhile to remember the rhetoric it came with: praised over the moon by a clueless J. D. Vance, who had said earlier that Israel would “drag” the US into this war (as though the most powerful state in the world were a helpless puppy led on a leash by, you guessed it, none other than Israel), he doubled down on Israel-bashing like a teenage lowlife on Joe Rogan last week. Indeed the Trump administration has its own failure to reckon with. This is despite the pressure that Trump faced from foreign countries and established international organizations between early March and mid-June this year.
Trump knew that the war would be relatively unpopular with his voters—though not half as unpopular as the official US media wants you to believe—and wanted to get it over with. After all these years in one of the most powerful positions in world politics, he is still a businessman for whom nothing counts but THE DEAL.
The MOU has never been a deal, and US air strikes—briefly discontinued —have been taken up again, after Iran attacked commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz on July 7 and breached the “pre-nup”.
And yet, the MOUS’s wording revealed a lot about a lackluster approach to Iran’s theocracy, its constant threats to its geographic neighbors (not just Israel) and the US, and the nation’s interior state of exception that has become completely normalized in the wake of the January protests. Mostly, it is a tit-for-tat in relation to Iran’s nuclear program, and as such it is a defeat in relation to Iran’s plans for nuclear rearmament, setting fewer restrictions (i.e. providing for the lifting of economic and military sanctions) and therefore worse than Obama’s 2015 JCPOA. And it is still likely to delineate the way forward—or rather, backward—in US-Iranian foreign affairs and to send worrying signals to global autocracies.
The MOU is worth revisiting because it demonstrates the US’s readiness to squander its military leverage when given the choice to end an unpopular war and get energy supply back rolling. It also demonstrates that the explicit favors and generous gifts to the Islamic Republic’s regime could not assuage the hardliners—a “total war” against the US seemed preferable to generous political and military concessions. What the Iranian leadership were willing to give up on in order for what can only be called a war of attrition to continue is neatly shown in the agreement.
As usual, the interesting bits of the Memorandum are in the details:
Paragraph 1: — The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran and their allies in the current war are signing this MOU to declare the immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon, and undertake from now on not to initiate any war or any military operation against each other, and to refrain from the threat or use of force against each other, and ensuring the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon. The final deal will confirm the permanent termination of the war on all fronts, including in Lebanon and other provisions of this paragraph.
The striking bit (apart from the garbled English) is that Iran successfully put Lebanon’s Hezbollah on the negotiating table. In an agreement between the US and Iran, it is strange that Lebanon and Israel should be included, and yet, by agreeing on the end of Israeli retaliations against Hezbollah’s continuous attacks on Israeli soil (note that mention is made of “the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Lebanon”, but not Israel), the paragraph implicitly recognizes Iran’s relationship to its proxy, Hezbollah.
Paragraph 4: — Immediately upon the signing of this MOU, the United States of America will begin the removal of its naval blockade and any disturbances or impediments against the Islamic Republic of Iran, and will fully end the naval blockade within 30 days. During this period, the traffic of vessels will be in proportion to the numbers of pre-war traffic being restored by the Islamic Republic of Iran. The United States of America further undertakes to remove its forces from the proximity of the Islamic Republic of Iran within 30 days after the final deal.
This scarcely warrants further comment; it would have been, in effect, the actual text of the US’s declaration of capitulation (in tandem with paragraph 6-7).
Paragraph 5: — Upon the signing of this MOU, the Islamic Republic of Iran will make arrangements using its best efforts for the safe passage of commercial vessels with no charge, for 60 days only, from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman and vice versa. The traffic of commercial vessels will immediately start, and considering the need for removing the technical and military obstacles, and demining by the Islamic Republic of Iran will be instated within 30 days […]
The untold story behind this paragraph is that control over Strait of Hormuz would have allowed Iran to transport oil worth US$10 billion (as recently illustrated in this talk) and therefore to effectively lift the sanctions, as paragraph 7 further confirms.
Paragraph 6: — The United States of America undertakes with regional partners to develop a definitive, mutually agreed plan with at least US$300 billion for the reconstruction and economic development of the Islamic Republic of Iran. […]
What is the strategic aim of reparations this size? None: they were the effect of successful negotiating skills by Iran’s partners in the brokering process. They were random and uncalled for. This section would have clearly been a blueprint for the final lifting of sanctions, as is further corroborated by
Paragraph 7: — The United States of America undertakes to terminate all types of sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran, including the United Nations Security Council resolutions, IAEA Board of Governors resolutions, and all unilateral US sanctions, primary and secondary, in an agreed upon schedule as part of the final deal. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America acknowledge the critical importance of the sanctions termination issue above mentioned, and expressed their intentions to immediately address these issues in the negotiations in order to achieve mutual agreement on them.
Here is the rub: Trump’s—as much as Obama’s previous—delusion that, once certain concessions have been made, the Islamic Republic’s leadership would give up on its nuclear program. This is anything but clear, especially since the text of the “nuclear paragraph” (8) grants them even further leverage with regard to the development of nuclear arms:
Paragraph 8: — The Islamic Republic of Iran reaffirms that it shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons. The United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran have agreed to resolve the disposition of stockpiled enriched material pursuant to a mechanism that will be mutually agreed upon in accordance with the schedule mentioned in paragraph seven, with the minimum methodology to be down blended on site under the supervision of the IAEA. […]
In a perfect example of concept creep, the US would have no longer even insisted on the complete dismantling of Iran’s nuclear stockpile, but conceded to “downblending” under IAEA supervision, while the “issue of enrichment” would have remained open to further discussions.
The real character of this MOU was that of a successful blackmailing: if Iran would somewhat “blend down” its nuclear arsenal, it could have done as it pleased. Trump has here effectively greenlighted the Iranian regime’s continued “non-nuclear malign acitivity”, including reconstitution of their missile program, involving ICBMs capable of targeting US soil. But that is not all. Iran could have continued to use its monthly US$20 billion gains from its own crude oil trade—in addition to US$100 billion returned from frozen assets and “fully usable by the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic” (an IRGC-controlled institution), as paragraph 11 states—to finance global terrorism and continue terrorizing its own citizens.
Nuclear is likely to remain the central bargaining mass for Iran, with or without the deal. As long as Iran has that card, it can continue to destabilize the region. With Trump, many thought, that kind of game would be over. But even Trump, the first US president willing to go into open conflict with the Islamic Republic, cracked under the pressure at first. How the re-opening of military hostilities will change the course of US behavior is unclear—for now, it looks like there is a growing sense of being trapped. The world—not only the US—should ask itself if its efforts of appeasement towards the worst regime in the world have not created that trap in the first place.
*The sale and purchase of “real hair” by killed Iranians on the black market, operated by IRGC executives, is as gruesome as it is lucrative. A befriended hair stylist specializing in real hair toupees told me that his order of toupees is always behind, because customs officials have begun investigating a surge of black-market imports of real hair from Iran since February.
