Reza Behrouz

The reactions from the Biden administration’s State Department and the Democrat-controlled Senate to the deaths of the Islamic Republic (in Iran) regime’s president Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian have been, to put it mildly, disappointing, and to be blunt, outright disturbing.

From an official statement of condolences issued by the State Department, to an eulogy and prayer read for Raisi by the Senate Chaplain, to U.S. Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations standing during a moment of silence to honor Raisi, it is astonishing to witness the lengths Washington Democrats will go in order to please the Islamic Republic regime in Iran. These politicians are hopelessly out-of-touch vis-à-vis Iran and the sentiments of the Iranian people. 

For nearly two years (perhaps much longer), beginning with the tragic death of Mahsa Amini in the hands of the Islamic Republic regime’s brutes, the people of Iran have gone out of their way, risking their lives to tell the Biden administration that the Islamic Republic does not represent them and that the regime needs to go. They affirmed this conviction by taking to the streets, fighting against a regime that is armed to the teeth and so ruthless that it would not hesitate for a moment to murder a child in broad daylight. Prior to that, in 2021, the Iranian people vastly boycotted the regime’s sham elections that won Raisi his throne as the “president” of the Islamic Republic by default. It was the lowest election turnout in the history of the Islamic Republic. And yet, Senate Chaplain delivers a prayer for the Iranian people, “as they mourn the loss of their president.”

Astounding.

On this side of the ocean, Iranian American activists selflessly did their part, waiting long and excruciating hours in the corridors of Congress, just to speak for a few minutes with US legislators on behalf of the Iranian people. They called their senators and representatives during their lunch breaks at work. They took vacation days from their day jobs and paid their way out of pocket to Washington in order to meet with lawmakers, merely to convince them that the Islamic Republic regime is brutalizing the Iranian people and that the U.S. government should help. Not surprisingly, these activists encountered the greatest reluctance, dismissiveness and apathy from Democrat lawmakers. 

When Rob Malley, a dogmatic character deeply entrenched in the Islamist and neo-Marxist circles was ousted from the State Department, a sliver of hope emerged that Biden’s Iran policy will undergo an overhaul in the positive direction. Although the disgraced former Iran Envoy’s departure was celebratory for the Iranian American community, to their dismay, nothing changed in terms of Biden’s Iran policy. As some Iranian Americans had already speculated, the Biden administration was Barack Obama’s third presidential term. The Iran policy atmosphere in the State Department remained the same, likely owing to Malley’s appointees and holdovers. The conciliatory approach with the Islamic Republic regime continued in a way that illustrated complete disconnect with the larger Iranian American community’s desires, and seemingly aligned with the ideological aspirations of the State Department’s “progressive” midlevel staffers. 

Symptoms of a flawed and contradictory Iran policy are apparent. Examples are President Biden’s abysmal Nowruz message, in which he awkwardly made reference to the war in Gaza and the Palestinians, and worse, State Department’s Persian language Instagram page showcasing Faezeh Hashemi Rafsanjani, a corrupt regime oligarch, as the “defender of women throughout Iran.”

With regard to Iran, Washington Democrats are suspended in time; stuck in an era that no longer exists. The overstated and enervated saga of the 1953 “CIA-orchestrated coup” that purported to have overthrown the “democratically-elected Prime Minister,” which is a creed for the Democrats and ostensibly the linchpin for their Iran policy, is meaningless and obsolete to the Iranian people. The “revolutionary ideals” and aspirations that overthrew Iran’s monarchy in 1979 and gave rise to a despotic theocracy are frowned upon by the young generation of Iranians, while US Democrats still hold on to the belief that the Islamic Republic regime was a fair and just replacement for the “tyrannical monarchy.” The Iranian people have also moved on from the desires of the 2009 Green Movement and its “reformist” leaders, while the Democrats remain attached to the mythical “moderate versus hardliner” dichotomy in the regime’s leadership.

Being utterly ignorant and tone-deaf aside, the perception of the Iranian American community is that such policies are formulated and enforced by the Democrats with cryptic malice. Behind these actions and inactions is an arrogant complacency that is motivated by brusque and excessively vocal “progressive” ideologues who, above all, are at war with American imperialism and thus, view the Islamic Republic as their champion. They devour regime’s propaganda like candy and construct “policy” for the Democrats, going so far as writing the president’s Nowruz message, preparing statements of condolences for the Butcher of Teheran, and glorifying a self-serving opportunist like Faezeh Rafsanjani.

From Jimmy Carter to Barack Obama, and now Joe Biden, Democrats’ Iran policy has been detached from reality and quixotic, with ramifications that have been harmful to U.S. national interest and certainly detrimental to the Iranian people. Except for a fringe group that have always advocated for policies benefiting the Islamic Republic, center-left Iranian Americans are increasingly abandoning the Democratic Party in favor of a more clear-sighted Iran policy and sober political school of thought that stands up to the regime’s barbarism and terror. Bleeding heart sentimentalism, lip service, and policies based upon self-fulfilling prophecies no longer hold water. Washington Democrats need to reorient themselves with reality in Iran and revise their antiquated and egregiously flawed Iran policy.

When I was younger, I was a Democrat. That changed in June 2009 as I witnessed Obama’s lackadaisical and emotionless reaction to the repression of the Iranian people. It is now evident that Democrats cannot be trusted with a coherent Iran policy that is conducive to fulfilling the Iranian people’s democratic aspirations and their struggle for national liberation.