At Last, the Iranian People Have a Chance for Liberty

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As the U.S. and Israel struck multiple targets in the Islamic Republic of Iran early Saturday morning, President Donald Trump uttered the fateful words:

To the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand. Stay sheltered. Don’t leave your home. It’s very dangerous outside. Bombs will be dropping everywhere. When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will probably be your only chance for generations.

Will the Iranian people, whom the Islamic regime in Tehran have savagely repressed for the last 47 years, be able to make good on Trump’s statement and actually topple the hated regime? It will be difficult, as the regime’s forces have all the arms and the people have no significant weaponry (that’s what gun control can do to a once-free and proud people).

However, it is clear that the writing is on the wall for the regime. As the U.S. and Israeli strikes began, the Iranian people were celebrating in the streets. Women removed their hijabs. One young man exclaimed: “I love Trump!”

Trump himself added:

For many years, you have asked for America’s help, but you never got it. No president was willing to do what I am willing to do tonight. Now you have a president who is giving you what you want, so let’s see how you respond. America is backing you with overwhelming strength and devastating force. Now is the time to seize control of your destiny and to unleash the prosperous and glorious future that is close within your reach. This is the moment for action. Do not let it pass. May God bless you all.

This is what most irritated Trump’s critics on both the left and the right: the fact that America was intervening at all. Both leftists and the new, antisemitic, isolationist “woke right” that sees Israel behind every U.S. foreign policy move have insisted that any U.S. intervention in Iran will turn out to be prolonged, disastrous, and unsuccessful just as the misguided and botched interventions into Iraq and Afghanistan were.

The former conservative wunderkind and gadfly Milo Yiannopoulos, now reduced to a pathetic Jew-hating attention-seeker, wrote: “O Allah, preserve Ayatollah Khamenei – O Allah, indeed we place You in their throats, and we seek refuge in You from their evils.” He was just looking for clicks and notoriety, but he unwittingly encapsulated the “woke right” ethos: if a military action is undertaken in cooperation with Israel, it must be evil in itself, and opposed to the extent of allying oneself with the regime that screams “Death to America” and has been on a war footing against the United States since 1979. Milo is just a more flamboyant and outlandish version of Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, and Nick Fuentes, who are plenty outlandish as it is.

The reality on the ground in Iran is quite different. The Iranian people are making clear that they are thrilled and relieved that Trump has finally made good on his January promise that “help is on its way.” They want the Islamic regime gone, in stark contrast to the situations in both Iraq and Afghanistan. The crown prince, Reza Pahlavi, has indicated his readiness to lead a caretaker government until the Iranian people choose the government they want, and he enjoys wide support within Iran. Those who are issuing dark warnings about some kind of ISIS takeover of Iran are unaware of the realities of the Sunni/Shi’ite split, as well as the fact that the Iranian people have had 47 years of Islamic rule, and are thoroughly sick of it.

In any case, as of this writing on Saturday morning, the Islamic regime is still in power. It has been badly shaken, and there is no word as of yet if the Ayatollah Khamenei survived the strikes on his residence, but the regime remains. We can only hope that the Iranian people will be able to put an end to it once and for all, which they will be able to do if enough of the Islamic regime’s forces realize that the writing is on the wall and that it is time for them to stop making war against their own people. May that day come — today.