It's taken a few days for the West to wake up and realize the significance of strikes that are taking place and widening throughout Iran, and to report on these. What's needed now is for Western leaders to take action that capitalizes on these strikes, and empowers the Iranian people to replace the evil Islamic Republic regime which has threatened them and the world, causing immeasurable pain, suffering, trauma, and death for nearly five decades.
Massive national strikes are taking place specifically among truck drivers and bakers, so far, things that strike the core of the Iranian population. As of this writing, the strikes have expanded to 72 cities. Bakeries are obvious: without bread as the staple of a diet that has become increasingly sparse due to massive inflation and the failing Iranian economy, average Iranians are rightly joining the protests against the regime. The vast majority of Iranians understand that their bread is not buttered by the ayatollahs, but burned by them.
The trucking strike has also gone national. In one video alone, hundreds of trucks are seen stopped alongside a major road. These are not merely traffic jams, or simply a coincidence. The videos look like a massive parking lot all over the country. The truckers’ strike prevents getting the few affordable goods from one point to another, creating an economic crunch that's felt from Iranian ports where there’s no place to unload and transport goods being imported, into the average Iranian home.
As a result, average Iranians are starving. They also have had their power and water cut. There are hundreds of videos of people bravely taking their protest to the streets, unmasked, knowing that at any moment the security police could turn on them and inflict inhuman carnage. Iranians know that the regime has done this in the past through the police and through imported hired thugs from its proxies around the world, ready to kill in the case the unrest gets too uncomfortable for the ayatollahs.
What’s different now is the extras imported from Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and other countries who the regime would hire to brutalize Iranians are otherwise tied up with their own domestic issues and survival of their own crumbling terrorist entities.
Lack of power and water exacerbates the lack of food and transportation because people are losing crops, animals, and businesses.
Also noteworthy in the truckers’ strike is a bold public phenomena that could get them all brutally tortured and killed. Dozens or more of the truck drivers have placed pictures of Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi on the front of their trucks. It's not just like putting a Trump or Biden bumper sticker on your car expressing your political leaning, even if that upsets your neighbor. This is an act of public protest that can be considered treason, the penalty for which is swift execution, often without even as much as a show trial.
While Crown Prince Pahlavi is surely watching closely, and encouraging the strikers through text messages, the ayatollahs are watching too, as he is seen by the majority of Iranians as the only legitimate opposition leader for Iran. Others may try to assert themselves now, but he is the only one who can truly restore their freedom from the brutal Islamic regime.
I hope this time Western leaders will support the Iranian people. Now, in the midst of the widespread national strikes, is the best time to eliminate the key Iranian political/religious and military/terrorist leaders, and destroy their nuclear sites.
The Iranian people are ready for something happen. They are pleading for Western leaders to help end their national captivity. They have begun to come to the streets to demonstrate against the regime, and will continue to do so by the millions. The West must not betray them again as Presidents Obama and Biden did, or miss this historic opportunity. I experienced this firsthand among my cellmates in 2009 while imprisoned because of my faith in Tehran’s Evin Prison, and witnessed the torture as a result of the ayatollahs recognizing that Obama did not care about democracy in Iran, rampant misogyny, or the brutal abuse of human rights.
One positive sign is that there have been reports of European leaders reminding the United States that its current (foolhardy) negotiations with Iran must come to an end, one way or another. According to the JCPOA, known as the “Iran Deal” dangerously pushed by President Obama, the sunset clause comes into effect this fall. Other than never being able to trust the Islamic regime in any deal, the JCPOA remains obscene in that it never prevented Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, but just kicked the can down the road ten years, until now. According to the very agreement that Obama forced through, and the Democratic Congress enthusiastically backed along with other Western leaders, later this year it will be completely legitimate for Iran to continue to enrich uranium and work toward their public goal of acquiring a nuclear weapon.
Even if one wants to be generous and say that Obama was simply naïve in believing that the ayatollahs could be dealt with rationally, from a Western perspective, the past decade has proven that is not, and has never been, the case. The Islamic Republic must be dealt with, not coddled, enabled, or offered another deal.
Just as the Islamic Republic is weeks away from being able to create a nuclear weapon, the U.S. and Western powers are weeks away (at most) from the inevitable need to pull the trigger and strike Iranian nuclear facilities, forever ensuring that they can no longer threaten the world with nuclear weapons. The West, led by the U.S., must strike IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) facilities and leaders, its stockpile of ballistic missiles and their ability to produce them, and the ayatollahs themselves. It's time to strike Iran strategically so that the striking Iranians can use this opportunity to end the regime, take back their country, and put Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi in place to lead Iran to a peaceful and prosperous future.
Marziyeh Amirizadeh is an Iranian American who immigrated to the US after being sentenced to death in Iran for the crime of converting to Christianity. She endured months of mental and physical hardships and intense interrogation. She is author of two books (the latest, A Love Journey with God), public speaker, and columnist. She has shared her inspiring story throughout the United States and around the world, to bring awareness about the ongoing human rights violations and persecution of women and religious minorities in Iran, www.MarzisJourney.com.
Marzi also is the founder and president of NEW PERSIA whose mission is to be the voice of persecuted Christians and oppressed women under Islam, expose the lies of the Iranian Islamic regime, and restore the relationships between Persians, Jews, and Christians. www.NewPersia.org.
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