On Saturday, Iran hanged the twenty-seven-year-old champion wrestler Navid Afkari, after torturing him into confessing to a spurious murder charge. Afkari’s real crime was participation in the 2018 anti-government protests—which led to the arrest and torture of hundreds of others. Since seizing power in 1979, notes Michael Rubin the ayatollahs have “executed tens of thousands of prisoners and dissidents,” but this case may be different:

The Biden administration took office with promises to “end” the civil war in Yemen and ease the humanitarian crisis there. And so it has reduced U.S. assistance to the Saudi-led Arab coalition that has been supporting the country’s pre-2015 government against the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, and pressured Riyadh to scale down its military efforts. By doing so, Washington hopes it will encourage the two sides to negotiate a compromise, rather than simply encourage the Houthis to keep fighting until they conquer the whole country. Oved Lobel argues that this entire line of thinking is based on a fundamental misapprehension of the situation: