While neither the U.S. nor the EU is in a position to bring down the Islamic Republic, argues Yalda Zarbakhch, neither ought to be providing financial or diplomatic incentives to a government that supports terrorism around the world and is currently in the midst of a ruthless crackdown on its own people. Yet, as Zarbakhch notes, Western reactions to the ongoing protests have been decidedly mixed:
With Iran in the midst of a unique feminist revolution, . . . how is it possible that the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, remained silent for five weeks? It wasn’t until October 31 that he condemned, in a tweet, the “disproportionate violence of the security forces” against demonstrators in Iran. And why is the West still hoping for a resumption of the Iran nuclear agreement, signed in 2015 and abandoned in 2018? This is a slap in the face of all Iranian women and men who are currently putting their lives on the line.
In the liberal West, of all places, there is a widespread fear of regime change. I keep hearing warnings that a revolution in Iran would result in instability throughout the region—that it could spark a civil war and turn the country into a second Syria. I wonder what these warnings are based on. The region is already far from stable, and the Islamic Republic and its Revolutionary Guard, supported by Hizballah, play a significant part in that, as well. . . .
Apart from the machinery of power that is centered on the Revolutionary Guard and Basij militias—who would give everything for their religious ideology and their leader, Ayatollah Khamenei—the vast majority of the population is united in the struggle against the Islamic Republic. This has seldom been as apparent as in the past six weeks: people of all ethnicities and minorities, Kurds, Baluchis, women and men, old and young, Muslims, people of other faiths, atheists: all are protesting together across the entire country—with and without hijabs.
Read more on DW: https://www.dw.com/en/opinion-irans-regime-cannot-be-fixed/a-63655999