After Iran Strikes, America's Empty Promise to Democracy

"Lay down your weapons," President Trump told Iran's Revolutionary Guards in a video posted Saturday morning. "America is backing you with overwhelming strength and devastating force." But backing whom, exactly? The answer reveals a troubling contradiction at the heart of American policy toward Iran.

While launching military strikes without congressional approval or public explanation, the Trump administration has simultaneously dismantled the very tools that could help Iranians build the democracy America claims to support.

The Tools of Change, Abandoned

The contradiction runs deep. As Trump encouraged Iranians to "take over their institutions" during January's nationwide uprising, his administration was quietly cutting funding for Iranian human rights monitoring groups and defunding media projects that connect dissidents inside Iran with the broader opposition movement.

Under Kari Lake's leadership, the U.S. Agency for Global Media prevented Radio Farda—the Persian-language channel of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty—from using American transmission equipment. Voice of America's Persian service lost credibility by producing partisan broadcasts and actually banned any mention of Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, who commands substantial support both inside Iran and in the diaspora.

Perhaps most tellingly, the administration cut funding for the Open Technology Fund, which provides virtual private networks and satellite access to Iranians. This decision helps keep Iranians isolated from the large dissident movement abroad—precisely when connection matters most.

The 47-Year Pattern of Incoherence

This lack of strategy fits a decades-long pattern. American presidents from both parties have oscillated between coercion and engagement with Iran, sometimes offering diplomacy, sometimes sanctions. Yet none have developed a meaningful strategy to address the root problem: the ideology of the Islamic Republic itself.

For 47 years, this theocratic state has undergone no meaningful political reform, made no improvement to its human rights record, and never stopped trying to export radicalism abroad. Western liberal democracies have preferred to engage the Islamic Republic "almost solely through the paradigm of Realpolitik"—negotiations that never seemed to work.

There were opportunities to try something different. In 2009, during Iran's mass protests, the Obama administration could have put human rights at the heart of its Iran policy. In 2019, after the nuclear deal's cancellation, the first Trump administration had another chance. Both administrations chose not to.

Who Is "You"?

The Iranian opposition isn't monolithic. It includes civil society activists seeking rule of law and transparency, ethnic minorities wanting decentralized governance, monarchist supporters who've tried to sideline other groups, and even breakaway Revolutionary Guard factions interested in military dictatorship.

As one opposition insider noted, "If there was ever a fantasy that a leader would fly in under the wings of foreign aviators, that is definitely not going to happen." Another Iranian activist texted Saturday morning: "This is one of the best days of my life, Anne; also I am very worried about what comes next."

The question matters because military action alone cannot create stable governance. For the region to achieve peace, Tehran must transform from the headquarters of an insurgency back into the capital of a country seeking prosperity for its citizens. That requires not a new dictatorship but self-determination and pluralist government.