“Don’t forget us, goodbye.”
Those were the haunting words tweeted by 32-year-old Majid Khademi last weekend as Iranian authorities were transferring him from home confinement back to prison.
What is he guilty of?
Like thousands of other young Iranians, Majid may be the next Iranian to be disappeared by the mullahs for participating in protests in 2019 – led by brave women – against the grave human rights abuses of the Iranian theocratic regime.
We’re ashamed to say that Majid’s cries seem to fall increasingly on deaf ears in DC. It shouldn’t be this way; so, we are urging Americans – Democrat and Republican – to call their members of Congress while raising their own voices in support of the long-suffering people of Iran.
A man gestures during a protest over the death of Mahsa Amini, a woman who died after being arrested by the Islamic republic’s ”morality police”, in Tehran, Iran September 19, 2022. (credit: WANA (WEST ASIA NEWS AGENCY) VIA REUTERS)Will the US abandon Iranian women like they did to Afghanistan?
And now is the time. As the death of Mahsa Amini approaches its first anniversary, the United States faces its own reckoning against promises it made to protect the human rights of Iran’s women. And if the US silent treatment isn’t broken, by action and deed, Iran’s courageous women will be left to their fate much as America left the fate of the women of Afghanistan in the hands of the Taliban.
Truth be told, our diplomats and bureaucrats have little reason to fear as the Iranian people witness their abandonment by America yet again. Not a single American official was held accountable for the debacle that was the withdrawal from Afghanistan in September 2021.
Yes, the murder of Amini by Iran’s religious police caused a torrent of strong statements from the White House and State Department. Leaders and influencers all around the world joined the chorus, and so did more than a few public figures and business executives. The United States even sanctioned Iran’s morality police.
Yet, one year later, tens of thousands of Iran’s young people have been imprisoned, many tortured, and some executed while the State Department, and hashtaggers seem to be losing interest. Meanwhile, Iran is celebrating the one-year anniversary of Amini’s murder by strengthening the hijab rules.
Some businesses based in democracies have no problem aiding and abetting the Mullahs.
A leading German corporation, Bosch, supplied up to 8,000 sophisticated cameras to the Iranian regime to enable them to identify which Iranian women and teens still have the audacity to defy the draconian rules about wearing hijabs. Bosch need not worry about being sanctioned by the US, our government isn’t even enforcing its own sanctions on Iran, enabling Tehran’s oil exports to reach a five-year high.
The oil, of course, is going mainly to America’s main adversary – China – as the Iranian regime also supplies Russia with drones that kill and maim Ukrainians. The Iranian regime has made at least $40 billion already on illegally selling oil to China and it may be as much as $60 billion.
To top it all off, Tehran now has enough fissionable material to rapidly create multiple nuclear weapons, and it now routinely threatens ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz, and even harassed a US helicopter just days ago.
It is brutally clear that the Biden team has learned nothing from the catastrophe in Afghanistan and the immediate and long-range consequences of not projecting US strength – including moral strength.
Tragically, it looks as if the Administration that presented human rights as its hallmark promise, will have overseen two of the most catastrophic global failures in human rights this century: the abandonment of women in Afghanistan and in Iran.
And it isn’t only Iranian women and young people who are paying the price and are increasingly in harm’s way. It’s about Americans, too.
The US government – after secret negotiations – agreed earlier this month to pay $6 billion ($1.2 billion dollars each) for the five American hostages transferred from Evin prison to house arrest. Everyone knows how the Iranian regime will use the money.
Like the billions president Barack Obama forked over to the regime in 2013, not a dime will go to improve the lot of the Iranian people. It will be diverted to fund terrorism and promote fanaticism around the world. In the past, the regime has only used these types of funds to engage in massive, sanctions-busting schemes.
Forget the spinmeisters in DC, the average American knows exactly what this payoff means. The Department of State’s price-per-American is now $1.2 billion dollars. Tyrants, terrorists, and dictators have taken note. It is less safe to be an American in the world, today.
Of course, our hearts break for the families of any innocent hostage, and we celebrate and pray for their safe return home.
But paying isn’t the only way to win their freedom. Say what you want about the previous and flawed administration, but there’s one fact worth remembering: Many imprisoned Americans were brought home, from Andrew Brunson to Xiyue Wang, without the US unloading forklifts of cash. We need to return to a policy when America made the cost of keeping Americans imprisoned unsustainable. In 2023, we need the president of the United States, acting on behalf of all Americans, to change course.
To help the people of Iran, to protect American citizens at home and abroad, to serve the cause of human dignity, the US must project its power, economic, military, and moral.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper is the associate dean and director of the Global Social Action Agenda at the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Rev. Johnnie Moore is president of the Congress of Christian Leaders. The views expressed in this article are the writers’ own.
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