By Kazem Kazerounian
PUBLISHED: May 29, 2025
The headlines were dominated by President Trump’s recent whirlwind Middle East tour, making deals and pronouncements that the U.S. and Iran have “sort of” agreed to terms on a nuclear deal, with talk of “very serious negotiations” for long-term peace.
But amid state dinners and back-channel selfies, diplomatic photo ops can feel intoxicating: negotiators sit down with Tehran—whether in Vienna, Doha, or via back-channel talks—headlines proclaim a “historic opportunity,” markets soar, and pundits treat the Islamic Republic like a conventional adversary.
Once the cameras pack up, however, Iran’s brutality resurfaces: fresh hostages, cruise-missile parts bound for Yemen, and black-clad security forces opening fire on unarmed teenagers in Tehran. History warns that the euphoria of a deal can never be allowed to eclipse the regime’s long history of deception, repression, and exported terror.
As discussions fixate on enrichment levels, sanctions relief, and halting Tehran’s sponsorship of terror, a critical question remains: does any agreement with this regime truly pave the way for a stable, free Iran—or does it sidestep the fundamental aspirations of its people?
Walking into negotiations pretending Iran is a “normal” adversary is like meeting Al Capone to discuss tax reform.
A U.N. Special Rapporteur has traced the 1988 massacre of tens of thousands of political prisoners—most supporters of Iran’s democratic opposition—to senior officials still in power today. Those mass executions are the regime’s résumé, not distant history. Today the same Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) that fired on protesters in 2022 works to rebuild its significantly damaged proxies across the region—fueling conflicts from Gaza to the Red Sea. Tehran’s preferred negotiating style remains hostage-taking: extract a ransom today, seize new captives tomorrow.
There is, however, an Iranian party that has earned the world’s trust: the people themselves and their organized democratic opposition. Here in the United States, 224 members of the House of Representatives—an outright bipartisan majority—have co-sponsored H.Res. 166, condemning the regime’s terrorism and endorsing opposition leader Maryam Rajavi’s Ten-Point Plan for a “democratic, secular, non-nuclear republic.”
Connecticut has already staked out moral leadership, with U.S. Reps. John Larson and Joe Courtney among the co-sponsors of H.Res. 166.
Across the Atlantic, the consensus is equally impressive: more than 4,000 legislators from 50 countries have formally endorsed the same roadmap and urged their governments to blacklist the IRGC. This unprecedented international consensus backs an Iranian vision that rejects both monarchy and theocracy.
Beyond galvanizing opposition across Iran, the movement probes and brings the regime’s covert operations to light. Just recently, dissidents revealed what they say is a clandestine nuclear complex—nicknamed the “Rainbow Site”—and urged U.S. negotiators to demand immediate inspections. Discoveries like this prove why the resistance must be inside the room, not waving dossiers from the sidewalk.
If Washington truly seeks a durable policy that curbs Iran’s capacity for cruelty—in its own streets and across the region—it must refuse to ink a deal for the sake of optics. Instead, policymakers should:
Maintain and strengthen targeted sanctions on the IRGC.
- Tie any relief to verifiable human rights milestones—each prisoner released, each death sentence commuted, each protester freed.
- Let the IRGC’s budget rise or fall with its brutality.
- Dismantle the regime’s proxy networks.
- Intensify prosecutions and U.S. designations of IRGC front companies and agents, severing Tehran’s ability to fund Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.
- Demand immediate IAEA inspections of the “Rainbow Site.”
- No side deals. No delays. Include a snap-back trigger: if Iran refuses inspectors access to any clandestine facility, all sanctions automatically snap back into place.
- Empower grassroots voices.
- Publicly affirm the Iranian people’s right to resist oppression—empowering citizens raises the political and financial cost of the regime’s violence, making it far less sustainable.
Five decades of broken agreements have shown that side deals and photo ops cannot civilize a theocracy. If policymakers truly want to stop Iran’s evil—toward its people, its neighbors, and the world—they must put the Iranian people’s aspirations front and center, not bury them under another round of empty gestures. A durable peace is possible, but only if it begins with justice and accountability.
