Iranian Protesters Say They Were Betrayed by Trump

Peloni:  The only solution which does not end in betraying the protestors is to see the regime fall.  Support for the protestors and the survival of the regime are in fact two mutually exclusive outcomes.  Let’s see what happens.  The deal isn’t set, let alone announced, let alone implemented.  We may still see the war resume, and if it does, a role for the protest movement may still be in the making.

By Amil Imani | May 24, 2026

Families search for missing loved ones among the bodies of Iranian protestors following Iranian crackdown in mid January 2026. Screengrab via Youtube 

Donald J. Trump has officially taken to social media to boast about a backroom deal cooked up in the Oval Office. The image of his announcement paints a desperate picture of diplomatic theater: a flurry of phone calls with regional leaders, culminating in a planned signature between the United States of America and the terrorist regime ruling the Islamic Republic of Iran. The White House is eager to spin this as a triumph that will open the Strait of Hormuz and bring a heralded PEACE.

But let us strip away the public relations gloss and look at the brutal reality. If President Trump believes he has secured peace, he has instead fallen for a lethal trap. Pushing a temporary 30- to 60-day pause or accepting vague Iranian promises to discuss nuclear limitations is not a victory – it is a historic capitulation. Engaging in any deal with the Mullahs means America is defeated.

The fundamental flaw in American foreign policy – regardless of which party occupies the White House – has always been a profound, naive misunderstanding of Islamist ideology. The average American policymaker tries to apply Western geopolitical logic to a regime rooted in Velayat-e Faqih (the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist). This is not a conventional nation-state seeking economic stability; it is an extremist, apocalyptic dictatorship centered on martyrdom and global jihad.

When a regime’s eyes are fixed on the afterlife, traditional deterrence fails. To the Mullahs, a nuclear weapon is the ultimate tool for regional intimidation and blackmail. They will not negotiate it away. Every diplomatic dance, every relaxed sanction, and every dollar released to this illegitimate government is an injection of life support into a dying beast. History proves that when the regime is cornered, it uses its sophisticated propaganda machine to create smoke, mirrors, and regional crises – using proxies like Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis – to successfully distract the West while advancing its nuclear ambitions.

To understand why a deal with this regime is a moral and strategic disaster, one must look at the ground reality inside Iran. Since 1979, the Iranian people have lived under a ruthless, non-Iranian occupying force. For nearly five decades, the Mullahs have turned an oil-rich, culturally magnificent nation into a domestic warehouse of human suffering.

·       Domestic Terror: The regime has systematically produced unprecedented levels of poverty, hunger, frustration, and systemic corruption.

·       Human Rights Atrocities: Mass executions, child executions, and the systematic torture and rape of political dissidents in prisons like Evin are daily tools of state survival.

·       Religious Cleansing: The regime has waged a relentless campaign to completely wipe out the Baha’i minority, routinely desecrating their cemeteries, alongside the continuous harassment of other religious minorities.

·       Economic Siphoning: While the Iranian populace starves, billions of dollars are funneled out of the country to finance regional terror networks and proxy forces.

The great majority of the 92 million people living in Iran utterly despise their rulers. It is a telling fact that throughout decades of state-mandated protests, not a single authentic Persian citizen has willingly used the regime’s slogans of Death to America or Death to Israel. These are phrases manufactured purely for state television and domestic consumption by an illegitimate ruling class that fears its own shadow.

The Iranian people love the idea of American liberty, and they have previously looked to Donald Trump as a leader who might finally break the back of their oppressors. When the Trump administration initially applied the Maximum Pressure campaign, it severely crippled the regime’s lifelines by blocking oil sales and international banking access. The Mullahs were faced with a stark choice: starve financially or play high-stakes poker.

By engaging in this current deal, the administration is folding its hand right as the pressure was working. This deal abandons the people of Iran and the people of Israel. It tells the millions of brave Iranian students, women, journalists, and workers who have risked their lives in the streets that their sacrifices mean nothing to Washington.

While the international community rushes billions of dollars in military aid to defend other sovereign nations, the occupied nation of Iran receives nothing but empty rhetoric and political double standards. The Iranian people do not want a revised nuclear treaty; they want a complete regime change through a free, democratic referendum. By sitting at the negotiating table with their executioners, America is legitimizing a terrorist cabal that has hijacked a nation.

Those blindly defending this proposed deal within the political establishment are not doing so out of strategic wisdom. They are doing it out of partisan loyalty and fear of contradicting the Oval Office. But this goes beyond modern partisanship – it is a matter of global security.

Let there be no mistake: any signature on a document alongside the Islamic Republic of Iran is a lease on life for an IRGC dictatorship. If the United States relaxes sanctions, looks the other way on covert oil sales, and allows the Mullahs back into the international financial system, the regime wins an unearned, monumental victory.

The Mullahs have successfully called Washington’s bluff. They threatened to disrupt the Gulf’s oil shipping lanes, and the West blinked. Every single concession granted to the Islamic Republic today will eventually be paid for in blood – first across the Middle East, and inevitably, on the streets of the West. If America deals with the Mullahs, America loses.