By Raman Osman
Since 1979, Iran has been ruled by just two men: Ruhollah Khomeini, who overthrew the monarchy and founded the Islamic Republic, and his successor, Ali Khamenei, who rules to this day.
From the beginning, the regime wrapped itself in the language of justice.
Khomeini declared Iran the champion of the “oppressed” (mostazafin) worldwide.
He promised power to the people. He vowed that Iranians would never again fear their government.
He invented Al-Quds Day, branded America the “Great Satan” and Israel the “Little Satan,” and claimed Iran would stand with every victim of tyranny.
This rhetoric still defines the Islamic Republic today.
It was all a lie.
Khomeini lied to the West when he presented himself as a humble revolutionary concerned with social justice.
He lied to Iranians who believed he was their savior. Upon returning from exile in France, he executed his allies before his enemies.
The mask fell quickly. What followed was not liberation, but a theocratic dictatorship enforced through terror.
Iranians have paid the price ever since, most brutally Iranian women.
Whether religious or secular, Muslim or not, they were stripped of choice, autonomy, and dignity under an imposed dress code enforced by violence.
While repressing its own people, the regime poured its resources into exporting revolution and undermining the West—above all through a web of proxies aimed at destroying Israel.
The result?
Lebanon was hollowed out by Hezbollah, its state weakened to the point of economic collapse.
Syria’s Assad survived only through Iranian intervention; Hezbollah fighters were sent from Lebanon to help crush Syrian protesters, just as protesters were later crushed in Iran itself.
Yemen was devastated by the Houthis.
Iraq remains hostage to Iranian-backed militias that prioritize Tehran over their own country.
Gaza was sacrificed when Hamas launched its suicidal attack on October 7, knowingly condemning thousands of Palestinians to death for the sake of “resistance theater.”
Everywhere Iran intervenes, societies are destroyed. States collapse. Civilians suffer.
And at home?
Iranians who protest this genocidal worldview, who object to their country’s economy being sacrificed, their future stolen, their lives policed, are met with live ammunition, beatings, prison, and torture.
A nation rich in culture, talent, and history has been reduced to survival under fear, sanctions, and despair, much of it the direct consequence of the regime’s own hostility toward the international community.
For what?
For a black, absolutist ideology that feeds on perpetual conflict.
So the question must be asked plainly:
In a free world, is this regime entitled to torment its own people indefinitely?
Or do those with power also bear responsibility?
If strength determines outcomes, then it is not immoral—but necessary—to urge a superpower like the United States to intervene and end the Iranian people’s nightmare.
