Dear John,
Over the past week, we’ve witnessed the tremendous bravery of Iranians once again raising their voice amid tremendous economic pressure and repression. This moment belongs to the people of Iran – not to outside actors seeking to co-opt their voices, not to security officials seeking to silence them.
Yet early this morning President Trump decided to insert himself and threaten American military intervention , which distracts from the cause of the Iranian people and risks being exploited to justify a more violent internal crackdown by the Islamic Republic. Wars, sanctions, and foreign interventions are not the pathway to liberation or democracy.
We know how foreign intervention and the exploitation of the legitimate grievances of the Iranian people have played out in the past: they have produced war and sanctions policies that have killed and impoverished ordinary Iranian civilians and weakened civil society's ability to resist; they have aided corruption by Iranian officials and provided cover for the state to securitize society and violently repress dissent.
The outbreak of protests in Iran over the past week has been led by Iranians for Iranians, not those seeking to speak for them. Iranians are standing against authoritarianism and repression internally, while also standing against outside powers co-opting their legitimate grievances to justify more bombing and more poverty-spreading sanctions. We stand in solidarity with them.
We will continue to track the protests closely and warn strongly against further moves to co-opt the Iranian peoples’ voice and escalate toward war.
In Solidarity,
Jamal Abdi NIAC President[[link removed]]
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