Iran jails psychologist over Trump plea as regime demands he make Americans ‘look stupid’: family

A man in Iran posts a video asking Donald Trump to back the people protesting in the streets, and for that he gets seven months behind bars. That's the whole story, really. Not incitement, not violence, not a coup plot. A psychologist made a plea to a foreign leader on camera and the regime decided that was worth locking him up over. If you needed a reminder of what these people actually are, there it is.

What sticks with us is the detail about the regime wanting him to "make Americans look stupid." That's not justice, that's stagecraft. They're not punishing a crime, they're trying to extract a performance, some forced confession or humiliating retraction that they can wave around to prove Trump's supporters back home were fools for caring. It tells you they're rattled. A theocracy that felt secure wouldn't need a random psychologist to publicly recant his hope that America might help his country's protesters.

This is also a useful gut check for anyone who still argues Iran responds better to patience and diplomatic silence than to loud American support for its people. Seyedabdollahi didn't ask for airstrikes. He asked for solidarity. The regime's answer was a prison sentence, which tells you exactly how much goodwill outreach buys with these men.

None of this requires some grand new doctrine from Washington. It just requires saying plainly that a government jailing its own citizens for hoping an American president will notice them is a government we should be embarrassed to treat gently. Seyedabdollahi took the risk of speaking. The least we can do is not pretend it didn't happen.