Iran Protest Deaths Rise As Trump Warns Tehran It Could "Get Hit Very Hard" By US
Regional stability hinges on credible deterrence and strategic partnerships with key allies.
The mainstream framing treats Iran’s street unrest as a morality play, with Trump’s warning cast as the reckless subplot. That misses what’s actually being tested: whether Tehran believes it can brutalize its own people and still intimidate the West into looking away. Conservatives don’t need fantasies about “rescuing” Iran to see the problem clearly.
New Republican Times Editorial Board
Iran Protest Deaths Rise As Trump Warns Tehran It Could "Get Hit Very Hard" By US Over the weekend as the world watched Trump's Venezuela intervention unfold, the Iran protests reached a full week. While AFP and others have reported in some locales clashes between demonstrators and police, which have after entering day nine have left 12 people dead, including members of security forces, it is clear that this wave of largely economic-driven protests have yet to reach the size of the 2022 'anti-hijab' protests.Protests have hit 26 of Iran's 31 provinces, leading to around 1,000 arrests - and there have been some signs of the usual mayhem: in some instances cars or buildings burned, governors' offices broken into, and sporadic reports of live fire.
Still mainstream Western press has admitted ...
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New Republican Times Editorial Board
The mainstream framing treats Iran’s street unrest as a morality play, with Trump’s warning cast as the reckless subplot. That misses what’s actually being tested: whether Tehran believes it can brutalize its own people and still intimidate the West into looking away.
Conservatives don’t need fantasies about “rescuing” Iran to see the problem clearly. A regime that shoots protesters and bankrolls regional proxies is not a normal government having a “domestic moment.” The first duty here is national security, which includes denying Iran room to sprint toward a nuclear threshold while chaos expands at home.
At the same time, talk of regime change on a timetable is how Washington drifts into open-ended commitments. Rule of law and public trust demand clarity: deterrence is different from occupation, and warnings mean little without credible consequences.
The principle at stake is strategic restraint with strength: protect American interests, punish terror behavior, and avoid confusing sympathy for protesters with a blank check for another Middle East project.
Commentary written with AI assistance by the New Republican Times Editorial Board.