Right now, as you read this, Iranian protesters are facing live ammunition in Tehran’s streets. Women risk execution for removing their hijabs. Some 12,000 to 20,000 people are feared dead from the protest crackdown. The regime is vulnerable, weakened by strikes on its nuclear program, facing economic collapse, confronting a population that has repeatedly chosen death over submission. The window to support regime change is open. But it’s closing fast.

The Trump administration made commitments to the Iranian people. Now, facing the moment of decision, there’s troubling hesitation. This isn’t just another foreign policy challenge: It’s a binary test of whether American leadership still possesses the will to act on its stated principles. Fail here, and we confirm that international relations have lost their moral compass entirely.

Harvard’s Joseph Nye taught that foreign policy morality requires integrating intentions, means and consequences. Good intentions without adequate implementation produce catastrophic outcomes. We’ve stated our intentions. The question is whether we’ll employ the means — or allow bureaucratic caution and geopolitical calculation to paralyze us until the opportunity passes.

The Iranian regime is a 47-year totalitarian theocracy that has terrorized its population, sponsored terrorism from Hezbollah to Hamas to the Houthis, supplied drones to Russia for killing Ukrainian civilians and pursued nuclear weapons........

© The Korea Times