Reflections on an 'electrifying' round of protest in Iran

0:00Yousif Yazdi is a professor of biomedical engineering at Johns Hopkins University. He is also the son of Iranian parents. Over the holidays, he went to visit his mother in Tehran. In the neighborhood where my mother's house is, there is a large square there and a large group. He was telling NPR's Steve Enskeep about his experience. There was about 200, 300 young people mainly, a few older folks like me and then mostly younger people. And they're very peaceful, chanting slogans, mostly, you know, death to the dictator. A few people, maybe five he estimates, were more active in leading the chance.

0:37And they pulled some pavers up from the sidewalk and started throwing them at the riot police, and then the riot police responded with tear gas. At this point, Yusuf Yazdi made what he called a mistake. I made the mistake of breathing a bit through my mouth, which you kids, lesson learned, never breathe through your mouth if you're experiencing tear gas attack, because your throat will burn for days. It's still kind of irritating. This was early in the current wave of protests. What began as demonstrations against the economic crisis have become a broader anti-government movement in cities and towns across Iran.

1:13You know, it seemed like a government that has run out of steam. I couldn't find anybody that has anything nice to say about the way things are being run, whether they're pro-government or anti-government. Iran's authoritarian government has responded with more than tear gas and batons. More than 2 ,500 people have been killed. That's according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activist News Agency. NPR has not been able to independently verify that number. The U.S. has been weighing military responses and, according to a U.S. official not authorized to speak publicly, some American military personnel are now confirmed to be leaving an airbase in Qatar, a possible indication of imminent action.

1:55Those who watch Iran are watching nervously, if somewhat optimistically, people like Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian. I fear that many more people will be hurt and killed between now and whenever the regime does fall. Consider this. The current round of protests in Iran feels different. Could they lead to real and lasting change?

2:23From NPR, I'm Juana Summers.

2:33It's Consider This from NPR. When there's big news from Iran, we often reach out to Jason Rezaian. He was the Washington Post correspondent in Tehran in 2014. when he was imprisoned by the Iranian government and later released during the nuclear deal negotiations. He's now the director of Press Freedom Initiatives at The Washington Post, and his op-ed this week is titled, I've waited for this electrifying moment in Iran for 10 years. Jason Rezaian, welcome back to the program. Thanks for having me, Warren. I want to start with this. You've written that for the first time since leaving Iran in 2016, you're now allowing yourself to feel hope that one day you might return.

3:12Tell us what feels different about this moment from moments of protest that you've seen in the past. I think what we see, Juana, is that the velocity between protest movements in Iran is quickening. If you think back to 2009 and the green movement that followed the contested re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, then there were protests in 2017, 18, 19 that were much more regional in scope around economic discontent. Then in 2022, the woman life freedom movement that was arguably the biggest protest movement in Iran. To date, everyone was supporting each other in this very basic demand that we want a freer, more open society where people's rights are protected and guaranteed.

4:03And at the same time, we want a better financial future. And I think the regime has not been able to respond to those very clear demands. They don't have a plan to do so. And at this point in time, it seems like the expiration date of this nearly 50-year-old system is quickly approaching. I want to ask you, Jason, historically as you see it, where has the U.S. gone wrong when it thinks about change in Iran? I think we've gotten it wrong for a lot of different reasons. but one of them is that we've rarely followed through on the things that we have promised to do. We talk a lot right now about the internet shutdown and blackout and it's not just the internet, it's even landline telephones.

4:53We haven't been able to communicate with anybody inside Iran since a week ago today. Iranians should be able to access the internet and there are ways to keep people online, right? Congress needs to vote on them. White House needs to put in an executive order around it. And also finding touch points with Iranian civil society. The truth is that there are very few people in Washington or other global capitals that have relevant recent experience inside of Iran. And there are quite a lot of dissidents who have either left Iran in recent years, we're still on the ground and willing to communicate their positions.

5:38We should be leaning on them to better understand the dynamics inside the country and how we can be most supportive. Yeah, I want to push on that a little bit. I mean, I've heard you made the argument and you make it in your piece as well that the U.S. needs to stop listening to the same voices in Washington and begin to build bridges with people inside Iran. If there is one shift in thinking you would like to see from U.S. policymakers right now, what would that be? I have always been somebody who's incredibly pro-engagement. I don't think of diplomacy as a weakness. I think of it as a strength, especially when you wield the type of firepower and influence in the world the United States does.

6:17And I think talking to our adversaries is very important. That doesn't mean acquiescing to their demands or giving in to them. And I think, you know, engagement with the Iranian regime right now, especially around the nuclear program, would be a mistake. I think our focus should be centered on the people of Iran and their aspirations. A stable Iran with an open economy and an open society that has the territorial integrity in the same borders that we know right now would be in the region's interest and would be in the United States of America's interest. Jason, this week marks 10 years since you were released from prison.

7:02You were forced to leave Iran. When you look at what is happening there right now, how does that anniversary shape how you're taking in and watching this moment? It's hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that my wife and I have been out of Iran for 10 years. It's incredibly heartbreaking to me for her that she was very unceremoniously jettisoned and exiled from her homeland and hasn't been able to return and may not be able to do so for the foreseeable future. But for us at this moment, while we watch the struggle of Iranian people and the fearlessness and the clarity with which they're standing up and demanding a new way forward.

7:57And at the same time, the brutal repression of the Islamic regime to kind of silence those demands, it's an incredibly mixed set of emotions. I'm proud. I'm exhilarated, but I'm scared. about the loss of life and also about the very real possibility that if this regime falls, there's no guarantee that something better would automatically replace it. And I think that that is a very strange thing to say after all of these years. I had hoped and wished we'd be much further along in these conversations 10 years ago than we actually are. Jason Rezaian is the director of Press Freedom Initiatives at The Washington Post and the paper's former correspondent in Tehran.

8:54Jason, thank you. Thanks, Mauna. This episode was produced by Lina Mohamed with engineering support from Ted Nibane. It was edited by Patrick Jiranwatananen and Courtney Dorning. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan.

9:13It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Juana Summers.