Mr. President, Don’t Lose the Iranian Peopleنامه سرگشاده شماره ۲ به پرزیدنت ترامپ An Open Letter to…

Mr. President, Don’t Lose the Iranian Peopleنامه سرگشاده شماره ۲ به پرزیدنت ترامپ An Open Letter to President Donald J. TrumpMr. President,I am Victoria Azad. For nearly 47 years, I have devoted my life to opposing the Islamic regime in Iran.I am writing out of concern for Iran’s future, respect and affection for the American people, and concern about a course that I believe serves neither the Iranian people nor, ultimately, the strategic interests of the United States.Over these decades, I have learned that foreign policy is built on national interests. I have never expected the United States to put Iran’s national interests above its own. But I have always believed that there is a clear point of convergence between America’s interests and the Iranian people’s desire to end the Islamic Republic.On November 24, 2020, I published an article supporting your first-term policies. My reasons were clear: maximum pressure, withdrawal from the JCPOA, the elimination of Qassem Soleimani, and cutting the Islamic Republic’s financial resources had placed the regime under unprecedented pressure and created new hope among millions of Iranians.My 2020 article — English⁠ | Persian version⁠In February 2025, I wrote in an assessment of your second-term policies that a government that had refused to be accountable to its own people for 45 years would not suddenly become accountable simply because of external pressure.I asked then: Should the President of the United States stand with the Iranian people and represent their aspirations?My answer was—and remains—absolutely yes.My February 2025 article on Trump’s policies⁠During your second term, actions that resulted in the killing of Ali Khamenei, serious injuries to Mojtaba Khamenei, the removal of nearly 40 senior commanders and officials, and major damage to the regime’s military and security structure further strengthened that hope.Many Iranians felt that, for the first time, America’s strategic interests and the Iranian people’s desire to end the Islamic Republic were moving in the same direction.That is precisely why I am writing to you today.In recent months, I have sensed a new concern among part of the Iranian public: that U.S. policy may once again move toward an agreement with the same government you have called the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, and that President George W. Bush once placed within the “Axis of Evil,” rather than aligning with the Iranian people’s desire to end the Islamic Republic.I have not heard this concern from media analysis. I have heard it from the people themselves.In recent months, I have heard this concern not in one or two messages, but in dozens of letters, voice recordings, and direct conversations with citizens inside Iran.Many who once regarded you as the most determined U.S. president in confronting the Islamic Republic are now asking with growing concern:If the Islamic Republic is the threat that successive U.S. administrations have described for decades, why should the ultimate solution once again be a negotiated agreement with the same regime?South Africa offers an important historical lesson. Negotiations helped produce a genuine transfer of power only after the balance of power had changed—when the government could no longer preserve the old order through repression, economic crisis, and external support.Negotiation was the result of a changed balance of power, not a substitute for changing it.The same lesson matters in dealing with the Islamic Republic. Negotiations without a meaningful shift in the balance of power risk becoming a means of preserving and rebuilding the regime rather than enabling a genuine transition.Mr. President,The Iranian people do not expect America to deliver freedom to them. Nor have they ever expected the United States to place Iran’s interests above its own national interests.But they do expect that when the interests of the two nations converge in weakening the Islamic Republic, U.S.