By Carla Sands
American and European policies toward the Islamic Republic have followed divergent paths in recent years. But that trend has begun to reverse since last summer, when the United Kingdom, France, and Germany triggered the “snapback” provision of the 2015 nuclear deal, reimposing all UN sanctions that had been suspended under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). With international pressure mounting, the UK and the European Union are now aligning more closely with the U.S. strategy of “maximum pressure.”
To make that policy effective, America’s allies must take several long-overdue steps. The divergence began in earnest in 2018, when the Trump administration rightly withdrew from the JCPOA and designated the regime’s hardline paramilitary, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), as a foreign terrorist organization. Majorities in both the British and European parliaments have since adopted resolutions urging their governments to do the same. Yet political leadership continues to hesitate, fearful of potential diplomatic fallout.
That concern should have evaporated after the snapback decision, which confirmed Tehran’s unwillingness to compromise on issues vital to global security. In recent months, senior regime officials have vowed to reconstitute their nuclear program, which had produced enough highly enriched uranium for ten nuclear weapons before U.S. strikes on key sites in June.
Tehran Defiant
Tehran’s defiance extends far beyond the nuclear file. The regime continues to manipulate Iraq’s parliamentary process to preserve influence and shield its militias, the so-called Popular Mobilization Units, from absorption into Iraq’s regular army. It is also working to re-arm and sustain its most prominent proxy, Hezbollah, in Lebanon while expanding its influence through newer allies such as the Houthi militants in Yemen.
The good news is that the West can confront these threats without military intervention. The U.S. and its allies have ample economic and diplomatic tools to increase pressure on the mullah regime and undermine not only its regional aggression but also its internal grip on power.
For too long, Western policymakers have ignored that Iran’s theocracy faces a growing rebellion at home. Since 2018, Iran has witnessed three nationwide uprisings and countless demonstrations demanding “death to the dictator” and an end to the clerical regime. The mullahs barely avoided being overthrown during the most recent uprising in 2022. Since then, senior officials, including Ali Khamenei, have publicly warned about the regime’s precarious situation and the inevitability of new unrest.
To truly achieve maximum pressure, Western governments must recognize that Iran’s crisis is not external but domestic. They must take a clear stand in the emerging struggle between the Iranian people and their oppressors. Many legislators and diplomats—including myself—have already done so by endorsing resolutions affirming the Iranian people’s right to resist tyranny and by recognizing the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) as a viable, democratic alternative to the current oppressive system.
On November 15, Iranian-American communities will send more than 1,000 representatives to Washington, D.C., for the first Free Iran Convention, a landmark gathering of activists, scholars, and community leaders. This event will offer U.S. policymakers an invaluable opportunity to understand the Iranian Resistance, its strategy for a regime change by the people of Iran, and the Ten-Point Plan articulated by Maryam Rajavi, the NCRI’s President-elect, for a future democratic republic. Recent developments in Iran and across the Middle East make it essential that U.S. and European leaders pay close attention to that convention and its message.
Those leaders should act quickly to develop a unified strategy. Beneath Tehran’s escalating defiance lies deep insecurity—a realization that the tide has turned inside Iran. More than 3,000 executions have taken place since the 2022 uprising, and at least 16 members of the NCRI’s main constituent group, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), are currently on death row.
These brutal executions recall the regime’s darkest chapter—the 1988 massacre, when an estimated 30,000 political prisoners, most of them MEK supporters, were killed in just a few months. That atrocity remains unpunished, and today the same machinery of repression threatens to repeat it.
At the same time, the regime’s fear is palpable. A growing network of Resistance Units affiliated with the MEK continues to organize protests and acts of defiance across the country. Their persistence is a clear sign that the Iranian people, not foreign powers, will ultimately bring about change.
This month’s Free Iran Convention will highlight that determination and the organized resistance driving it. As Iranians take their future into their own hands, it is both morally right and strategically necessary for the United States and its allies to stand with them. Western democracies must back the Iranian people’s right to overthrow tyranny and replace it with a secular, non-nuclear republic grounded in human rights and equality.
History will not forgive another generation of Western appeasement or engagement toward a murderous regime. It is time for clarity and courage. The Iranian people have already chosen freedom. The free world must now choose to stand beside them.
Ambassador Carla Sands is the former U.S. Ambassador to Denmark (2017-2021) and a former member of President Trump’s Economic Advisory Council.
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