Letter to the editor: Executions expose Iranian regime’s Achilles’ heel
· The Washington TimesOPINION:
From March 19 to April 6, at least 13 political prisoners were executed in Iran. Six were People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran members, and seven were young protesters arrested during the January uprising.
The timing is highly significant. Even under intense military pressure from abroad, the Iranian regime urgently prioritized eliminating internal dissent.
These executions expose the regime’s deepest vulnerability: not bombs or sanctions but the possibility that domestic unrest could reconnect with an organized resistance and turn protest into political change.
The regime has followed this pattern before. After the military defeat in 1988, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini answered by massacring 30,000 political prisoners to prevent discontent from turning into a nationwide uprising. That logic prevails today.
The profiles of those executed reveal what Tehran fears most: Vahid Bani-Amerian, 33, electrical engineer; Babak Alipour, 32, law graduate; Pouya Ghobadi, 33, electrical engineer; and, alongside them, younger protesters such as 18-year-old Amirhossein Hatami.
What connects these generations is continuity: Organized resistance has not only survived but also grown, forming an established structure.
The regime’s own behavior now confirms that its primary fear is a credible and organized alternative capable of transforming public anger into political change.
This is precisely the point that policymakers, especially in Washington, must factor into their calculations. If the goal for Iran is democratic transition, then increased bombing will not achieve it. The regime has repeatedly used war to fuel nationalism, justify repression, shut down the internet and accelerate political executions.
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The decisive pressure point lies elsewhere: in the regime’s fear of a credible and organized alternative capable of turning public anger into a transfer of power.
For this reason, international policy must go beyond purely military calculations and focus on political legitimacy. Recognizing a democratic alternative and supporting a framework for transferring sovereignty to the Iranian people would strike far more directly at the regime’s core weakness than another round of bombing or even sanctions alone.
One such framework is the transitional plan advanced by Maryam Rajavi and the National Council of Resistance of Iran.
Washington and its allies should take Iran’s Achilles’ heel seriously.
SHABNAM MADADZADEH
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Geneva, Switzerland