National Review
Biden State Department makes Iran’s body count disappear in time for negotiations
In his first speech to the State Department in early February, President Biden ambitiously described the need for the US leadership to oppose what he called “this new moment of advancing authoritarianism” around the world. Most political scientists agree that authoritarian states are primarily concerned with repressing internal opposition and trying to short-circuit the political process within a state, especially using harsh means, to maintain the status quo. By that standard, Iran’s theocracy is certainly authoritarian. Since Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his Islamic supporters seized power in Iran in 1979, the regime has existed maintaining a reign of terror over its citizens. And yet, even as it criticizes “progressive authoritarianism,” the Biden government engages in a diplomatic tango with the mullahs who lead the Islamic Republic. Tomorrow, the United States and Iran will resume talks in Vienna, in what diplomats described as “the most extensive effort to support the agreement since President Biden took office in January”. Clearly, for this government, the definition of “authoritarian” is flexible; it seems to disappear when it is ideologically convenient. Unfortunately for its citizens, Iran’s history of real authoritarian behavior has existed for more than four decades without disappearing. Human rights violations in Iran include: routine, arbitrary or illegal murders and arrests; torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; forced confessions often obtained through torture; broadcasting forced confessions in the national media; unfair judgments without the appearance of due process; sexual abuse; disappearance of individuals; repression of civil liberties, including freedom of the press, freedom on the Internet, academic freedom and freedom of peaceful assembly; and discrimination against women, girls, the LGBT community and ethnic and religious minorities. Following the street protests that started with the 2009 “Green Movement”, the regime reorganized its intelligence apparatus to create a vast system of surveillance and repression to suppress internal dissent. Still, millions of Iranians have since taken to the streets calling for an end to the fundamentalist religious government. The regime responded by shooting demonstrators with live ammunition. As reported by the State Department in its annual human rights report under President Trump, this brutal use of force left more than 1,500 dead, 7,000 wounded and 12,000 detained in Iranian prisons. Last month, however, the new Biden State Department made an important paragraph of that report from Iran disappear, covering the number of Iranian citizens killed by the regime – from 1,500 to 304. The new smaller number comes from Amnesty International, which in turn instead admitted that the victims’ assessment is incomplete. The largest number – which is obviously more likely – came from the Iranian regime’s own figures, which admitted that the police massacred 1,500 protesters. For the first time, a Democratic government does not trust the Iranian authorities. By removing the text, the State Department believes it can neutralize outrage at its upcoming diplomatic openings to Tehran by minimizing the mullah’s brutal body count. Like the Obama administration – in which many of those same government officials have served – making a nuclear deal with mullahs in Tehran is much more difficult the more the American people know about the Islamic Republic’s crimes. If the Biden government really gets into the business of covering up Iranian body counts, it will have a lot of work ahead of it. Last month, in its Balochistan province, Iran again used lethal force against protesters, leaving at least 12 dead. Even though these atrocities have been minimized and disappeared in Washington, Iran’s persistent protest movements have illustrated citizens’ rejection of the regime – a fact that should pause the Biden government while seeking a new deal with Iran’s mullahs. Biden’s foreign policy team has inherited a weak Iran. The Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign has left the Iranian economy in shambles, with an almost worthless currency. And the willingness of the Iranian people to confront the regime because of its political and social repression, along with the government’s failed response to COVID, has left the regime vulnerable. President Biden has an advantage – if he wants to use it. Any contemplation of easing sanctions or negotiating new deals with Iran must depend on the regime stopping its heinous human rights violations and dismantling its invasive surveillance system. In order to fulfill his own mandate to face “authoritarianism”, Biden must hold the regime responsible for his serious human rights violations against Iranian citizens.