Some thoughts on Iran, by: Dr. Steven Feldman, LPNC Candidate for U.S. House, NC District 10

The loss of innocent human life in Iran is heartbreaking and unconscionable. I find it hard to know with confidence precisely what is going on, the extent of the carnage and the factors that contribute to it.. Perhaps even harder is knowing what to do about it.

One description says an evil regime that cares nothing for its own people is slaughtering them, and we have to help take that regime out. That narrative doesn’t resonate with me, as I’ve become reticent when people tell me that some other group is evil. I’m convinced that for all its failures and mis-adventures, the Iranian leadership does care about their people. The regime even provides universal healthcare as best it can. I’m convinced our own government cares about other people, despite installing and supporting dictators in other countries (including the 1953 installation of the Shah in Iran), our use of nuclear weapons, and our support for Saddam Hussein’s use of chemical weapons on Iranians (and I’m convinced our leaders care about us deeply, even though we don’t have universal healthcare).

Clearly, these protests started because of Iran’s economic collapse. U.S. sanctions played some role—though I cannot tell how large, possibly the defining role—in weakening the Iranian economy. Perhaps U.S. Israeli airstrikes on Iranian infrastructure in June 2025 precipitated sudden economic worsening. I do know that on my first visit to Iran I visited a Jewish synagogue in Isfahan and was told there that things were hard in Iran—not because of religious persecution but because the economy had deteriorated under U.S. sanctions. Since then the sanctions have grown far tighter and the suffering of Iranian people much worse.

In addition to protesters, many Iranian security forces were killed (despite tight gun control in Iran). Israel’s Channel 14 reported that “outside forces” have provided arms that contributed to the deaths of the Iranian regime’s people (https://x.com/Tamir114/status/2011143415116021898). Israel Mossad claimed to have operatives in Iran (https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-881733). Could the U.S. and others be trying, out of the best intentions, to overthrow the current government? Do we, in small or large part, have some responsibility for the deaths that are occurring?

I’ve been to Iran a couple times. I have Persian friends. They are a wonderful, peaceful, brilliant people proud of their millennia-old commitment to human rights. We should be their friends, given our shared commitment to human rights. We have a picture of genocidal Andrew Jackson on our $20 bill; they put their love poets on their money. I have the sense that most of us have a very unrepresentative picture of the Iranian people in our minds.

Let’s end all sanctions on Iran so that we bear no responsibility for the suffering of Iranian people that lead to protests that lead to deaths. Let’s stop trying to tell people how to run their countries, especially when we do so out of our addiction to their oil. We installed a dictator in their country in the 1950’s and supported his dreaded secret police; let’s not do that again. Let’s follow the Golden Rule and treat others the way we would want to be treated. As Jefferson said, "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations.” With the way we treat them, it's no wonder they might want a nuclear deterrent. We seem to think we need one, and we haven't suffered from others nearly as much as Iranians have suffered because of us. All of us are deeply cut by the suffering we see in Iran. Maybe, just maybe, the best way we can address it is by approaching the world with greater humility and by making our own country a model of peace and economic success that others would seek to emulate.