“I Am Not Just Disappointed — I Feel Betrayed”

An interview with Masih Alinejad — one of Iran’s most prominent dissidents — on the Western elites' moral failure, the regime’s massacres, and President Trump’s looming decision

“Ali Khamenei and his Revolutionary Guards are behaving like ISIS,” Masih Alinejad says. “That is why I call on the free world to treat them like ISIS.”

Last week, I corresponded with Alinejad, one of the most prominent dissidents against the Islamic Republic and a relentless advocate for gender equality and civil rights in Iran. Iranian-born and now in exile, she has become a symbol of resistance to the mullah regime — outspoken, unyielding.

I wanted to understand how she sees the events unfolding inside Iran and the role of the West. The tension running through our WhatsApp conversation was obvious: the wait for President Trump’s decision — whether to strike the Islamic Republic, and in what form.

Masih Alinejad, the Iranian dissident, gives her views on Iran, Western elites, and the regime’s multiple attempts to assassinate her. (Photo: Kambiz Froohar/Wikimedia Commons)

“President Trump said clearly that if the regime starts killing innocent people, the killers will be targeted,” Alinejad said. Now, as the revelations of the massacre of tens of thousands come to light, she says “he must stick to that promise.” As to the rest of the world, she says, “Iranian people are not just fighting for themselves. They are protecting the entire region and the whole world from one of the most dangerous cancer, which is called Islamic Republic. If we don’t remove this cancer, it will infect the rest of the world.”

We spoke about the silence with which the massacres in Iran were received by certain prominent circles in the media and Western society — the same circles that constantly focus on Israel.

“I am not just disappointed,” Masih says when I ask about this cohort. “I feel betrayed.” “On Western campuses,” she points out, “we saw Hamas glorified as ‘resistance,’ just as forced hijab was once framed as empowerment. Yet millions of Iranians resisting the Islamic Republic, the biggest sponsor of Hamas and Hezbollah, are ignored.”

Alinejad also had sharp words for a slice of the American Right. “I also criticize those who shout ‘America First’ while ignoring that the Islamic Republic has openly declared death to America for decades and has sent killers onto U.S. soil.”

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Indeed, Alinejad is more familiar with this last point than anyone. Last week in a federal court in New York, Carlisle Rivera, an American plumber, was sentenced to 15 years in prison. He is the third person sent to jail for a plot originating with the Iranian regime to assassinate Masih Alinejad on US soil.

Prosecutors say Rivera was hired in 2024 by an Iranian acquaintance from prison, Farhad Shakeri (the same group allegedly sent to assassinate Donald Trump), on instructions from high-ranking members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). In 2020 and 2021, before hiring Rivera, Iranian intelligence officials and assets plotted to kidnap Alinejad in the U.S. for rendition to Iran. Having failed, the IRGC then hired powerful, violent members of the Russian Mob to murder Alinejad in 2022. That effort also failed.

In court last week, Masih got her moment to address the man who tried to murder her on Iran’s behalf. “I’m just a woman,” she said. “My weapon is my voice.”

This story has gotten very limited public buzz or attention. Alinejad pointed out the media’s double standard herself:

Masih Alinejad 🏳️@AlinejadMasih

If Israel had tried to assassinate a journalist and activist three times on U.S. soil, tomorrow’s federal court would be packed. Celebrities, protests, nonstop outrage. But it wasn’t Israel. It was the Islamic regime if Iran. Court starts at 10:30 a.m. I will face this man who

Masih Alinejad 🏳️ @AlinejadMasih

I am shocked. I just learned from the @FBI that two men were arrested yesterday in a new plot to kill me at Fairfield University, where I was scheduled to give a talk. I also learned that the person assigned to assassinate @realDonaldTrump was also assigned to kill me on U.S.

8:23 PM · Jan 27, 2026 · 90.5K Views

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48 Replies · 596 Reposts · 2.33K Likes

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Masih and I also spoke about how she sees what’s happening inside Iran right now, and what she thinks must happen next, including on the parts of the United States, Europe, and Israel. Her answers have been only edited for concision.

What is the situation inside Iran right now?

A massacre is unfolding. It is horrific. My entire country is in darkness under a total communications blackout [Since we spoke, some internet connection was renewed, though it remains under heavy restrictions].

There are mountains of bodies, mass graves, families searching among body bags, parents calling the names of their children. This is not an exaggeration. These are the stories and videos sent to me every day from inside Iran.

Unarmed people are being hunted, beaten, shot, blinded, and butchered for one simple demand: a free Iran. Teenagers, women, workers, students. The regime is using military weapons against its own people. Ali Khamenei and his IRGC are behaving like ISIS, and that is why I call on the free world to treat them like ISIS.

Is it fair to say that the regime succeeded in suppressing the uprising?

The regime may use bullets and military force to push people back home for a short time, but believe me, the anger is still there and the next wave will be much heavier.

This is no longer a protest . It is a revolution against 47 years of tyranny, oppression, execution, discrimination; it is revolution against entire Islamic Republic. When we look into history, revolutions take years…The regime has silenced the streets with AK-47s and military weapons, even storming hospitals to finish off the injured. But we’re still hearing how people are turning funerals into massive uprisings against their killers. Instead of mourning, they’re chanting against Ali Khamenei.

Every murder has deepened the rupture between the regime and society. The uprising did not fail. It transformed. It moved from the streets into the soul of the nation. Fear no longer belongs to the people. It belongs to the regime. I keep hearing from people that they have no fear. They say their anger is bigger than their fear.

What should President Trump and the international community do?

The international community must stop issuing statements, holding endless back-to-back meetings, and offering empty condemnations. While Western leaders talk, crimes against humanity are being committed in real time in my homeland. Unarmed people are being butchered.

The leaders of the free world must act immediately. President Trump said clearly that if the regime starts killing innocent people, the killers will be targeted. He must stick to that promise. No one should believe a single word from the regime in iran when it claims it has stopped executions, including the claim that it halted the hanging of more than 800 protesters. This regime uses diplomacy only to buy time, recover, and rebuild its machinery of repression.

Over the summer, when President Trump warned the Islamic Republic about its nuclear ambitions, he was clear and deliberate. Any military action would be targeted and focused. If the United States acts now to protect Iranians who are being harmed, that action will be equally deliberate and focused. It is about targeted accountability for those ordering the killing of innocent people.

I call on the leaders of the G7 and European governments to join the US and take action against a regime that threatens global security. Europeans must move beyond words and make concrete decisions. That starts with shutting down embassies that function as outposts of repression, isolating regime officials, and ending the normalization of a government slaughtering its people and expanding transnational repression everywhere — even on European and US soil.

Are you disappointed by how some Western elites and the global media have responded to the Iranian uprising? How would you explain their approach?

Yes. I am not just disappointed. I feel betrayed. Too many people who live in freedom ignored the screams of those dying for it in Iran. Not because the evidence was unclear, but because the truth was inconvenient.

Parts of the Western left and liberal elites failed this moment. For years they hid behind cultural relativism, stayed silent about compulsory hijab, and even labeled me and many Iranian women Islamophobic for exposing the brutality of Sharia laws. They normalized one of the most barbaric and discriminatory laws in the world, bowed to the mullahs, and smiled for diplomatic photos.

Now that Iranian women are on the front lines of a revolution, shoulder to shoulder with their brothers, burning their hijabs, many of those same voices are silent because speaking up would expose their hypocrisy. On Western campuses, we saw Hamas glorified as “resistance,” just as forced hijab was once framed as empowerment. Yet millions of Iranians resisting the Islamic Republic — the biggest sponsor of Hamas and Hezbollah — are ignored.

I also criticize those who shout “America First” while ignoring that the Islamic Republic has openly declared “death to America” for decades and has sent killers onto US soil.

And much of the global media normalized this regime for years. Admitting now that it is committing mass murder would mean admitting they were wrong. So they looked away.

But the people of Iran will remember who stood with them and who chose comfort over truth.

What can Israel do — and what should it avoid doing — so as not to harm the prospects of regime change in Iran?

The most important thing is to never confuse Iran with the Islamic Republic.

The Iranian people are not your enemy. The regime is.

Any action that increases civilian suffering helps the regime survive. Any action that exposes, isolates, and weakens the regime’s machinery of repression helps the people. The goal must always be the same: weaken the executioners, not the nation they are holding hostage.

An Iran without the Islamic Republic will have normal relations with Israel, with the United States, and with the free world. This regime spent decades brainwashing my generation to chant “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.” Today, you can hear something very different in the streets of Iran. Defenseless people are risking everything chanting “Death to the Islamic Republic.”

These people deserve real support. If targeted actions are taken against those ordering the killings — against the Revolutionary Guards’ leadership and against Ali Khamenei himself — to stop the massacre inside Iran, many Iranians would welcome it.

The regime’s forces have not fractured in Iran. Given that reality, how do you maintain your optimism?

I watch the courage every day. I receive messages from inside Iran from people who know they might die and still refuse to submit. When a regime must kill children to survive, it is already finished.

My optimism comes from the people who have nothing left to lose except their chains. Iranians are determined more than ever to get rid of their terrorist regime.