By: Jila Andalib, IT Specialist & Iran Political and Human Rights Analyst
Published in Hartford Courant: June 25, 2025
https://www.courant.com/2025/06/25/opinion-amid-ceasefire-struggle-for-iranian-freedom-must-accelerate/?clearUserState=true
The bombs have stopped—for now. After twelve days of missile strikes, air raids, and near-regional catastrophe, a ceasefire has taken hold between Iran, Israel, and the United States. The streets of Tehran are quieter. The skies over Iraq and the Gulf are momentarily clear. World markets have breathed a sigh of relief. But let’s be absolutely clear: this is not peace. It is a pause. And in that pause lies a critical choice.
Because behind the headlines of military escalation is another story—quieter, but far more powerful. It’s the story of a nation that has been rising from within. For months—indeed, for years—Iranians from every corner of society have been fighting not a foreign enemy, but a domestic oppressor. They’ve marched in the streets, gone on strike in factories, spoken out in classrooms, and defied a regime that has held them hostage for more than four decades. While war makes the news, it is this internal struggle that will decide the future of Iran.
This regime did not bring Iran to the brink of war out of strength—it did so out of fear. Fear of a people who are no longer afraid. Fear of a resistance that is no longer isolated. And fear of a world that might finally see the truth: that the Islamic Republic cannot be contained, cannot be reformed, and cannot survive in the face of a mobilized and united population.
The ceasefire should not distract us. It should refocus us. Military confrontation may be paused, but the regime’s war on its own people continues. Even during the height of the fighting, the regime was executing dissidents, jailing students, and tightening its grip on every form of public life. It uses chaos abroad to justify repression at home. That pattern is as old as the regime itself. But today, something is different.
What’s different is that the Iranian people have a clear vision for what comes next. They are not simply saying no to dictatorship—they are saying yes to democracy, yes to secularism, yes to freedom. And they are not alone. For years, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, under the leadership of Maryam Rajavi, has provided not just hope, but structure. Her 10-point plan for a free Iran is not a dream. It is a roadmap. It calls for universal suffrage, gender equality, freedom of belief and expression, an independent judiciary, and a non-nuclear Iran committed to peace.
This vision has real support—not just in the streets of Iran, but across the democratic world. The United States Congress recently passed House Resolution 166, with strong bipartisan backing, affirming support for the Iranian people’s right to a democratic republic. In Europe, over 4,000 parliamentarians have done the same. These are not symbolic gestures. They are declarations that the world no longer sees the regime as Iran’s future.
So what now?
This ceasefire creates a narrow, vital opening. The missiles may be grounded, but the mission is not complete. In fact, it is only now that the real mission begins. The time has come for the world to stop dancing around the question and answer it plainly: the future of Iran must be decided by the Iranian people themselves—not by foreign powers, and certainly not by a criminal regime desperate to survive another day.
The West must shift its strategy—from managing the regime to empowering its opposition. That means sanctioning the IRGC as a terrorist organization everywhere. It means freezing assets held by regime officials and their families abroad. It means cracking down on regime lobbies and propaganda in Western capitals. And most importantly, it means opening the door to direct engagement with the democratic alternative that already exists: the NCRI and its 10-point platform.
This is not a call for war. It is a call for alignment. A call to stop legitimizing a regime that murders its own children and start amplifying the voices of those who dare to dream beyond it. It is a call to match words with action—and action with conviction.
This moment—this brief pause—may be the last best chance we have. The regime is weakened, isolated, and increasingly desperate. But desperate regimes do desperate things. Only the people of Iran, organized, unified, and backed by a principled international community, can finally bring this dark chapter to an end.
Let us not waste this moment. Let us not confuse silence with stability. Let us make it clear: the ceasefire is not the goal. Freedom is. And it must come from the hands of the Iranian people—and the resistance they have built.