It turns out that, in the history of Twitter, now X, the most-liked Farsi (Iranian) language post on that platform came from a source that may surprise you – Donald Trump.
به مردم شجاع و رنج کشیده ایران: من از ابتدای دوره ریاست جمهوریم با شما ایستادهام و دولت من همچنان با شما خواهد ایستاد. ما اعتراضات شما را از نزدیک دنبال می کنیم. شجاعت شما الهام بخش است.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2020
The post reportedly says in part: “I have stood with you since the beginning of my presidency and my government will continue to stand with you.”
Now, among the members of the Iranian diaspora – people who oppose the rule of the mullahs in Iran, many of whom fled the country after the Islamic revolution – are forming an “Iranians for Trump” movement. As unlikely as that sounds, it makes more sense than one might think.
At the time of Trump’s tweet, which garnered more than 277,000 likes, Iranians had flooded the streets of Iran to protest the regime’s targeting of a commercial airliner and called for the ousting of Khamenei.
“I have stood with you since the beginning of my presidency and my government will continue to stand with you,” Trump pledged to the Iranian people.
Since then, scores of Iranian-Americans have returned the favor, praising Trump for understanding the plight of ordinary Iranians and for his aggressive stance toward Tehran’s clerical leaders.
Four years on and with the US presidential election less than two months away, a new Iranian-American movement launched in early September to help bring Trump back to the White House.
There can be little doubt that then-President Trump’s sanctions placed a heavy burden on the Iranian regime. This has led Iranians, both in and out of Iran, to support the former president and to advocate for his reelection.
The movement, Iranians for Trump came about because “there was no established coalition to represent the voices of the Iranian diaspora,” Sarah Raviani, co-founder and English-language spokesperson of the movement, told The Post.
Raviani added that most Iranians who had fled from their native Iran around the time of the 1979 Islamic Revolution and settled in the US were mostly either politically inactive, registered Democrats or independents, but Trump’s first term drew many to the GOP.
“We support President Trump because he holds the Iranian regime accountable,” Raviani said, adding that the aggressive ‘maximum pressure’ Iran policy President Trump adopted in his first term helped keep the regime at bay.
Before the Islamic revolution, Iran was a very, very different place. Things under the Shah may not have been ideal; no country with a hereditary leader will be perfect. But they were vastly better than now. Women were treated much better; you can find photos of young women in Western dress attending universities in Iran before the mullahs came to power. Many members of the diaspora remember those days and would like to see them return. That’s unlikely to happen under a Harris regime, but the Iranians for Trump are hoping that a re-inaugurated Donald Trump would put the pressure back on the Islamic Republic.
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Iran – Persia – is a nation and a people with a long history. It wasn’t always a nutcase theocracy ruled by Bronze Age lunatics. It was, as recently as 1979, a modern nation. It could be again. Under a Kamala Harris presidency, though, the Iranian advocates for dumping the mullahs and returning some sanity to Persia won’t stand a chance. And as long as the mullahs remain in power, Iran will continue to be the world’s number-one state sponsor of terror. They will continue funding and arming Hamas, Hezbollah, and other nutcase groups. They will continue to sow discord in the Middle East and elsewhere, as far as they can reach. And they will continue, it’s near-certain, to infiltrate operatives into the United States across our wide-open southern border.
Members of the Iranian diaspora want Donald Trump back in the White House. That, in itself, speaks volumes about which candidate is better prepared to face down Iran.
