I am heartbroken and mortified that so many people have been killed because voices outside Iran, living in comfort and security, urged them to confront brutal violence with nothing but hope and empty promises.

If you are waiting for Israel or the United States to “save” Iran, then you clearly understand nothing about history. No foreign power has ever liberated a people without a cost and that cost is always paid by ordinary civilians.

The people of Iran did not deserve this. My heart breaks for every single soul lost while waiting and believing that help was on its way. My heart breaks because all they wanted was dignity, safety and a future.

For years, when I tried to help thousands of people in Iran create a better future, I was met with vicious attacks and relentless accusations online.

Every effort was made to silence me and destroy my work. And now, in recent weeks while the internet inside Iran has gone dark; I have finally understood something painful — it was not the people inside Iran trying to stop me. It was those outside.

I see them now, attacking each other with cruelty, tearing down anyone who dares to think differently.

You are expected to conform or be destroyed. Support monarchy and your country being bombed or be viciously attacked. Fall in line or be silenced. This is not freedom and this is not democracy.

I will never support oppression in any form, whether it comes from the regime in Iran, genocidal Zionists, American imperialism trying to bully and bomb its way through the world, or anyone else.

Oppression does not become acceptable because it is committed by the “side” you agree with. There are no righteous oppressors.

If you truly want democracy for Iran, then understand that threatening, attacking, silencing or abusing people who don’t think like you is not democracy. It is simply authoritarianism wearing a different mask.

My dream is peace for every human being, but especially for the country I was born in and deeply love.

I have never lived my life according to others’ approval, and I am not about to start now. I have also never sat comfortably on the sidelines, lecturing others on what to do while risking nothing myself. I acted. I always did and always will.

So if you are telling the young, brave children of Iran to put their lives on the line, get on a plane and do it yourself first.

My dream is that one day the suffering of the people of Iran will end. And I hope that real change comes through a real plan, one led by those inside Iran and not orchestrated by outside forces who will never bear the consequences.

If someone in Iran chooses, of their own free will, to step into the streets knowing it may cost them their life then that tells you everything about how utterly cornered they feel. A human being does not reach that point unless they believe they have nothing left to lose.

That reality is devastating and it breaks my heart. It is one of the saddest truths imaginable. But if people went into the streets and were killed because others online and outside of Iran filled their heads with false promises all while risking nothing themselves

reassuring them that “help is on the way”… then those voices are not innocent. They carry responsibility and they absolutely have blood on their hands. This is not a complicated distinction.

Telling people to walk into the lion’s den with no help, no protection and no plan is among the most reckless and immoral acts imaginable. It is not bravery and It is not leadership. It is abandonment disguised as hope.

Two things can be true at the same time: I do not stand with the people who pulled the trigger and I do not stand with those who told others to step in front of it. Both have blood on their hands.

So to the pro-monarchy voices trying to gaslight everyone into believing they are somehow morally superior. You are not.