Why They Fight in Iran: It's Not Just the Economy

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear agreement the West made with Iran in 2015 looked like a godsend for the mullahs' regime. In exchange for suspending its nuclear weapons program for a decade, the ostracized Islamic Republic received $1.7 billion in cash and the promise of billions more as companies in the United States and Europe rushed to make their own deals in the country with economic sanctions lifted. But the accord that former president Barack Obama and his secretary of state John Kerry spearheaded might end up having the opposite effect. What the mullahs did with the money highlighted to Iranians how little their government cares about them, helping spark protests whose violent repression has made headlines around the world. With demonstrations throughout the country every day for a week and showing no signs of stopping, despite a death toll of 45 and rising, the JCPOA might one day prove a contributing factor to the fall of the Islamic Republic—though that's hardly what its Western negotiators intended.