To the Editor:
The past few weeks have brought the Middle East to the edge of chaos. Explosions lit up the skies. Missiles crossed borders. Headlines warned of regional war. Now, with a fragile ceasefire holding, there’s a pause in the violence—but not in the deeper struggle underneath it. And as the dust settles, one thing is clear: Connecticut saw it coming.
Before the missiles launched and before the international press scrambled, a bipartisan majority of the Connecticut General Assembly in May 2023 issued a powerful message: We stand with the people of Iran in their fight for freedom. This statement was endorsed by the majority of Connecticut House and Senate (108 signatories) led by Rep. Greg Haddad, Rep. Tim Ackert and Senator Mae Flexer. It is painful to remember that since then thousands of executions (1350 in 2024 alone) have taken place in Iran.
Some may have viewed it at the time as symbolic. It wasn’t. It was a line in the sand—morally and politically. And today, it stands as one of the clearest, most prescient positions taken by any state legislature in the country.
The statement recognized what world leaders too often avoid: that the Iranian people are not the threat—the regime is. The theocracy in Tehran has ruled through fear, censorship, executions, and the systematic crushing of women and minorities. It has stoked war beyond its borders and buried dissent within them.
The Connecticut statement doesn’t mince words. It condemns the regime’s suppression of ethnic and religious minorities—Kurds, Baluchis, Baha’is, Christians, Jews—and it acknowledges that Iranians, in rejecting both monarchy and clerical rule, are seeking something entirely different: a democratic and secular republic.
It also echoes the vision embraced by a majority of the U.S. House of Representatives:
“Support for the opposition leader Mrs. Maryam Rajavi’s 10-point plan for the future of Iran, which calls for the universal right to vote, free elections, a market economy, and advocates for gender, religious, and ethnic equality, a foreign policy based on peaceful coexistence, and a non-nuclear Iran.”
That’s not a fantasy. It’s the only path to long-term peace. And after watching the region nearly explode, it’s clearer than ever that the regime’s survival and regional stability are fundamentally at odds.
What Connecticut’s lawmakers did was rare. They didn’t wait for a moment of crisis to find moral clarity—they led with it. They recognized that this is not just a foreign policy issue; it’s a human rights issue. A Connecticut issue. Because many of our neighbors fled that very regime. Because silence legitimizes oppression. And because the same values that define our communities—freedom, dignity, equality—are what brave Iranians are demanding on the streets and in prisons.
Now is not the time to sit back and say “our lawmakers spoke for us.” It’s time to match their courage. Speak out. Organize. Share. Support those who are fighting for a better Iran—not with weapons, but with vision and sacrifice.
The regime in Tehran will try to survive this moment, as it has others. But Connecticut has already made its choice. And history will remember who stood on the right side before the world caught up.
Javad Gerami
Mansfield Center, CT
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Gerami is a member of the Iranian American Community of Connecticut