Mahsa Amini’s unjustified death in 2022 sparked one of the largest waves of protests in modern Iran. The country’s morality police allegedly arrested and killed Amini for violating the strict dress code established by the Iranian government in an effort to enforce Islamic values.

​The women of Iran took to the streets demanding basic freedoms and an end to government oppression. Women cut their hair in defiance, chanting “Woman, Life, Freedom,” while risking imprisonment, or worse, death. 

Since the protests began, hundreds have been killed, and according to the Iran International Editorial Board, internal documents suggest the death toll during a January crackdown could exceed 30,000. The Human Rights Activists News Agency has confirmed over 6,000 verified deaths and is investigating more than 17,000 additional cases.

Images of the brutality have spread worldwide, forcing the international community to confront a difficult question: when a government violently suppresses its own citizens, does the world have a responsibility to intervene, even if it risks war?

​While war is always destructive, history shows that military intervention may sometimes be the only way to stop governments that violently oppress their own citizens.

Iran is operated under the Islamic Republic of Iran, where religious leadership holds ultimate authority. Within this system, strict laws regulate public behavior. Mandatory hijab laws, enforced by morality police, have long been criticized by international human rights organizations.

​Following Amini’s death, protests calling for political reform and gender equality erupted across the country, which have been met with deadly force. Meanwhile, the nation faces economic hardship due to sanctions and domestic policies, which have created further feelings of unrest among its citizens.

​Faced with such conditions, international intervention has some moral justification. Throughout history, military action has stopped atrocities that diplomacy could not. The Allied intervention in World War II ultimately ended the genocidal regimes responsible for millions of deaths. While war is inherently destructive, force is often the only way to prevent greater human suffering.

​However, since the United States began military operations against Iran under President Trump, many Americans have protested the intervention abroad, an understandable reaction from a generation that prioritizes peace. 

For much of early history, the United States followed a policy of avoiding foreign conflicts and focusing on domestic development. This tradition of isolationism underwent a drastic shift after World War I.

​War costs lives, drains economic resources and destabilizes regions for decades. Many argue that the United States should prioritize its own citizens rather than engaging in costly foreign conflicts whose outcomes are uncertain. The Vietnam War is one example of how the United States has attempted to get involved in foreign wars and failed.

​While Trump has not explicitly stated regime change as the reason for recent U.S. military attacks in Iran, recent briefings suggest he supports such an outcome, giving Iranians an opportunity for the freedom they have been fighting for.

​While war should never be the first option, the history of unsuccessful sanctions against Iran shows that it may be a tragic necessity. The European Union expanded sanctions in 2025 against human rights abuses in Iran, while the United Nations sanctioned nuclear weapons. Despite these efforts, Iran has continued to violently oppress its citizens.

​The global community, including the United States, cannot continue to ignore the suffering of the Iranians. War is not a moral good, but it is a tool capable of stopping systematic abuse.

​It is the bravery of the Iranian women that reminds us what is at stake. They are demanding basic freedoms, control over their bodies, voices and their futures. The question facing the international community is not whether war is terrible; it always is. The real question is whether standing by while oppression continues is any better.