Iranian Oscar Winners Call for US Military Action: ‘A Moral Responsibility’ | Guest Column

What is happening in Iran right now cannot be reduced to headlines or statistics. It is a national tragedy unfolding under enforced silence.

Across the country, unarmed civilians have taken to the streets demanding dignity, freedom and survival. They are met with systematic, mass killings — live ammunition fired into crowds, people shot in public squares and bodies disappearing in the dark. Internet and phone lines are deliberately cut so families cannot reach one another and the world cannot witness the scale of the slaughter.

Despite this blackout, credible reports from inside Iran indicate that at least 12,000 people have already been killed in the streets. The true number is likely far higher. The regime conceals corpses, intimidates families and falsifies records. This is not repression alone. It is extermination.

The people of Iran are not only demanding basic human rights. They are desperately struggling to survive. Decades of corruption, incompetence, the regime’s obsessive nuclear ambitions and international isolation have collapsed the average monthly income to roughly $100-150. Families cannot afford food, medicine or shelter. Poverty is no longer accidental, it is structural.

For nearly half a century, an illegitimate and violent regime has held Iran hostage through fear, executions and economic ruin. Every peaceful avenue for reform has been blocked. Protest is answered with bullets. The people are unarmed, exhausted and yet unbroken. They are not asking for cosmetic reforms. They are demanding an end of the system itself.

At the same time, the regime’s fake opposition — its de facto allies — has infiltrated major international media outlets, working aggressively to control the narrative. They urge inaction. They insist there is no need for international intervention. They deliberately reduce the demands of the Iranian people to issues like hijab laws or limited women’s rights, while censoring the truth: This is a national revolution against the entire ruling structure.

Field observations suggest that a clear and overwhelming majority of Iranians have already made their choice. In cities across the country, in large crowds, they openly chant the name of Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi as their leader to guide the transitional period. For years, some have tried to erase this reality by imposing artificial figures, fragmenting leadership and weakening the movement because a united people with a clear alternative terrifies the regime.

No one welcomes foreign military intervention in their country. But when a state wages war on its own people, when mass killing becomes policy and when civilians are left defenseless, non-intervention is no longer neutrality — it is complicity. International military intervention is not only a necessity; it is a moral responsibility. Without decisive global support, the Iranian people cannot dismantle a regime that has made peaceful change impossible.

This is a rare and fragile moment in history — an opening that may not come again for generations.

Silence enables atrocities. Attention saves lives.

When the world watches, it becomes harder for this regime to kill in the dark. That is why media coverage matters. That is why artists, journalists, public figures, human rights organizations, cultural institutions and governments must speak — and act — now.

We must ensure that history does not record that, in the 21st century, humanity looked away while a peaceful nation was crushed in silence.

This is a test of conscience.

Now is the moment.

Now — or perhaps never.

Hossein Molayemi and Shirin Sohani won the Academy Award in 2023 for Best Animated Short Film for their project “In the Shadow of the Cypress.”

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