On the 1st of October, Iranians marched in DC and many other US cities in solidarity with the hard-pressed fighters in the women’s uprising against theocracy in their home country. Local activists turned out to support them. The uprising began when security forces murdered Mahsa Amini over a veil worn “improperly.” Much like police murders in the US, this has set off a firestorm of resistance.

Oct 1 was a global day of action to support resistance inside Iran. There were marches in hundreds of cities and the capitols of many countries. Here in DC, the solidarity march was many blocks long when it set off down K st. The first target was the Washington Post. Marchers stopped there, and at that point the sound vehicles joined the protest. From there the march reversed direction, ending up at a building housing the Iranian government’s representatives in the US.

So far the protests in Iran have held their ground for over two weeks. The regime has desperately resorted to brutality and force, only to see the protests escalate. Already police and security forces have murdered over 1,500 unarmed civilians protesting the regime, children included. They have responded to protests with the kind of force Trump was only able to talk about using, but instead of stopping the protests it is escalating them. The government’s brutality is having the effect of throwing water on burning oil(fire spreads) or flour on a kitchen fire(boom). If the government murders too many people for protesting in public, underground armed resistance become safer and an insurgency may result. This is one of the standard ways civil wars get started.

Iran’s vicious and brutal morality police are a lot like the misogynistic antiabortion extremists and gaybashers who have been spreading like a plague right here in the US, and Iran’s fight today may well be our fight tomorrow. Theocracy is to the right of fascism and even monarchism, the latter being the form of government the US imposed on Iran after the 1953 proposal by a democratic government to nationalize the oil industry. Since the revolution to overthrow that monarchy was hijacked by theocrats in 1979, the regime in Iran (and its horrific torture and murder) may be as “made in the USA” as any Bible-thumping Texas preacher calling on the sheriff to set checkpoints to stop pregnant women from going out of state for abortion, and for his flock to hunt down LGBTQ folks.

As for the US’s sanctions on Iran, many protesting in Iran (some demanding nothing less than regime change) have stated that the sanctions make the regime and the wealthy stronger and are instead harming the less well off majority in the country.