Even in darkness, we glow.
In this image of Earth taken by the Artemis II crew, we can see the electric lights of human activity. In the lower right, sunlight illuminates the limb of the planet.
We see our home planet as a whole, lit up in spectacular blues and browns. A green aurora even lights up the atmosphere. That's us, together, watching as our astronauts make their journey to the Moon.
There's no moderate version of this regime, as its apologists in the West like to claim.
This is who they are. Do not look away.
https://t.co/hokWy8eVUw
🚨🇮🇷 Iran executed a 19-year-old wrestling champion by public hanging.
The charge: waging war against God.
The evidence: a confession extracted under torture.
The Islamic Republic has spent 45 years calling this justice.
Today, in Iran, in the middle of a war, the regime executed a 19-year-old national wrestling champion for the crime of joining January protests. 💔
After signaling to the world, including President @realDonaldTrump, that they would halt executions of protesters, the regime has done the exact opposite.
Three young protesters, Saleh Mohammadi, Mehdi Ghasemi, and Saeed Davoudi, were hanged in Qom after a sham trial.
Reports indicate torture. Forced confessions. No access to chosen lawyers. Closed-door proceedings. No right to appeal.
I call on @GlobalAthleteHQ to stand with Iranian athletes who are being silenced, imprisoned, and executed simply for raising their voices.
This is not just about sports. This is about human dignity.
In the spring of 1980, Farrokhroo Parsa — Iran’s Minister of Education before the Islamic Revolution — was executed. She had devoted her life to fighting for women’s rights and did not betray her principles even after the victory of the Islamic Revolution. In the verdict issued by the new authorities, she was found guilty of “spreading corruption on earth and denying Allah.”
“I would rather face death with open arms than live in disgrace, forcibly covered with a veil. I will not kneel before those who expect me to repent for half a century of my struggle for equality between men and women. I am not prepared to wear the chador and take a step backward in history,” Parsa wrote in her farewell letter to her children.
🇮🇷 47 years ago, I stood at a window in Tehran as a 3-year-old boy, smelling burning tires and hearing the chants that would steal my country. I didn’t have words for what was happening. Today, I am watching smoke rise over the same city — but this time the smoke is not the end of Iran. It is, God willing, the beginning of her resurrection.
Several weeks ago I wrote in that the fever of 1979 was finally breaking. I never imagined I would wake up to see that fever confronted so directly. Israel — with the clear support of the United States — has launched a preemptive strike deep into Tehran and against the regime’s military machinery. Explosions in the capital. Military targets hit. The IRGC’s aura of invincibility, already cracked, is shattering in real time.
I do not celebrate war. No decent person does. What I celebrate — what millions of Iranians inside the country and in the diaspora have prayed for in secret for decades — is the possibility that a regime which has no right to exist may finally be forced to go.
This is the same regime that:
- Armed and cheered the October 7 massacre against Israel for no reason other than pure genocidal hatred.
- Murdered tens of thousands of its own sons and daughters who dared to walk peacefully in the streets demanding the most basic freedoms.
- Gouges out the eyes of young women for the “crime” of wearing makeup.
- Hangs teenagers from cranes for posting a tweet.
- Exports terror, poverty, and darkness to every corner it can reach including the U.S.
No nation, no people, should have to live under that. Not Israelis. Not Americans. Not Lebanese. Not Syrians. And certainly not Iranians.
I am a physician who has spent his life trying to heal bodies and a son of Iran who has spent his life mourning a stolen homeland. What we are witnessing is not aggression — it is surgery. Painful, necessary surgery to remove a tumor that has metastasized for 47 years. The tumor is the Islamic Republic that has hijacked Iran.
To the brave pilots and special operators of the Israeli Air Force and the men and women of the United States military now carrying out this mission: I pray for you with everything I have.
May God shield you from harm. May every missile find its target and every soldier return home safely to the families who love them. You are not invaders. You are the answer to the prayers of millions who have whispered “enough” in the dark since 1979. You are giving our friends the chance to breathe free air again. The entire region will owe you a peace we have not known in my lifetime.
To my fellow Iranians watching from inside the country right now, heart pounding, maybe hiding in basements or on rooftops: Hold on. The end is clearer than it has ever been. The regime’s fear is real. Their eyes — those same eyes that once stared down at us with absolute power — now show something they haven’t shown in decades: panic. The math has changed. The window of 1979 is finally closing.
To the little three-year-old boy I once was — and to every little boy and girl in Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz, and Tabriz today who hears explosions instead of lullabies: This time the sounds are not the closing of a door. They are the opening of one.
The road ahead will not be easy. Transitions never are. But the direction is unmistakable. A secular, prosperous, free Iran is no longer a dream — it is becoming an inevitability.
I have lived the stolen life so that others might not have to. Today, for the first time in 47 years, I allow myself to believe that the stealing is almost over.
Thank you, Israel. Thank you, America. The Iranian people — the real Iran — will never forget.
The fever is breaking.
The dawn of 2026 is here.
And this time, the light wins.
🇮🇷❤️🇮🇱🇺🇸