US Lawmakers Ignite Fury: Lighting Up Against Iran’s Regime

Paul Riverbank, 1/15/2026As Iran faces mass protests and a fierce regime response, families and global leaders watch anxiously. The world’s attention sharpens as repression intensifies and gestures of solidarity amplify hopes for change—underscoring the peril, resilience, and urgent calls for freedom.

Inside the regime’s core, officials act with a cold urgency. Any avenue for dissent—especially online—has been blockaded. If you try to check your messages in much of Tehran, odds are you’ll be met with nothing but silence from your phone. The authorities threaten executions, and family members abroad, like Joe Bennett in the UK, wait out a torment that doesn’t clock out at daybreak. Bennett’s parents, now locked in one of Iran’s teeming prisons, are among many caught in the crackdown. “There are fights every night, people crammed into every corner,” Bennett shared in a phone call. “You try to stay hopeful, but the stories coming out aren’t what you want to hear.”

Now and again, reports surface—smuggled out through private channels—of conditions behind those high walls: rats in the kitchens, tempers running high, and fear pressing in from every direction. But fear, as the world has seen, can lose its grip. On social media, Iranians and their supporters outside the country have turned to a new symbol. Lighting a cigar or a cigarette off a burning portrait of Ayatollah Khamenei—suddenly, it’s everywhere. The flicker of flame is part protest, part rallying cry, and its resonance is not limited to Iran. Republican lawmakers like Senator Tim Sheehy and Representative Claudia Tenney have posted their own versions of the act, fueling the online blaze.

For Sheehy, defiance comes with pointed commentary: “The Iranian regime are a bunch of murderous b——— who have been chanting ‘death to America’ for decades. They’ve made good on that chant—kidnapping, torturing, and killing Americans, including some I knew.” The message he sends is unyielding: “You stand up. We’re watching. You have support.”

Tenney’s statement, meanwhile, is less fiery but just as emphatic: “The bravery of the Iranian people… it’s extraordinary. They’re staring down a brutal regime, with no guarantee the world will intervene—and still, they fight for dignity and a voice.” Her office repeats what has become a rare, cross-aisle sentiment in Washington: solidarity with the Iranian people demanding something better than what’s been handed down for generations.

Back inside Iran, there’s little time for the comfort of foreign validation. The numbers are hard to confirm—thousands dead, by some estimates, in just a few weeks. Public warnings go out almost daily; officials refuse to blink, talking openly about executions. The threat of foreign intervention hangs like storm clouds—America and Israel are invoked as the ever-present boogeymen, though actual intervention seems far off, despite posturing in press statements. The Trump administration, for its part, has taken the microphone: “Iran is looking at FREEDOM,” the former president wrote, promising US readiness to help, though when pressed for details, concrete support remains indistinct. Later, Trump even claimed to have heard that execution plans had been called off. Confirmation? None so far.

For families with something personal at stake—like Bennett in the UK, or those in Vancouver sitting up through the night, haunted by the last phone call from a loved one in custody—hope comes salted with anxiety. “My mum and her husband—they’re just innocent people in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Bennett says. “We want them home, safe. That’s all that matters now.”

Foreign governments keep their warnings up, embassies standing empty save for skeleton crews working over secure lines. The UK has closed shop in Tehran, and Canada’s official statements sum up the mood—condemn the violence, urge restraint, but with little recourse for action. For those watching from outside, hope has become a strange sort of currency. It’s what keeps the midnight crowds coming back, and what keeps mothers glued to phones for updates the authorities would rather not send. For now, hope is what the regime cannot fully extinguish—one small defiant ember, flickering on the edge of every blackout.

It’s just past midnight in Tehran when the city’s usual hush breaks, replaced by a kind of determined chaos. Crowds spill out under flickering streetlights, echoing their hopes—not so much in speeches, now banned, but in chants that are harder for the authorities to smother. The unrest that began as small pockets of frustration now stretches from the capital to the farthest provinces, a tide rolling over government walls built to withstand both anger and despair.Inside the regime’s core, officials act with a cold urgency. Any avenue for dissent—especially online—has been blockaded. If you try to check your messages in much of Tehran, odds are you’ll be met with nothing but silence from your phone. The authorities threaten executions, and family members abroad, like Joe Bennett in the UK, wait out a torment that doesn’t clock out at daybreak. Bennett’s parents, now locked in one of Iran’s teeming prisons, are among many caught in the crackdown. “There are fights every night, people crammed into every corner,” Bennett shared in a phone call. “You try to stay hopeful, but the stories coming out aren’t what you want to hear.”Now and again, reports surface—smuggled out through private channels—of conditions behind those high walls: rats in the kitchens, tempers running high, and fear pressing in from every direction. But fear, as the world has seen, can lose its grip. On social media, Iranians and their supporters outside the country have turned to a new symbol. Lighting a cigar or a cigarette off a burning portrait of Ayatollah Khamenei—suddenly, it’s everywhere. The flicker of flame is part protest, part rallying cry, and its resonance is not limited to Iran. Republican lawmakers like Senator Tim Sheehy and Representative Claudia Tenney have posted their own versions of the act, fueling the online blaze.For Sheehy, defiance comes with pointed commentary: “The Iranian regime are a bunch of murderous b——— who have been chanting ‘death to America’ for decades. They’ve made good on that chant—kidnapping, torturing, and killing Americans, including some I knew.” The message he sends is unyielding: “You stand up. We’re watching. You have support.”Tenney’s statement, meanwhile, is less fiery but just as emphatic: “The bravery of the Iranian people… it’s extraordinary. They’re staring down a brutal regime, with no guarantee the world will intervene—and still, they fight for dignity and a voice.” Her office repeats what has become a rare, cross-aisle sentiment in Washington: solidarity with the Iranian people demanding something better than what’s been handed down for generations.Back inside Iran, there’s little time for the comfort of foreign validation. The numbers are hard to confirm—thousands dead, by some estimates, in just a few weeks. Public warnings go out almost daily; officials refuse to blink, talking openly about executions. The threat of foreign intervention hangs like storm clouds—America and Israel are invoked as the ever-present boogeymen, though actual intervention seems far off, despite posturing in press statements. The Trump administration, for its part, has taken the microphone: “Iran is looking at FREEDOM,” the former president wrote, promising US readiness to help, though when pressed for details, concrete support remains indistinct. Later, Trump even claimed to have heard that execution plans had been called off. Confirmation? None so far.For families with something personal at stake—like Bennett in the UK, or those in Vancouver sitting up through the night, haunted by the last phone call from a loved one in custody—hope comes salted with anxiety. “My mum and her husband—they’re just innocent people in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Bennett says. “We want them home, safe. That’s all that matters now.”Foreign governments keep their warnings up, embassies standing empty save for skeleton crews working over secure lines. The UK has closed shop in Tehran, and Canada’s official statements sum up the mood—condemn the violence, urge restraint, but with little recourse for action. For those watching from outside, hope has become a strange sort of currency. It’s what keeps the midnight crowds coming back, and what keeps mothers glued to phones for updates the authorities would rather not send. For now, hope is what the regime cannot fully extinguish—one small defiant ember, flickering on the edge of every blackout.