U.S. President Donald Trump is under extreme pressure to find an off-ramp for his war on Iran. Between the global surge in energy prices, NATO allies condemning the attacks (and some calling them illegal), the split in his MAGA base at home, and the growing number of U.S. casualties, the conflict is spiraling into a disaster.

Yet, as welcome as it would be to many, a sudden end to the conflict would leave dissidents and minorities inside Iran facing an uncertain and, in many cases, terrifying immediate future.

U.S. President Donald Trump is under extreme pressure to find an off-ramp for his war on Iran. Between the global surge in energy prices, NATO allies condemning the attacks (and some calling them illegal), the split in his MAGA base at home, and the growing number of U.S. casualties, the conflict is spiraling into a disaster.

Yet, as welcome as it would be to many, a sudden end to the conflict would leave dissidents and minorities inside Iran facing an uncertain and, in many cases, terrifying immediate future.

Consider the situation as it stands, were the war to end. The United States and Israel have taken out Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the command structure of a brutal, repressive, and violent regime. In doing so, they revealed that the United States and its regional allies—many of which Iran’s leaders despise and would like to see destroyed—had severely compromised the security of the regime’s leadership.

But the regime itself has not fallen. It has instead been replaced by a severely weakened and embarrassed successor that will be baying for blood. The new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, is the son of the leader who was killed by an Israeli airstrike on Feb. 28.

Experts and advocates fear that, as in the past, the targets will not be geopolitical adversaries or regional rivals but religious minorities and opposition groups within Iran, as an insecure leadership seeks to reclaim its authority and blame its own failures on domestic scapegoats.

Iran is a diverse nation. Around 90 percent of the population is Shiite Muslim, while 9 percent is from other denominations of Islam. The remaining 1 percent comprises Christians, Jews, Mandeans, and Zoroastrians. There are also around 300,000 Bahais in the country, though the regime does not officially recognize the faith.

There are elected officials and people of differing groups represented in Iran’s parliament. However, the country’s all-powerful supreme leader and his inner circle run the country as an oppressive theocracy, guided by a hard-line interpretation of Islam.

Historically, when the regime appears under pressure, minority groups have become the target of crackdowns. In 1988, after the Iran-Iraq War, the regime massacred thousands of political prisoners, including from various religious and ethnic minority groups, the United Nations concluded in a landmark report in 2024. In the 1980s, following the 1979 revolution, Ruhollah Khomeini, the first supreme leader, led a cultural revolution that saw thousands of political dissidents, from communists to secular liberals, killed, culminating in the 1988 massacre.

That oppression ranges from preventing religious practices or seizing land to trumped-up charges, incitement to mob violence, and even executions. “They create a discourse that dehumanizes people of other faiths, labeling them as ‘najis,’ or ‘ritually unclean,’” said a leading Iranian Christian scholar, who declined to be named to protect their own safety. “This makes it easier to present us as threats to national security or agents for the West and Israel.”

Take the Bahai community, whose religion is not officially recognized in Iran and has been long persecuted by the authorities, going back to the mass execution of Babis, whose faith was a precursor to Bahaism, in 1852. According to a 2024 report by Human Rights Watch, the systemic repression of Bahais has been “enshrined in Iranian law and is official government policy.” The report added that Iran’s judicial authorities “interpret Iran’s vaguely defined national security laws as classifying Baha’is as an outlawed religious minority community, and as an illegal group intent on disrupting national security.”

The result has been a relentless persecution of Bahais since the 1979 revolution. “The baseline is seizure of land, imprisonment, and anti-Bahai propaganda. But when things go wrong for the regime, this tends to intensify,” said an official working on behalf of the Bahai community in Iran, who also declined to be named for safety reasons.

The official cited recent examples, such as the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom movement—a series of anti-regime protests that followed the death of Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman who had been arrested by Iran’s morality police for allegedly not covering her hair properly.

The regime, of course, cracked down ruthlessly on protesters of all backgrounds “but took the opportunity to launch a campaign anti-Bahai propaganda, accusing us of anti-government activity,” which resulted in the “systemic targeting of Bahai women,” the official said. The egregious nature of the crackdown on Bahais was recognized by the U.N. in 2024.

In 2025, not long after the 12-day war in which the United States and Israel bombed Iranian nuclear facilities, a regime loyalist publicly accused Bahais of holding “an unbreakable bond with Zionism. Don’t be fooled by their Iranian origins.”

Other religious minorities have also been accused of secret alignment with Israel and its Western allies. So-called “ethnic” Christians (including Armenians, Assyrians, and Chaldeans) are also accused of Zionism, and Protestants are not allowed to deliver sermons in Farsi to discourage conversion. In 2023, the U.S. State Department highlighted the regime’s targeting of Sunni religious leaders “in retaliation for criticizing the government; some reported being tortured while in custody.” Ethnic minority groups, such as Kurds and Iranian Arabs, are often accused of collaborating with Israel or hostile Arab states.

While the degree and nature of persecution vary for different ethnic and religious groups, the underlying theme is the same: Enemies of the regime will be targeted and painted as a threat to the Islamic Republic and public order.

Experts and observers from international bodies point to espionage laws passed by the regime in 2025, which ensure higher sentences for those accused of supporting foreign governments. The bar for such crimes is low and means people could receive death sentences for owning a satellite phone or posting images on social media. They also point to the mass execution of prisoners in 1988, noting that there are thousands from the Bahai and other groups either in prison already or with unserved sentences.

There are few, if any, ironclad safeguards that could protect Iran’s minorities. Trump could in theory reach a deal with the regime that allows foreign oversight of protection for minorities or that provides safe passage out of the country for refugees. But the U.S. president is not known to be concerned for minorities or hospitable to refugees. If the war comes to a close, the West is likely to turn its back on those most affected by the aftermath.