When protesters in the Middle East take to the streets against their regimes, the United States finds itself in a dilemma, particularly when those regimes are allies. The United States, as a statement of policy, is committed to supporting democracy abroad and standing with democracy activists and dissidents. But how does it do that if it’s also committed to the survival of governments that—also as a matter of policy—deny their citizens basic freedoms?

Certain dilemmas remain, though, even when the regimes in question aren’t friends, but rather enemies like Iran, which has witnessed its largest protests in years, spreading across more than 80 cities. The so-called “kiss of death,” where overt American support taints the very protestors the United States hopes to help, invariably comes up.

As Phil Gordon, President Obama’s White House coordinator for the Middle East, wrote days after the protests began: “We can be fairly certain that high-profile public support from the United States government will do more harm than good.” But can we? It’s certainly possible that Donald Trump is such a uniquely toxic figure that he, just by virtue of being himself, transforms the kiss of death into something real. But the premise, especially on the left, is held to apply to all American presidents; it was one of the rationales behind the Obama administration’s relative quiet in 2009 when Iranian protesters braved regime violence to protest a stolen election.

Read the full story at The Atlantic.