The manicured grounds of Harvard University are tranquil. Ditto the expensive quads of Yale, Princeton, Columbia and Stanford. All across the fruited plain, the self-denominated paragons of virtue who just yesterday sported “Free Palestine” buttons and joined in “No Kings” rallies are greeting today’s greatest enormity – the slaughter of tens of thousands of Iranian citizens by their insane Islamicist government – with the repetition of that hit by Simon and Garfunkel: “The Sounds of Silence.”
Or, as the headline of a story in National Review put it: “Iranian Civilians Are Being Massacred to the Sound of Progressive Silence.”
Accurate numbers are hard to come by since the murderous Islamic regime in Iran has shut down public access to the internet. Elon Musk has once again come to the rescue with free Starlink service, but people access it at their peril. Latest estimate I have seen is 20,000 dead. That’s 20,000 people shot or hanged in cold blood for protesting against the cruel theocratic madmen who have been running Persia since 1979 when the Ayatollah Khomenei returned from Paris to install his intolerant reign of sexual apartheid and religious fanaticism.
The only Democrats who seem willing to mention the plight of Iran’s protesters do so in order to compare what’s happening in Tehran to the ongoing anti-Trump brouhaha in Minneapolis – with the inevitable hashtag: “end authoritarianism.” “In Iran, brave protesters confront a far-right theocratic regime,” wrote Ken Martin, the chair (don’t call him man) of the Democratic party, on social media. “Here at home, tens of thousands are marching after the fatal ICE shooting of Renee Good – demanding justice, transparency and an end to an unchecked federal force that takes lives and tears families apart.” In case his moral equivalence wasn’t sufficiently odious the first time, Martin doubled down on Twitter/X: “If comparing the US to Iran makes you angry, ask why. Killing protesters. Crushing dissent. Kidnapping and disappearing legal citizens. Ignoring courts. Threatening critics. That’s authoritarian behavior – anywhere.”
Let’s not waste time explaining to Ken how the situation in Iran and Minnesota are not in any meaningful way similar. A more interesting comparison might be between the revolutionaries of 1970s Iran and the anti-ICE radicals of Minnesota today – two lots of fanatical zealots, hellbent on imposing their warped ideologies on everybody else.
And remember how the New York Times greeted the news of the fall of the Shah and the advent of Khomenei’s Shia insanity? Writing in our fish-wrap of record, Richard Falk said the Khomenei represented “Islam’s finest hour” and “a new model of popular revolution based, for the most part, on nonviolent tactics.” “Iran,” he concluded, “may yet provide us with a desperately needed model of humane government for a third-world country.” How has that story aged? Compare these images of pre- and post-Islamic societies.
Meanwhile, major news outlets, including the Times have maintained a vow of omertà on the desperate plight of the Iranians. Images have leaked out of Iran of streets full of body bags. Were this happening in Gaza, every keffiyeh-wearing liberal would be wailing about the injustice of the IDF (which, by the way, has conducted its operation in Gaza with the lowest number of civilian casualties on record for such urban warfare) and the front pages of every liberal paper would be occupied by the gruesome images.
The writer J.K. Rowling, who has emerged as a voice of sanity on so many issues, got it exactly right: “If you claim to support human rights,” she said on X, “yet can’t bring yourself to show solidarity with those fighting for their liberty in Iran, you’ve revealed yourself. You don’t give a damn about people being oppressed and brutalised so long as it’s being done by the enemies of your enemies.” Foppish actors like Matt Damon and Mark Ruffalo prace about wearing a “Be Good” pin to honor the activist who was shot while ramming her car into an ICE agent in Minneapolis. But on the slaughter of Iranians? Crickets. The Great Satan is Trump’s America, of course, not the murderous regime of the mullahs.
Meanwhile, where is Donald Trump? It’s been widely reported that the US has moved massive assets, including six B-2 bombers and a number of aerial tankers, to within striking distance of Iran. Some sort of action is anticipated, by the mullahs and their death squads as much as by the public. Islamophobes of the world, Unite! When the action comes it will, I predict, be devastating for that horrible, life-denying form of religious perversion. Patience is hard to maintain while hundreds of innocent civilians are being mowed down nightly. But patience is necessary. The worst thing would be to emulate Jimmy Carter and botch the operation. I looked up the word “half-cocked”: “only partly ready; poorly prepared: half-cocked solutions often change things for the worse.” Keep it in mind.
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