By SETH J. FRANTZMAN
I don’t hate Iran’s regime. I hate that the West coddles it and excuses it, that the West wants to play concerts for it, that the West sucks up to it and describes it as moderate.
How can you pretend this is anything but what it is? If these thuggish, right wing, fascistic, theocratic, extremists, had a political group in Europe it would be to the right of Lega Nord, to the right of the MOST right wing parties anywhere in Europe or the West. It would be to the right of the KKK, to the right of the MOST conservative thuggish nationalist fascist groups in Russia or Hungary or Greece, it would make Golden Dawn look like bunnies, make the BNP seem like dandelions, Jorg Haider, if he’d been an Iranian, would be considered a peace activist leftist in their politics.
And yet you who coddle this hate-filled regime, you hate the very thing in your own society that you love in Iran. Abortions in America, you support the right. In Iran, you support banning them. You want gay rights at home, but not abroad. You want women’s rights at home but not abroad. You want freedom of religion at home but not abroad. You dislike militarism at home, but in Iran you love uniformed parades and fascist salutes, you love religious theocrats running everything in Iran, and want to play concerts for them, but at home you are disgusted by prayer on a football field in high school. You can’t stand Jerry Falwell who you ridicule for being prudish, but you love Jerry Ayatollah Falwell of Iran, you don’t like apocalyptic Pat Robertson or John Hagee, but Ayatollah Robertson and Hagee in Iran you’ll shake hands with and smile and accept, you can’t stand David Duke’s anti-semitism, but Holocaust cartoon contests in Iran you accept, every single liberal value you support at home you chuck out the window when you accept this bigoted regime in Tehran, you don’t like Donald Trump’s anti-immigration tirades, but Iran’s ethnic-cleansing is fine; if you added up all the hate-filled statements and conservative reactionary policies of every single far-right party in every country in Europe and the Americas…you wouldn’t have 10% of the extremism and hate that Iran’s politics is filled with on a weekly basis.
It’s time to say enough. There is no such thing as a liberal or progressive if you excuse Iran’s regime. You are a right wing fanatic who coddle a group of thuggish militarist theocratic fascists. Liberals don’t let liberals coddle fascism and theocratic suppression of the basic human rights. Liberals don’t let liberals hang out with dictators, extreme nationalists, or accept countries run by a more extreme version of the Papacy of the 14th century.
It’s like drunk driving. Take the keys. Take the keys from those who want to drive with Iran’s thuggish gross excuse for a government.
Seth J. Frantzman - author - analyst 