Liberals Judging Iran
The tragic deaths of the Iranian president and foreign minister have been used by cynical liberals as an opportunity to attack Iran. But Ebrahim Raeisi defended some freedoms lost in the West.
The tragic death of Iran’s President Ebrahim Raeisi and Foreign Minister Amir Abdolahian in a helicopter crash on the Azerbaijan border raises serious questions: was this an accident or an assassination? If the later, who are the likely culprits? Iranian journalists are raising questions about the bizarre behaviour of President Raeisis’s entourage in the lead up to the accident—the office of the vice-president in particular.
Azerbaijan is a hotbed for Israeli intelligence activity. The Zionists have signed major defence and arms agreements with the Azerbaijan government in recent years. The Zionists are also stoking ethnic tension in side Iran, by supporting Azeri and Kurdish separatism. If the Mossad were behind this attack, it would probably be aimed at demoralising the destabilising the Islamic Republic.
Forbes magazine tells us:
Azerbaijan and Israel, both at odds with Iran, have found common ground in their rivalry with the Islamic Republic. Azerbaijan's hostility towards Iran stems from the latter's rejection of its secular nature, hostility towards its Turkic identity, suppression of the large Azeri minority in the Islamic Republic, and support of Armenia during the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which started in 1988. Presently, Azerbaijan supplies approximately 40% of Israel's oil demand, a critical lifeline powering cars and airplanes. Notably, an Azeri oil tanker initially en route to the Israeli port of Ashkelon was rerouted to Eilat due to Hamas rocket fire. Continued energy deliveries underscore the strategic importance of this partnership.1
But there are also other terrorist groups who are capable of large-scale military operations. The Muhajedeen Al Khalq, a terrorist group that has been waging war against Iran for decades, has a military base in Albania. They are supported by the CIA. But of they were involved, they would most likely declare it.
It is true that sanctions have greatly prevented Iran from upgrading much of its aviation industry. I can attest to that myself. I had to vacate a plane there a few years ago after an engine failed. But if this was a technical failure, it is still unacceptable from an Iranian perspective.
Raeisi’s internationalism
Ebrahim Raeisi is much demonised in the West due to his past as a judge who oversaw hundreds of political executions after the 1979 Revolution. He has also been criticised for maintaining the strict religious mores regarding dress code—especially for women.
The 1979 revolution wasn’t very pacific, and there are certainly questions to be asked about how the new Shiia government dealt with what it considered “enemies of the state.” But the Western media constantly overlooks the fact that Iran regained independence from US Neo-colonialism in 1979; that the former secret police Savaak, who were trained by the CIA, murdered thousands of political activists; and that the CIA’s overthrow of nationalist leader Mossadeq in 1953 was key moments that turned the Persian nation away from the Western model of democracy.
Contrary to Western propaganda, Iran is a democracy: a religious democracy. The basic value system is Shiia Islam. But minorities are also tolerated. For example, Iran has a thriving Christian community. It has the largest Jewish community in the Middle East, outside of Palestine.
It is true, of course, that if you wish to overthrow the Islamic Republic and replace it with Western-style liberal democracy, you will probably be persecuted. But are dissidents in the West treated any better? What if you want to overthrow liberalism and replace it with national socialism, or fascism, or a radical Catholic theocracy? What happens if you disagree with some of the fundamental beliefs of your society about certain historical events? You will be demonised in the press, harassed by police, and possibly imprisoned. All polities have parameters. Only liberalism claims not to have parameters. But liberalism only tolerates liberals.
Iran defends gender reality
In Iran, men are not free to dress up as women and “teach” children in public libraries. That is tyranny if you belief children should be abused in that way. But it is freedom for the millions of parents who want to protect their children from perverts.
In Iran, women are obliged to wear veils in public. That was the norm in Europe a few centuries ago when societies were Christian. If you watch the 1950s film about the apparitions at Fatima in Portugal, you will see that all the women in the film wear head scarves in public. In the past, it was almost unheard of for men to go out in pubic without wearing a hat. Authorities in Portugal, Spain and other countries didn’t need to legislate about such things because no one would have dreamt of walking down the street without a head-covering.
The Islamic revolution in Iran sought to revive Shiia religious customs in a hostile liberal world. It is certainly controversial when you oblige people by law to dress in a certain way. But Western attitudes to nudity and decency have evolved so far from traditional norms that it is almost impossible for us to imagine a vestimentary rules whatsoever.
Anyone who has visited Iran knows that women participate fully in public life. There are more female Phd candidates than male. The real issues affecting women in Iran are issues of modernity: the high divorce rate, the declining birth rate; and the cost of living.
In the West, feminism means the objectification of women’s bodies in advertising and pornography; the participation of men in women’s sports; and the passing of legislation banning the use of the term ‘woman’. Iran just doesn’t want that. It sees that West as a decadent and sick society. Can you blame them?
I am not free to say these things in Europe. I am not free to oppose transvestite story time in a national newspaper column. I am not free to say that men are men and women are women. I am not free to study and investigate sacrosanct historical events.
Filmmaker and intellectual Nadar Talebzadeh was a friend of mine. He invited me to Iran on several occasions to discuss these issues. Talebzadeh had studied in the United States and had a deep knowledge and appreciation of Western culture. He also made a film which dramatised the Muslim view of Jesus Christ. In the film you will see that the Muslims love Jesus. If a Jewish film director had made a film about Jesus, he would have been depicted as burning in hell in excrement. The Jews hate Jesus. That’s not a secret. But you can’t say that in freedom land.
Gearóid Ó Colmáin and Ebrahim Raeisi at 2018 New Horizons Conference
Talebzadeh believed that the world needed new horizons. People of different cultures and political ideologies needed to come together, debate and exchange views. Talebzadeh’s New Horizons conferences were revolutionary because they cut through facile and puerile left-right paradigms of thought. Socialists, anarchists, libertarians, Catholics, nationalists— any writer who had contributed to a deeper understanding of the Middle East was invited to those conferences. Ebrahim Raeisi was a strong supporter of those conferences.
Futile anti-imperialism
A picture speaks a thousand etc.
Nonetheless, I was critical of Raeisi’s handling of the Covid-19 crisis in Iran. Although he refused to import Pfizer vaccines due to the obvious risks, his government did nothing to open debate about what was really happening.
In fact, Iran completely ignored all the evidence that the pandemic was a WHO and its corporate affiliates to bring about centralised world government. From December 2021 mandatory vaccine certificates were required for work. Law professors in the University of Tehran are writing papers extolling “forcing people to take vaccines.”
‘With the emergence of the corona virus in the world and the need to end this dangerous epidemic, various countries of the world, including Iran's legal system, have moved towards the implementation of "compulsory vaccination" mechanisms’.2
What this shows is that while one can adopt positive positions on geopolitical and international issues, the resistance becomes meaningless if incapable of resisting such diabolical agendas. Raeisi’s servile conformity with Covid tyranny shows he either did not understand the agenda of the World Economic Forum—or he supported it.
Mass Immigration
Raeisi’s government also mishandled the mass immigration crisis, especially the Afghan immigration problem which has significantly increased criminality, and created the impression among many Iranians that they are being replaced with foreigners.
Nonetheless, Raeisi remained popular. And one can discern that popularity by looking at the crowds who lined the streets at his funeral. What Western liberals will never understand is that the religious way of life and the kind of political systems that correspond to it. But that is not to say that the West doesn’t have a religion. The liberal religion is Freemasonry. And it is not like a Shiia mosque where anyone can come to pray; it is a closed and secret society, open only to the most morally corrupt.
Garbzdegi
Iranian philosopher Ahmed Fardid coined the term gharbzdegi- “westoxification” to describe the subservience of oriental countries to imperialist, liberal ideology. Fardid, like many other intellectuals, understood the task of a rejuvenated Persia was to to become the avant-garde of a new religious democracy. It would not be accurate to call it theocracy, as there is no central authority in Islam.
One should be objective in assessing the policies of other countries. Iran rejects some of the core values of Western liberalism. But its complete submission to the new world order agenda of forced vaccinations, climate pseudoscience and population replacement means it has never really escaped westoxifcation.
Since 2020, Iran has lost three important figures: General Qassem Soleimani, Nadar Talebzadeh and now Raeisi. Talebzadeh had fought in the Iran-Iraq war during the 1980s. His lungs were destroyed by nerve gas which the Iraqis had imported from Germany and France. No one ever talks about that either. I don’t know if Raeisi was murdered. But General Soleimani and Nadar Talebzadeh were. Nadar was murdered slowly by Western imperialism. It invaded his lungs and prevented his generous heart from opening more new horizons. That’s what imperialism does: it takes away one’s horizons, covering flights of thought in the fog of petty liberal hypocrisy.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/arielcohen/2023/11/13/israel-azerbaijan-energy-deal-strengthens-strategic-partnership/?sh=291bab7e64ee
https://ijmedicallaw.ir/article-1-1599-en.html
Thank you for this interesting article.