History will judge this lot badly…
Europe’s Betrayal of the Iranian People
- The alliance between Saudi Arabia and the United States seems intended to contain the Iranian regime, and not, as falsely advertised by President Barack Obama, to prevent a nuclear program.
- Leaders of Western Europe know exactly what the mullahs’ regime is, and what its goals and activities are. They know it is the world’s main sponsor of Islamic terrorism. They know the disastrous state of Iran’s society and economy, but they prefer to play deaf and dumb. All they think about, it seems, are the contracts they sign with the mullahs to get more money. They do not care about the suffering of Iranians; the chaos, massacres and destruction caused by the regime. They know that the nuclear deal is constantly violated by the self-policing regime, and that a nuclear bomb is in the making. They are aware that the regime has close ties with North Korea, and that both are global threats.
- The EU’s chief diplomat, Federica Mogherini, has hypocritically called “all parties concerned to abstain from violence”, as if there were a moral equivalence between unarmed protesters and killer militias with weapons of war. Meanwhile, in Iranian prisons, protesters were being arrested and tortured to death.
- Leaders of Western Europe like to boast how they respect human rights, yet they are the ones trampling on them.
It is hard to know exactly the current situation in Iran, but the uprising seems to be fading . The mullahs’ regime might survive a little longer.
The overthrow of a totalitarian regime takes place when the security forces — which ensure the survival of a regime that has been ruling through repression and fear — begin to falter, or else when the number of angry people becomes so big that a tidal wave sweeps away all in its path.
This time, Iranian security forces remained loyal to the regime and angry people were too few. The regime could manage the situation by killing a few dozen protesters, arresting four thousand
more, torturing and murdering some of them, and cutting off access to digital networks. It is a defeat not only for the Iranian people, but for all who defend freedom.
The defeat, however, is temporary.
What happened now was different from what happened eight years ago. The 2009 protests took place mostly in Tehran and opposed a rigged election. No one questioned the system. This time, the protests spread throughout the country and opposed the entire system. Slogans referred to Ali Khamenei and Hassan Rouhani as dictators. Some protesters spoke favorably of Reza Shah, the founder of the dynasty overthrown in 1979. The protests also overflowed with fury that the regime had supported terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah and Hamas. The $100 billion in assets unfrozen by the July 2015 nuclear deal were expected to be used to improve the well-being of Iranian citizen. That did not happen.
The regime can only calm the pervasive anger if it changes its policies radically. That is the one thing it cannot do.
The mullahs’ reign, born from an Islamic revolution, derives its “legitimacy” from that and the promise of carrying it further. The regime cannot stop supporting terrorism without ceasing to be itself. Iran’s “Supreme Guide,” Ali Khamenei, constantly speaks of “apocalypse” and “holy war against America and the West.” He speaks about the urgent need to destroy Israel and “liberate” Jerusalem. He cannot give a different speech without undermining himself and being called an impostor by those who still support him. President Hassan Rouhani has no real power; he is just there to provide a “moderate” façade for people who still want to fantasize that a moderate actually exists in a regime that is fanatic.
Even if the mullahs decided to give a few crumbs to the population, politically they cannot do it.