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The West's Weepers for the Islamic Republic
(Spiked-UK) Brendan O'Neill - No sooner had the U.S. and Israel launched airstrikes against regime targets inside Iran than critics began raging against the "murder" of Iranian civilians. So it's murder when Iranian innocents tragically die as a result of war but not a big deal when Iranian innocents are intentionally butchered by Islamist monsters who loathe them for wanting freedom. Where were the "emergency protests" in solidarity with the millions of workers and students who have been waging a most valiant revolt against the Islamic Republic? None of the keffiyeh classes who have marched every week "for Gaza" could say a single word "for Iran." If the reported deaths of some regime goons make you angrier than the proven deaths of thousands of everyday Iranians, then it's not Iran you sympathize with. It's the ruthless theocracy that has been squatting on that once great nation for nearly 50 years now. How do we explain a moral universe where there can be more fury over strikes against a government than there was over that government's mass murder of its own citizens? According to the commandments of anti-Westernism, America is the source of every earthly problem. Thus, when America causes a death in Iran, it's a crime against humanity. Yet when the regime causes infinitely more deaths in Iran, meh. There's a curious reverse racism to this insistence on blaming the West for everything. It treats the crimes of the regimes of the world almost as instances of diminished responsibility rather than true offenses against the human spirit. To see imperialism in action, look no further than the Islamic Republic. It deploys cruel proxies to enforce its theocratic writ everywhere from Lebanon to Gaza to Yemen. If you're an anti-imperialist, the Islamic Republic should offend your every moral fiber. We are well within our rights to wonder if those saying "Hands off Iran" really mean "Hands off this regime that slaughters innocent men and women because at least it is anti-American like us."