Free Iran
Plus, Mamdani's "warmth of collectivism" sends chills
If you haven’t been online much in the past week, you probably have missed what should be the biggest story of the day. City by city, millions of protesters have taken to the streets in Iran. Truckers have joined a general strike, paralyzing much of the nation. Schools and universities are shut down. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is deployed and is reportedly firing live rounds into the crowds. And both the New York Times and Washington Post’s top story is a deadly fire at a tony Alps resort in Switzerland.
What got any coverage at all is President Trump’s post on Truth Social: “If Iran shots [sic] and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue. We are locked and loaded and ready to go. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
NBC News headlined this (variously) Trump threatened/vowed to intervene. Of course, they covered the Iranian response, that any U.S. move would be met with a “firm response.” The very fact that this president has sided with the protesters at all is remarkable, considering our history dealing with protests in Iran.
In 2009, students and middle class urbanites took to the streets to protest the presidential election results. The regime responded by conducting mass arrests of activists and journalists, jailing of the political opposition, deploying the IRGC, and then following up with show trials.
In 2017, inflation, food prices, and corruption fueled working-class protests scattered around the nation. Again, the regime used violence and mass arrests to put down the revolt while throttling nationwide Internet service. In 2016, between 300-1500 were killed, and thousands were detained when gas prices were hiked by about 300 percent. Water shortages in 2021 brought Khuzestan residents into the streets. Same formula: media blackout, mass arrests, framing as foreign interference.
The “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement in 2021 was met by public executions of women who violated the dress code, mass arrests, harsher penalties for women’s dress violations, and increased surveillance nationwide. Through all of those efforts by Iranians to free themselves from their oppressive extremist ayatollahs, the U.S. sat by and did nothing, while offering mere platitudes to the people being persecuted and killed.
This time is different. It has a different air about it.
First, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu spoke directly to the Iranian people months ago, telling them that their freedom would come. While the regime did its best to block and frame this, it did have an effect on those who hate Iran’s current leaders, in boosting their confidence and spirit.
Second, it appears in some cities, Iranian military members have joined the protesters, who have begun burning government buildings. Reports have been posted on X/Twitter claiming Israel is using its cyber warfare capabilities to attack Iran’s surveillance camera and facial recognition network. These are unconfirmed, but I wouldn’t doubt that it’s in Israel’s interest to help depose the current regime.
Third, the heir to the former Shah of Iran’s throne, Reza Pahlevi, and currently a self-styled “advocate for a secular democratic Iran” per his website, posted a message to Iranians on December 28th.
Greetings to you, the Bazaar folks and the people who have taken to the streets.
As long as this regime is in power, the country's economic situation will continue to decline.
Today, it is the time for greater solidarity.
I call on all segments of society to join your fellow compatriots in the streets and raise the cry for the fall of this system.
And my special message to the security and police forces: This system is collapsing. Do not stand against the people. Join the people.
We will be victorious because right is on our side and we are united and of one voice.
Pahlevi followed it up today with another message, naming the cities where the protests have had success, even taking over some city buildings. “You are making history—history written by the courage, solidarity, and determination of a nation reclaiming its country.” He added, “Stay united. Stay focused on the goal. Victory will be ours.”
This round of unrest has the whiff of the beginning of the end, a collapsing regime. Of course, we’ve heard that before. But before, the U.S. president hasn’t offered the protesters to come “to their rescue.” Also, previously, the U.S. had not had a recent direct strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities on its resume. Then again, we’ve clashed with Iran over the years. President Bill Clinton destroyed the entire Iranian navy after Iran mined shipping lanes, threatening oil tankers in 1988. The USS Vincennes shot down an Iranian A300 airliner on July 3 of that year, killing 290 civilians. In 2020, President Trump ordered the elimination of Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the IRGC Quds Force, but that happened while Soleimani was in Iraq.
The supreme leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, will not step away from power voluntarily. His regime will not go quietly. But all his levers are spent, other than direct military action against his own citizens, who are growing more confident by the day. Gone are the days when Israel, the U.S. and Arab nations are kept at bay while Iran dispatches its religious and IRGC militias to quell unrest.
I am not saying this spells absolute doom for Khamenei, but I am saying it appears more likely now than it has ever been. I have never been an interventionist when it comes to other nations internal strife. The U.S. isn’t being the World Police here, however. Iran’s current regime is a first-class belligerent against America. Its is a repressive, tyrannical dictatorship that kills its own citizens to maintain power. It supplies drones to Russia in its war against Ukraine. It allies with rogue states like North Korea in pursuit of nuclear technology and bombs. It is a regional source of destabilization.
We should support the overthrow of this awful regime, and the seeds of some kind of democracy in Iran. If it takes putting our military in harm’s way to do it, I believe that’s a much better use of them than plinking boats in the Caribbean or hounding Russia’s shadow oil tanker fleet in Venezuela. (By the way, in 1988, Kuwait did exactly what the Guyanian flagged tanker off Venezuela did, reflagging vessels as U.S. to obtain protection from Iran, except the Bella 1 reflagged as Russian.)
Free Iran.
“Warm Collectivism”
Zohran Mamdani’s grasp of “warm collectivism” as he took office as Mayor of New York has brought a chill reaction from many who have experienced that particular political system.
Justin Amash posted: “The principle that the end justifies the means, which in individualist ethics is regarded as the denial of all morals, in collectivist ethics becomes necessarily the supreme rule. There is literally nothing which the consistent collectivist must not be prepared to do if it serves ‘the good of the whole,’ because that is to him the only criterion of what ought to be done.”
—F.A. Hayek
Former Russian chess champion Garry Kasparov noted, “The "warmth of collectivism" is to freeze while those with heated dachas tell you how noble your sacrifice is.”
Neither Amash nor Kasparov are friends of Donald Trump (an understatement). Yet Mamdani appeared with the president before taking office in a chum-fest. It appears Trump is just fine with the warmth of the guy he called a Communist before that man was chosen to be mayor of the Big Apple.
Brit commentator Liz Mair simply posted an image of “The Gulag Archipelago,” Solzhenitsyn’s masterpiece. Many who have personally experienced the warm glow of the old Soviet Union joined in the chorus of doom.
As for me, I believe Mayor Mamdani said it on purpose, knowing exactly what would happen. It’s political fire, and as a politician, Mamdani knows how to direct it effectively. The folks who want to “try” socialism in the U.S. will latch on, any everyone else will get goosebumps from the symbolism. It won’t change anything, but it does set the tone.
One thing I will add: there’s only one democratic, liberal nation that I know of that explicitly authorizes and supports collectivism and has for 80 years. They are called Kibbutzim, and that country is Israel. Vicious men from Gaza attacked the Kibbutzim and took hostages. Maybe Mayor Mamdani can warm himself with that fact.
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After our shameful fumbling of Afghanistan, the United States doesn't have a whole lot of credibility here, and the Iranians are probably better off without our "help".
Donald Trump needs to keep his focus on our own country and stay out of Iran's affairs. Not that he is doing much to affect things for the better here.