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Opinions
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani speaks during a meeting in Tehran on January 14, 2020. Photo: AFP / Iranian Presidency
Much of the international Left seems to have a peculiar aversion to substantially criticizing Iran. Most of my Kurdish and Persian friends (none of whom are supporters of the regime in Tehran, I should add) have noticed it.
In 2009, when Iranians took the streets to protest a rigged election, the Left watched quietly from their sofas. President Obama figured it would be better to stay quiet, lest saying something supportive of the protestors associate them with the United States. In what seems like almost yearly outbreaks of unrest and protests in Iran since then, the same attitude prevails – “it’s an Iranian matter,” or, “don’t say anything or you’ll end up supporting American imperialism against Iran!”
While the portion of the Left that actually lives in or near Iran knows the full extent of evil that is the regime there, it seems much of their ideological kin abroad prefers to ignore it. If you ask them, they will of course readily say they don’t like the Mullah’s regime and Iran is “bad” or even “very bad.” But the topic sparks no angry op-eds from the Left akin to what we saw after Saudi Arabia chopped up one of its dissident journalists in their Istanbul consulate. No matter how many protesters authorities in Tehran mow down (as they did to some 1,500 in November), we look around in vain for Western socialists protesting in the streets by way of solidarity. An Israeli operation in Gaza might no doubt lead to marches, but never Iran.
Let us refresh our memory about the Iranian regime. Besides shooting peaceful protestors or getting its Basij militia to beat the hell out of them, the mullahs do not allow any independent labor unions and remain second only to China in numbers of executions of political dissidents. They even have a legal term they apply to almost any form of political dissent: “Mohaarebeh baa Khoda,” which translates to “enmity of God.” They use this to try even minors in secret courts, with executions carried out every week. A disproportionate number of those tried and executed – almost half – are Kurdish political dissidents.
This is the same regime that shoots kolbars (poor rural people earning a living by smuggling goods across the mountainous border with Iraq) and their horses every week. Throughout the 1990s, the Iranian regime financed and supported Palestinians rejecting the Oslo Peace Accords, leading to bombing campaigns that helped elect an equally intransigent right-of-center Israeli government in 2001. They carried out assassinations of Kurdish leaders in Europe and bombings of Jewish community centers in South America. It’s the same regime that has helped Assad kill hundreds of thousands in Syria since 2011 and that killed tens of thousands of Kurds uninterested in an “Islamic Republic” in 1979.
The phenomena led one of my Kurdish friends a few days ago to proclaim “Congratulations to the Left for their success in defending and justifying four-decades of atrocities, violence and oppression in Iran. I wonder if there is anything else to do for your anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist hero?”
When challenged about what “Left” he was talking about, he replied “Those for whom the Islamic regime, the dictators of Latin America and elsewhere are hero and anti-imperialist, those who undermine the Kurdish cause in the name of brotherhood with their intimate enemies, those who ridiculously claim that they are going to erase the political borders and create a borderless Mesopotamia, those who forget the atrocities against Kurds, yet seeking brotherhood in remote past; those who believe a Kurdish Kolber and a worker in Tehran and Istanbul have common grounds and interest. Those whose number one place to live are imperialist countries but cannot stand spending a night in their anti-imperialist countries.”
To this, another friend replied “A lot of people love to say ‘the left is this, the left is that,’ but bashing the left is really not a clever strategy while fascism is rising everywhere around the world. It's not fair either because there are lots of people on the left, including myself, who sees the American imperial-capitalist machine as the greatest threat to humanity while also hating the Iranian regime and wanting the Iranian people to be free.”
To me, this response captured the essence of the problem. For those segments of the Left who see the “American imperial-capitalist machine” as “humanity’s greatest threat,” anything the Mullahs in Iran or the butcher in Damascus do is small potatoes. “Local” conflicts must always remain secondary to the “greatest threat to humanity.” The United States (and Britain and France before that) is blamed for anything and everything. If they let genocide happen like in Rwanda they are at fault both for inaction and the colonial past that led to the massacre. If they integrate a poor country into their world economy, they are attacked for exploitation. If they exclude it (as with Iran and Cuba), they are skewered for causing poverty there. They are rhetorically attacked whether they support a bloody dictator or remove one. When Shiites turn on Sunnis in Iraq or Saddam denies Shiite areas “oil for food” aid, the death toll is likewise ascribed to the West.
At best, these Leftists will argue that the United States is as bad as the regime in Tehran, and more powerful as well. This is why they want to speak of the United States and her allies 90 percent of the time, with little ire left for others. It comes across as hypocritical for an ideological group claiming to espouse universal human values. At least the Right seems more honest – they support their interests and their friends and that’s it, with fewer pretensions.
In a more reasonable world, we could remain clear eyed about the blood that powerful Western states have on their hands while still paying sufficient attention to the truly terrible regimes out there.
David Romano has been a Rudaw columnist since 2010. He holds the Thomas G. Strong Professor of Middle East Politics at Missouri State University and is the author of numerous publications on the Kurds and the Middle East.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.
In 2009, when Iranians took the streets to protest a rigged election, the Left watched quietly from their sofas. President Obama figured it would be better to stay quiet, lest saying something supportive of the protestors associate them with the United States. In what seems like almost yearly outbreaks of unrest and protests in Iran since then, the same attitude prevails – “it’s an Iranian matter,” or, “don’t say anything or you’ll end up supporting American imperialism against Iran!”
While the portion of the Left that actually lives in or near Iran knows the full extent of evil that is the regime there, it seems much of their ideological kin abroad prefers to ignore it. If you ask them, they will of course readily say they don’t like the Mullah’s regime and Iran is “bad” or even “very bad.” But the topic sparks no angry op-eds from the Left akin to what we saw after Saudi Arabia chopped up one of its dissident journalists in their Istanbul consulate. No matter how many protesters authorities in Tehran mow down (as they did to some 1,500 in November), we look around in vain for Western socialists protesting in the streets by way of solidarity. An Israeli operation in Gaza might no doubt lead to marches, but never Iran.
Let us refresh our memory about the Iranian regime. Besides shooting peaceful protestors or getting its Basij militia to beat the hell out of them, the mullahs do not allow any independent labor unions and remain second only to China in numbers of executions of political dissidents. They even have a legal term they apply to almost any form of political dissent: “Mohaarebeh baa Khoda,” which translates to “enmity of God.” They use this to try even minors in secret courts, with executions carried out every week. A disproportionate number of those tried and executed – almost half – are Kurdish political dissidents.
This is the same regime that shoots kolbars (poor rural people earning a living by smuggling goods across the mountainous border with Iraq) and their horses every week. Throughout the 1990s, the Iranian regime financed and supported Palestinians rejecting the Oslo Peace Accords, leading to bombing campaigns that helped elect an equally intransigent right-of-center Israeli government in 2001. They carried out assassinations of Kurdish leaders in Europe and bombings of Jewish community centers in South America. It’s the same regime that has helped Assad kill hundreds of thousands in Syria since 2011 and that killed tens of thousands of Kurds uninterested in an “Islamic Republic” in 1979.
The phenomena led one of my Kurdish friends a few days ago to proclaim “Congratulations to the Left for their success in defending and justifying four-decades of atrocities, violence and oppression in Iran. I wonder if there is anything else to do for your anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist hero?”
When challenged about what “Left” he was talking about, he replied “Those for whom the Islamic regime, the dictators of Latin America and elsewhere are hero and anti-imperialist, those who undermine the Kurdish cause in the name of brotherhood with their intimate enemies, those who ridiculously claim that they are going to erase the political borders and create a borderless Mesopotamia, those who forget the atrocities against Kurds, yet seeking brotherhood in remote past; those who believe a Kurdish Kolber and a worker in Tehran and Istanbul have common grounds and interest. Those whose number one place to live are imperialist countries but cannot stand spending a night in their anti-imperialist countries.”
To this, another friend replied “A lot of people love to say ‘the left is this, the left is that,’ but bashing the left is really not a clever strategy while fascism is rising everywhere around the world. It's not fair either because there are lots of people on the left, including myself, who sees the American imperial-capitalist machine as the greatest threat to humanity while also hating the Iranian regime and wanting the Iranian people to be free.”
To me, this response captured the essence of the problem. For those segments of the Left who see the “American imperial-capitalist machine” as “humanity’s greatest threat,” anything the Mullahs in Iran or the butcher in Damascus do is small potatoes. “Local” conflicts must always remain secondary to the “greatest threat to humanity.” The United States (and Britain and France before that) is blamed for anything and everything. If they let genocide happen like in Rwanda they are at fault both for inaction and the colonial past that led to the massacre. If they integrate a poor country into their world economy, they are attacked for exploitation. If they exclude it (as with Iran and Cuba), they are skewered for causing poverty there. They are rhetorically attacked whether they support a bloody dictator or remove one. When Shiites turn on Sunnis in Iraq or Saddam denies Shiite areas “oil for food” aid, the death toll is likewise ascribed to the West.
At best, these Leftists will argue that the United States is as bad as the regime in Tehran, and more powerful as well. This is why they want to speak of the United States and her allies 90 percent of the time, with little ire left for others. It comes across as hypocritical for an ideological group claiming to espouse universal human values. At least the Right seems more honest – they support their interests and their friends and that’s it, with fewer pretensions.
In a more reasonable world, we could remain clear eyed about the blood that powerful Western states have on their hands while still paying sufficient attention to the truly terrible regimes out there.
David Romano has been a Rudaw columnist since 2010. He holds the Thomas G. Strong Professor of Middle East Politics at Missouri State University and is the author of numerous publications on the Kurds and the Middle East.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.
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