Netanyahu Is Not Fighting For Democracy In Iran
Ffs.
Israel, with the backing of the US, is currently working itself up to a horrific regional war with Iran. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who began the bombing, claims that the war is necessary to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, even though the best intel suggests that Iran is not going to have nuclear weapons anytime soon. (Or, to put it another way, Israel is lying because it wants an excuse for war.)
—
Everything Is Horrible is entirely reader funded. That means if you don’t contribute, I can’t scribble. So consider becoming a contributor! It’s $5/month, $50/year.
—
In addition to the false warnings about an imminent nuclear Iran, Israel has also argued that war is good in itself because it will liberate Iran’s people. Last week, for example, Netanyahu called for (another) Iranian revolution. “The time has come for the Iranian people to unite around its flag and its historic legacy, by standing up for your freedom from the evil and oppressive regime.” Right wing US commenter Erick Erickson echoed those sentiments on twitter: “We should be helping the Iranian people overthrow their government. The majority of Iranians want to be with the West.”
Netanyahu isn’t wrong about the regime in Iran; it is evil and oppressive. Women who defy the “morality police” by refusing to wear headscarves have been imprisoned, tortured, and literally whipped. The people of Iran deserve better; a new, democratic government in Iran would be a blessing. In the words of Donald Trump, “The future of Iran belongs to its people.”
But you know where else a new, democratic government would be a blessing? In Israel. And for that matter in the US.
Israel’s genocide against Gaza had killed around 41,000 people as of October. Since then, Israel has instituted an embargo on food and humanitarian aid; all 2 million people in Gaza are starving. Palestinians journalists are especially under assault; at least 185, and probably many more, have been murdered as they attempt to report on the genocide.
Meanwhile, Palestinian citizens in Israel who protest the mass murder of their community have been arrested and jailed; they’ve also been stigmatized and suspended from schools and jobs. And of course Palestinians in Gaza have no voice or vote in the apartheid “democracy” which controls their food, their water, and their lives.
The US has also targeted Palestinians and those who speak out for Palestine; Turkish grad student Rumeysa Ozturk was unconstitutionally detained by ICE for writing a pro Palestinian op-ed. The Trump administration is also currently roughing up opposition leaders, and using the military to intimidate domestic political opposition. His administration’s shuttering of foreign aid could lead to 25 million deaths; it has already killed hundreds of thousands.
Hypocrisy yes; warmongering no
The point here is not “no one can criticize because we’re all morally compromised.” On the contrary, criticizing dictatorial and violent regimes is good, even when the criticizers themselves are horrible.
The Soviet Union under Stalin was a psychotic murder factory, and after him it was a more normal but still brutal imperialist authoritarian regime. Nonetheless, it’s consistent (if cynical) criticism of Jim Crow and racial apartheid in the US was crucial to many civil rights gains. The government’s amicus brief in Brown v. Board of Education urged the court to find against segregation because “Racial discrimination [has] furnished grist for the Communist propaganda mills, and it raises doubts even among friendly nations as to the intensity of our devotion to the democratic faith.”
Bad nations criticizing each other for bad actions can force everyone to try to become slightly less bad. Hypocrisy in foreign relations can be a force for good, at least sometimes.
This is not, unfortunately, one of those times. Netanyahu and Trump are simply lying when they say they want to help the Iranian people. Israel is not bombing and spreading terror and death to fight for women’s rights. It is bombing and spreading terror and death because Netanyahu thinks war and death are popular in Israel and will allow him to hold onto power. Similarly, Trump does not have a deep personal commitment to democracy; he just likes blowing things up because he thinks it makes him look cool.
The Iranian rulers are bad people. But unfortunately, Israel’s rulers are also bad people, and the fascist dipshit Americans elected to rule the US is an unbelievably bad person. The Iranians have no reason to believe that US/Israel liberators would treat them with justice or would install a democracy even if they could. The Iranian people are not as supportive of Palestine as other countries in the region for a range of reasons; nonetheless, a truly democratic Iran would certainly include at least some voices speaking against the genocide and against Israel. Which is a reason to doubt that Netanyahu or Trump have any interest at all in a truly democratic Iran.
The majority of Iranians want to be free. But the west, as represented by Israel and the US, and contra Erick Erickson, isn’t especially free, and is becoming less so every minute. The Israeli government is a vicious and genocidal apartheid regime; the US government is doing everything it can to silence dissent and create a fascist state. The idea that Netanyahu and Trump are fighting for, or would attempt to install, a democratic Iran would be amusing if it weren’t being used as an excuse for a wholesale slaughter of Iranian people.
If we could toss the Ayatollahs, Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir, Trump, Stephen Miller, Elon Musk, and their various cronies in a cage and have them all beat each other to death with rusty sporks, that would be a win for democracy, for freedom, and for the world. If all those assholes want to issue press releases denouncing each other as totalitarian monsters, that is less effective, but sure, why not.
But “Iran is bad so the good guys must ride to the rescue on giant bombs” is simply a disgusting lie. Israel is not a “good guy” and we certainly aren’t. We want to rescue no one, and we will rescue no one. Netanyahu and Trump and the Ayatollahs will continue to oppress and immiserate whoever they can manage to get ahold of. That number will rise horrifically if Netanyahu gets the war he wants. No Iranians will be freed, unless you count being blown apart by Israeli and American bombs as “liberation.”
Another factor our leaders should consider but most likely won’t is that the American people are largely tired of endless wars. And I’m saying that as someone who feels like supporting Ukraine is important.
It’s like our leaders find a new group of people in the Middle East that we should all see as the enemy in unison. The fact that support for Palestinian people has increased despite this pattern is almost miraculous.
The world so desperately needs better leadership, because the status quo is not it. No wonder people weren’t interested in going to Trump’s military parade. That total flop was no doubt a ray of sunshine for these cloudy days.
Despite Israel’s success in achieving air supremacy over Iran, Bibi and company have reached the “Now what?” stage. Israel has no clear path to convert military superiority to a strategic victory. Except for satisfying Bibi’s need for continuous war to avoid corruption charges, Israel’s newest war has achieved nothing of lasting significance, and is unlikely to.