Brand Iran as an Evil Empire !

by Aaron Braunstein, USFSO (ret.)

 

A variant was published in the Jerusalem Post on September 1, 2015 under the title “Dismember the Evil Persian Empire”

 

Many are asking what can be done to reverse the Iranian lurch towards nuclear weapons capability.  One fundamental measure would be to further delegitimize that evil entity.  This should be done through a frontal informational assault on Tehran as the center of a truly evil Persian empire, despite and even because of the recent dangerous nuclear agreement.

At a recent gathering in Jerusalem with Knesset member, I proposed going on the informational offensive against Ayatollah Iran as an Evil Persian Empire oppressing its own huge ethnic minorities.  In other words, not just Iran today as a terrorist Shia religious state, but also as an evil empire.

 


 

 

Indeed, ethnic Persians constitute only half of Iran’s population.  Azaris, Kurds and Arabs alone make up at least a third of that population, with smaller minorities rounding out the picture. One cannot know the true size of each oppressed minority because of the likelihood that Tehran falsifies its population statistics. And yet, the Persian ethnic statistics for Iran are similar to those of the Russian ethnic component in the former Soviet Union.

In a February 2006 report, Amnesty Int’l stated that “minorities in Iran, who are believed to number half the population, are subject to an array of discriminatory laws and practices.”  This situation is compounded by the oppression of women and religious minorities.  In a phrase, the Ayatollah totalitarian entity would not survive if its minorities were given their human rights.  .  This situation is far different for that of Egypt, for example, which, unlike Iran, is indeed a nation state. The recent signature of the evil-inducing nuclear pact with power-drunk Tehran only solidifies its oppressive rule.

Internal opposition among ethnic Persians has been demoralized by Western validation of the Iranian regime through the Vienna nuclear pact.  They are thus a less critical element in any further dealings with Tehran.

The well-meaning reaction of the Knesset member was to say, “Isn’t the Prime Minister already saying everything possible against that evil regime?!”.

And the answer is: No !  He is not.!    He is not branding Iran as a specifically evil empire.

Some may argue that such policy would lose the support of Persian people themselves as it would challenge Persian rule over all of Iran, at least as a unitary state.  But that rule is almost by definition oppressive, depriving also the great Persian people itself of the benefits of democracy and human rights.  This was the case with the Soviet Union, in which the great Russian people suffered under the yoke of its own internal Soviet imperialism.

Communism was the glue that sought to keep the Soviet dictatorial state together.  Restoration of the past glories of Persian imperial rule over large territories was presented as the justification for the Shah’s dictatorship.  So today, the Ayatollahs have substituted Islamic Shia extremism to justify their rule.

All the Ayatollahs’ external aggression is, of course, critical.  But for a frontal informational assault on Ayatollah rule it would be necessary for the West to go on the offensive against the illegitimate Iranian entity, at least until Tehran realizes that it is risking everything including the dismantlement of its Persian empire.  When such conclusion is drawn, there is a good probability that Tehran will retrench, roll back and wait for a ‘better day’.  The evil ayatollahs are convinced that the West will, in any case, implode from its own internal contradictions, so-called.

An expansive informational attack would yank at the very gut of the regime beyond Tehran’s use of proxies for imperial outreach.  In fact, as with the Soviet Union in its day, the Ayatollahs’ external aggression is a direct derivative of their illegitimate imperium of terror within their own borders.

The current propaganda attacks on Israel would pale appreciably when compared to the kind of offensive that the West could mount to delegitimize Tehran.  It should not be too difficult to persuade many of the human rights dupes of the antisemitic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) ringleaders to shift their focus to the most grievous Persian violations of human rights and human lives.  The ayatollahs are smiling over the piles of dead Sunni Arabs and hoards of Arab refugees in Iraq and Syria produced by their deliberate policy of ethno-religious cleansing.

There is a shining historical precedent applicable to the imperial ayatollahs today.

On March 8, 1983, then President Ronald Reagan stunned ‘politically correct’ thinking when he attacked the USSR as an “evil empire”.

A paraphrase of his words then, thunder when applied to Iran today:

“The Persian ayatollahs preach the omnipotence of their totalitarian religion over the individual and predict their eventual domination of all peoples. They are the focus of evil in the modern world.  Beware the temptation to label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, and to remove yourself from the struggle between good and evil.

With this one speech, President Reagan undermined the very legitimacy of the Soviet state.  He flew in the face of conventional ‘Convergence’ wisdom at the time, i.e. that the Soviets would some-how moderate and become more capitalist, while America would become more socialist and statist, with both meeting in the middle to kiss and make up.  This is the essence of the Obama philosophy today with regard to Iran.

The end result was the exact opposite, with the USSR collapsing as a result of its own internal anti-democratic and economic contradictions.  And so it can be today, with Ayatollah Iran despite the heavy boot of its Revolutionary Guards.

The West will soon learn that the recently concluded agreement with the new evil empire has only increased Tehran’s appetite for imperial subversion and expansion.  If this dangerous agreement is, in fact fully implemented, Iran can be expected to move full speed ahead to develop its nuclear weapons capability, its international ballistic delivery systems, while filling its coffers to better oil its worldwide terrorist machine.

Lets us be very clear to ourselves and to others that when Tehran is ready, it will hang the West in each of the agreement’s loopholes in preparation for its complete violation to achieve nuclear weapons breakout.  At that point, the only thing that will “snap back” will not be the promised sanctions but the West’s whip-lashed neck.

The proposed informational offensive against the evil Iranian empire in the realm of ideas is, therefore, particularly imperative for Israel and America today. President Obama, presidential candidate Clinton and Prime Minister Netanyahu should each deliver their own ‘evil empire’ speech to show that they are really serious about stopping Tehran.  And, if not, the American and Israeli peoples should ask other leaders to do so.

Aaron Braunstein is a retired U.S. Foreign Service officer living in Jerusalem, having served 13 years in Moslem countries. He is also the founding president of the non-sectarian Jewish Covenant Alliance, R.A., advancing a Jewish mission to the nations in the struggle against regime evil worldwide, with website at www.covenantalliance.org in ten languages.