It's a conundrum: Thousands of young people - mostly students - have been demonstrating in Iran in recent days. They are protesting the unnecessary killing of their friends on the Ukrainian passenger plane shot out of the sky by the regime last week.
Videos aired in recent days show the majority of these students walking past American and Israeli flags placed on the ground by the authorities precisely for them to tread on.
Yet the protesters did the opposite and even expressed fury at the few who did step on the flags.
Iranian protesters largely walk around the American and Israeli flags rather than tread on them
(Video: Twitter)
They have managed to maintain their free and independent thinking despite existing under a brainwashing regime. How?
Let's imagine this happened at UC Berkeley, where many students would love to trample all over these flags.
After all, hatred of the United States and Israel has become part of the identity for those who appear to be progressive and enlightened. Yet it is precisely Iranian young men and women who refuse to participate in such a display of hatred. Hope is not lost yet.
But let us not be deceived; they are not in the majority. There are more young people who choose to stay at home than there are young people who take to the streets. After all, these are demonstrations by hundreds, maybe thousands, not millions. These are protests of the brave.
But what a stark difference between the protesters in Iran and the radicals on campuses in the West. In the West, the radical avant-garde is characterized by a hatred of the West and Israel, whereas Iran's avant-garde is characterized by a hatred of the ayatollahs.
And while the Western avant-garde enters into coalitions of hate with jihadists and anti-Semites, the Iranian avant-garde abhors such dalliances.
When the radicals in the West hold rallies of solidarity with the Hamas regime, Iran's protesters demonstrate against the regime's investments in Gaza.
"Is Iran the only adult in the room?" read a headline a few days ago on the website of feminist-radical-leftist movement Code Pink, whose leaders have already held talks with Hamas and the Taliban.
Iran, the article went on to explain, did indeed bomb two Iraqi bases hosting Americans, in Al-Asad and Irbil, but actually made an effort not avoid harming human life. It is only a matter of time before these radicals propose giving Ayatollah Ali Khamenei the Nobel Peace Prize.
But what about the thousands of protesters killed in Iran and Iraq by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and pro-Iranian militias?
Please, don’t confuse these people with facts. The most important thing is to raise another cry of outrage against Donald Trump, who ordered the eradication of Qassem Soleimani, while simultaneously calling for peace with the ayatollahs' regime.
The problem is not the difference between Iran's protesters and Western radicals; when it comes to the West, the issue is much broader.
For it was Barack Obama, John Kerry and Federica Mogherini who legitimized the dark regime in Tehran.
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Former EU Foreign Policy chief Federica Mogherini with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif
(Photo: AFP)
Not only did they never offer support to the brave protesters against the regime, they even saved it with the 2015 nuclear agreement.
They gave Soleimani the green light to continue his imperialist subversion. They released billions of dollars that gave a vigorous boost to Iran's industry of suppression and death.
Thanks to the nuclear agreement we got more weapons for Hezbollah, more development of ballistic missiles, more arms for the Houthi killers in Yemen.
The gap between Barack Obama and Code Pink is far narrower than it seems. Jodie Evans, one of the founders of the organization, was a fundraiser for Obama.
The president continued to meet with her in the White House even after she met with members of the Taliban. And the women and men of Evans' coterie are unable to utter a single word of support for the valiant protesters in Tehran.
For them, the problem is Trump, not the ayatollahs. The statements that they do make are mainly on lifting the Iranian sanctions.
One has to ask how it is that the West produces so many useful idiots, willing propaganda agents of the dark regime, while in Iran itself there is a generation of young people who are fighting against this reign of terror and for freedom and human rights.
Why the hell are Western progressives turning their backs on the brave young people of Iran?
We are used to this phenomenon when it comes to Israel, where progressives support a boycott of the Jewish state and the removal of sanctions on the Hamas regime in Gaza.
And they are not operating in isolation. They receive funding from the European Union as a whole and European countries separately.
This is the paradox of the radicals: progressives supporting the black-hearted and the racist.
They oppose those who are fighting evil elements, and now they are turning their backs on the Iranian protesters.