But it isn't. It is treated as something worse. The inexcusable behaviour of the murderous mullahs and their men has been occurring since the end of December. According to some sources, over 6000 people have lost their lives to the repression.
The response of the European Union in listing Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organisation has been rapid. Yet the same institution has dragged its heels on the genocide in Gaza, never remotely approaching a position where it might consider designating the IDF a terrorist organisation.
Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign policy chief, announced that there was unanimity amongst EU foreign ministers for the designation, arguing that:
The response of the European Union in listing Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organisation has been rapid. Yet the same institution has dragged its heels on the genocide in Gaza, never remotely approaching a position where it might consider designating the IDF a terrorist organisation.
Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign policy chief, announced that there was unanimity amongst EU foreign ministers for the designation, arguing that:
any regime that kills thousands of its own people is working toward its own demise . . . This will put them on the same footing with al Qeida, Hamas, Daesh.
The suggestion is that if you keep killing thousands of other people you can escape the designation 'terrorist' but you need to avoid killing your own. So much for the universality of human rights: killing thousands in your own society is a no-no but ok when they live in an another society.
The crackdown by the mullahs has supposedly pricked the sensibilities of the Western political class. Experiencing the worst division within its ranks since the end of World War 2, it has found something its internecine battlers can unite on: confronting Iran. But it is not concern about human rights abuses that sits at the heart of Western sensibilities. Not when by the time the protests had erupted in Iran, the genocide in Gaza had already been going on for almost twenty seven months, enabled not condemned by the West.
With some sources predicting a US military strike against Iran as early as Sunday the European action directed towards the Revolutionary Guard feeds the suspicion that it is the opening shot in the war of position. The aim of the primary military actor, the US, is regime change. Benjamin Netanyahu, wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, is - in the words of a former US Intelligence official and current Trump advisor - “hoping for an attack . . . and assuring Trump that Israel can help put in place a new government that is friendly with the West.” Talk of protecting Iranian protestors is simply hot air as was evident from the list of demands put to Iran: The New York Times pointed out:
Iranian citizens have the same right to be free from the mullahs as we in Ireland have to be free from the priests. The citizens of Gaza have the same right to be free from genocide and Israeli occupation. Arguably, the rights of Gazans should be pursued by the international community with even greater urgency and vigour than is applicable to Iran given the severity of the crimes being inflicted on them.
The crackdown by the mullahs has supposedly pricked the sensibilities of the Western political class. Experiencing the worst division within its ranks since the end of World War 2, it has found something its internecine battlers can unite on: confronting Iran. But it is not concern about human rights abuses that sits at the heart of Western sensibilities. Not when by the time the protests had erupted in Iran, the genocide in Gaza had already been going on for almost twenty seven months, enabled not condemned by the West.
With some sources predicting a US military strike against Iran as early as Sunday the European action directed towards the Revolutionary Guard feeds the suspicion that it is the opening shot in the war of position. The aim of the primary military actor, the US, is regime change. Benjamin Netanyahu, wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, is - in the words of a former US Intelligence official and current Trump advisor - “hoping for an attack . . . and assuring Trump that Israel can help put in place a new government that is friendly with the West.” Talk of protecting Iranian protestors is simply hot air as was evident from the list of demands put to Iran: The New York Times pointed out:
Notably absent from those demands — and from Mr. Trump’s post on Truth Social on Wednesday morning — was any reference to protecting the protesters who took to the streets in Iran in December, convulsing the country and creating the latest crisis for its government. Mr. Trump had promised, in past social media posts, to come to their aid, but has barely mentioned them in recent weeks.
It is not the characterisation of the brutal Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist force that sticks in the craw but the sheer hypocrisy involved in the failure to treat the IDF in similar fashion. Western leaders are still deaf deaf to the IDF. They are also deaf to the wails of the children of Gaza, so brutally butchered during the infanticide.
Iranian citizens have the same right to be free from the mullahs as we in Ireland have to be free from the priests. The citizens of Gaza have the same right to be free from genocide and Israeli occupation. Arguably, the rights of Gazans should be pursued by the international community with even greater urgency and vigour than is applicable to Iran given the severity of the crimes being inflicted on them.
Not a position likely to prevail in the Western chambers of power which have become little more than echo chambers for genocide.
 |
| ⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre. |
No comments