by FRED PAWLE – DON’T be fooled by the official narrative about Iran. If the past is any guide, it serves the elites’ interests, not yours.
Opinions about the Middle East these days are like magic mushrooms sprouting en masse in a paddock of fresh cow dung.
- It’s okay to not have an opinion about Iran at all.
- If Iranians who have tasted Western freedom are so opposed to it, what chance do the masses have?
- To some, there is no difference between dictatorship and freedom.
No matter how fascinating they are to consume, you still find yourself surrounded by crap.
The topic has become so self-perpetuating that you can now watch people talk about two leading antagonists, Konstantin Kisin and Dave Smith, talking about what they said to each other on X.
BURROWING
This exchange in itself was triggered by what Smith said to Douglas Murray on Joe Rogan – interpretations of which have been burrowing new rabbit holes across the internet for two months now.
And if you can’t be bothered to analyse the Kisin-Smith encounter yourself, there are myriad pre-packaged analyses to choose from, including an objective scorecard for things like “logic” and “ethical appeal”, which gives the win to Smith.
“Win” is a key word here. Professional pundits treat this and every other issue that appears in the news cycle like a sporting contest.
They race onto the field with conspicuous haste, wearing their #TeamIran or #TeamIsrael hashtags like club guernseys, and give it their all in the hope that vindication will be theirs when the umpire of history blows the final whistle.
It would take a smarter writer than me to save you from this rhetorical spectacle, I’m afraid.
What I can offer, though, is some clarity amid the often-emotional confusion, and a reminder that it’s okay to not have an opinion about it at all.
We learned during COVID, if not before, that our opinions have no bearing on public policy, so who really cares what we plebs think anyway?
Allow me to make a few basic statements from the start that, I think, are beyond dispute, and from which we can begin to understand the situation: both Israel and Iran have a right to exist. Iran’s mullahs should not acquire nuclear weapons, and war is bad.
Anything beyond that is based almost entirely on what the media and the rest of the ruling elite want you to know, much of which is part of a broader, strategic, approved narrative that is in the elites’ interest, not yours.
We can see in hindsight how this worked with COVID in 2020. The vaccines in 2021-2, Ukraine in 2022 and of course the mother of all false narratives, the weapons of mass destruction in 2003.
The narrative in this case is that bombing the crap out of Iran’s nuclear facilities will lead seamlessly to a spontaneous and overwhelming “regime change” engineered by freedom-loving Iranians.
Donald Trump said as much today: “It’s not politically correct to use ‘Regime Change’… but if Iran’s current regime can’t MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be one? MIGA!!!”
This is intended more for Trump’s domestic audience than it is for whichever aspiring insurrectionists are following his Truth Social account from Iran.
To us, it’s a compelling story – the messianic west weakens a decades-old oppressive regime in some tin-pot shithole, the freedom-hungry masses rise up to finally overthrow them.
And, within a generation or two, trade and tourism between former adversaries are thriving and we are all friends again.
Cool story, right? Sadly, since COVID I doubt even we are that attached to freedom any more.
Iranians, many of whom have never known freedom, are arguably less so. There were thousands of them marching through streets across the West yesterday demanding the governments of their adopted new nations stop meddling in Iran.
If the Iranians who have tasted freedom are that opposed to it, what chance do the benighted masses have?
(As an aside, if any of the Iranians marching in Sydney yesterday want a lift to the airport to take a one-way flight home, I’d be happy to oblige.)
YEARN
I hope I’m wrong, but I suspect we in the West have for a few centuries overestimated how much ordinary people yearn to be free.
Australian author Anna Funder discovered this in Stasiland (2002), her book about East Germany during and after communism.
To some people, “there is no fundamental difference between dictatorship and freedom,” a sentiment that has become widespread in the Labor governments that have since been elected across Australia.
I’m not endorsing this, just acknowledging its depressingly growing existence.
The most difficult thing for us, which is a luxury compared to those huddling in bomb shelters in Israel or trying to avoid the attention of the morality police in Iran, is to not get sucked into the tribalism ourselves.
I think that in many ways Donald Trump is the last great hope for Western civilisation to regain its former glory, and that Australia’s best defence strategy in these hostile times is to remain allied to the United States.
But even I think it is possible Trump has been captivated by his own military-industrial complex, which is arguably more evil than the mullahs have ever been, on this occasion.
PUSHOVER
His insinuation on the weekend that the US had struck a decisive blow on Iran’s nuclear facilities, based on the presumption that Iran is a pushover, may yet prove premature. This conflict could easily escalate and prolong.
Similarly, I wish Israel well in its war against the Islamic fanatics in its region.
It is, in fact, the first line in the war that the rest of the West may need to fight as well.
But that doesn’t mean I have forgotten that Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu forced every one of his constituents to become a lab rat for his billionaire friends in Big Pharma during the vaccine madness.
Should Australia get caught up defending a nation that does that to its own citizens?
In times of rapid change and ambiguity, the only prudent option is to keep an open mind, have clear principles, and not be fooled by the offical narrative.
Alarming though it is, this means you might find yourself occasionally agreeing with fools like Penny Wong or David Shoebridge. Worse things could happen, I suppose.PC
– Fred Pawle
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It amazes me that people cannot or will not accept what islam is when it continually says what it wants to do and its actions are consistent with what it says. Islam wants to spread islam and destroy all other forms of society. It does so by violence and outbreeding everyone else. This is what is happening in EVERY Western nation which has a muslim population. Any Western leader such as our alp/greens which pretends otherwise and imports muslims for political purposes are fools and traitors.
It has been said that most people don’t want freedom, they just want a tolerable master.
I haven’t seen much lately to counter this.
Understand and often feel the same pessimism Fred. We have entwined ourselves in the predicament proscribed. Makes it even more important to seek out smaller government and freedom, finding our way seems a
never ending challenge. Our various notions of ‘freedom’ are continuously up for grabs.