The Khomeinist ideology of revolutionary Iran centers on the supreme leader’s infallible guardianship of the people. But Khomeinism isn’t about moral power in public interest; it’s about power as an end in itself.
The evidence for this is in Iran’s export of terrorist violence to capitals from Buenos Aires to Beirut to Washington, D.C., to Baghdad. It is a truth shown by the imprisonment of Iran’s people under a rotting carcass of revolutionary corruption. And it is a truth shown by the absurd hypocrisy with which the Iranian elite pretend to care about the sanctity of the physical body and world.
On that last note, consider two stories from Friday. First, on May 12, Iran targeted a number of oil tankers operating near UAE waters with explosives. The BBC notes that at least one of the tankers leaked a sizable amount of oil following the attack. The oil spill is not a surprising result of such an attack, but it might seem like a surprise that these purportedly devout theocrats hold the sanctity of Allah’s planet in such low esteem.
Then, there’s the Tasnim report on Iran’s crackdown against Yoga practitioners. It outlines how 30 yoga students and an instructor were arrested at a private house for “abnormal” behavior and “inappropriate” clothing. This speaks volumes about what the Iranian hard-liners regard as the most grievous sins against society. While they should be focused on countering the endemic corruption that steals food and medicine from Iranians, they instead fetishize the pursuit of noncrimes. We can be confident that the real motivation behind these arrests is not actually the clothing of the yoga participants but the manner by which the revolutionary hard-liners view yoga as an illegitimate act of blasphemous mysticism. Again, the people’s interest in happiness is irrelevant in face of the regime’s interest in total authoritarianism.
Both of these incidents speak to the utter hypocrisy of Iran’s regime. We should not seek war, but we must oppose Iran’s hard-liner cadres whenever they stick their ugly heads above the parapet.
