ISRAEL

ISRAEL

The Jerusalem Post, Dec. 29: Looking back from the perspective of more than three decades, the exile of the Shah of Iran and the country’s fall to Islamist tyranny in 1979 was arguably the West’s worst geo-strategic setback in the second half of the 20th century and doubly disastrous for Israel.

A photo obtained by AP shows Iranian protesters beating police officers during an anti-government demo in Teheran on Sunday.

Revolution

Those who had hankered for change on the grounds that anything would be an improvement over the Shah and his Savak secret police were mistaken. Once in power, the revolution began consuming its own.

A coalition of middle-class reformists, students, intellectuals, leftists and Muslim hard-liners had created an enormous populist movement that forced the cancer-ridden Shah from the throne. But the religious extremists, galvanized by their forbidding leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, were the organizational backbone of the revolution. By intimidating, torturing or killing anyone who stood in their way, they solidified their grip on power.

In response, the Khomeinists have fired at protesters in Teheran, even as the unrest has spread to Tabriz, Shiraz and elsewhere. Despite the regime’s best censorship efforts, the world is watching a blood-and-fire uprising in the streets.

On Sunday, an adult nephew of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi was assassinated. He was among some 15 killed by Khomeinist forces as Shi’ite Muslims marked Ashura, which commemorates the martyrdom of Hussein — and is the source of the schism between Shi’ites and Sunnis.

When a Shi’ite government shoots Shi’ites on Ashura, its legitimacy has reached a nadir.

Since this regime cannot be usefully engaged, it needs to be destabilized — from every possible direction.

The more the Iranian people believe the free world is behind them, the more willing they will be to stay in the streets — and the harder it will be for the Khomeinists to muster the nerve to crush their overwhelming sentiment for change.

BRITAIN

Telegraph, London, Dec. 29: The attempt to blow up a trans-Atlantic airliner by a British-educated Islamist was foiled by the bravery of its passengers and crew. We cannot assume that we will be lucky next time. And the indications are that there will be a next time. According to police sources, 25 British-born Muslims are currently in Yemen being trained in the art of bombing planes. But most of these terrorists did not acquire their crazed beliefs in the Islamic world: they were indoctrinated in Britain. Indeed, thousands of young British Muslims support the use of violence to further the Islamist cause and this despite millions of pounds poured by the Government into projects designed to prevent Islamic extremism.

Is it time for a fundamental rethink of Britain’s attitude toward domestic Islamism? Consider this analogy. Suppose that, in several London universities, Right-wing student societies were allowed to invite neo-Nazi speakers to address teenagers. Meanwhile, churches in poor white neighborhoods handed over their pulpits to Jew-hating admirers of Adolf Hitler, called for the execution of homosexuals, preached the intellectual inferiority of women, and blessed the murder of civilians. What would the Government do? It would bring the full might of the criminal law against activists indoctrinating young Britons with an inhuman Nazi ideology and the authorities that let them. Any public servants complicit in this evil would be hounded from their jobs.

Murderous ideology

Jihadist Islamism is also a murderous ideology, comparable to Nazism in many respects. The British public realizes this; so do the intelligence services. Yet because it arises out of a worldwide religion most of whose followers are peaceful politicians and the public sector shrink from treating its ideologues as criminal supporters of violence.