Today, in Iran, at least 25 (of 31) provinces are now in open rebellion against the Islamic Republic.
I am going to tell you an ancient story as fresh as tomorrow’s headlines. When the story ends, you will find yourself in a new world. You may be shocked to realize that you have been in this world all along, you just couldn’t see it. That was no accident. People get paid handsomely to make tears disappear through sleight of hand.
Let me illustrate by way of a riddle.
If the Berlin Wall fell and people didn’t hear about it, would it still make an impact?
The correct answer is the obvious answer, but not for the reason you may think. We’ll come back to this at the end. It’s not a random question, so keep it in mind.
Here we go……
As America celebrates her 250th anniversary, it’s important to remember history began before we were born. Sometimes it helps to make that point explicit for an American audience.
Iran, in contrast, has a continuous history that spans millennia. “Millenia” is plural for “ancient.” Iran is also the only country in the Middle East whose borders were not drawn by colonial powers. Not for lack of trying, either.
The map presented here shows the territory of Iran, measured in the number of centuries the Persian empire held it. Some parts were held for a mere 500 years. Some for over a thousand. If you are familiar with the outlines of modern day Iran, you will recognize it in the red and dark orange. Alexander the Great tore through the place and barely moved the needle. Not for lack of trying, either. One city he famously tore up was the capital of the Achaemenid Empire, Persepolis. It is still a ruin today.
He was thorough.
Fast forward 2,350 years, and you find an Oscar nominated movie set in Persepolis that is directly relevant to what’s happening in Iran today and tomorrow. One critic called it “emotionally overwhelming.” Consider yourself warned.
Iran was relatively young when Alexander the Great showed up. The Achaemenid Empire, as vast as it was, had only been around for little more than two hundred years. Unlike the Egyptians, the Persians did not recognize him as a god. They were happy with the ones they had. Their history, like their gods, was very much alive for them. Like all millennial cultures, their history goes so far back into the distant past that it starts in mythology. In the case of Iran, this history is recorded in a story called the Shahnameh, “The Book of Kings.” It is the longest epic poem ever written by a single author. It took him 35 years to write. The book’s author, Hakim Abolghasem Ferdowsi Tousi, known to one and all as Ferdowsi, is the Persian equivalent of Dante. English speakers might compare him to Shakespeare, Spaniards might compare him to Cervantes. I think both of those comparisons miss the mark. Even my Dante comparison misses the mark. He’s more like Dante and Homer combined.
"When Ferdowsi was born, his father saw in a dream the child going on the terrace and giving a loud call. The call was responded from all sides. Next morning Ferdowsi's father went to one Najibu'd-Din and asked him what the dream meant. Najibu'd-Din's reply was that the child could turn out to be the world's most renowned poet."
Ferdowsi wrote this saga, which pulls together ancient Zoroastrian and Persian history, for a couple of specific reasons. First, he thought it was a money maker. He wasn’t wrong. His poetry was so moving, the provincial tax collector freed him of any tax obligation for the rest of his life. At 100 times that price, it would still have been worth it. Unfortunately, nobody was offering that. The fact is, he had money, or at least he didn’t have to worry about it. Thirty five years in development is remarkable. In the business world, they call this sort of monomaniacal focus, “commitment to a vision.” It would try the patience of most mortals. Whatever was driving him, it had to be more than money. The work is so beautiful, the language so artful, the structure so crystalline, the hidden message so discretely delivered that I can’t do it justice. Suffice to say, this is not the work of a mad man banging out a manifesto in the wilderness, driven by Mountain Dew and dreams.
There was a second reason that actually makes more sense. This was a defiant act of resistance against a hegemonic invader who was getting stronger, not weaker. At this point in his life, the Islamic Conquest of Iran had been established as a fact for over 300 years. In spite of this, actually because of this, Ferdowsi wrote the epic in Farsi, not Arabic. That makes a world of difference. Like every other region under Islamic law, indigenous language, music, art, and religion were actively being eradicated in Iran under the Caliphate. This is not surprising. Campaigns of destruction directed against indigenous cultural historic sites have always been part and parcel of the Islamic Conquest. Look no further than Hagia Sophia in Turkey. Look at what happened in Afghanistan, where the Taliban carried out the internationally rebuked destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan. We saw it when all three of the Islamic groups fighting for control of Mali violently suppressed and eradicated music in Northern Mali. We saw it when ISIS destroyed and looted the tomb of Jonah in Ninevah. I don’t know about you, but I was surprised to learn that the guy who got swallowed by a whale in that story I heard as a kid actually has a tomb in a city that people still live in today. Faulkner was right when he said, "The past is never dead. It's not even past."
To illustrate the magnitude of the forces Ferdowsi confronted, I feel obliged to recount the story of how Western settlers erased indigenous cultures that were far older in far less time. The genocidal campaign of westward expansion obliterated dozens of nations. The memory of these campaigns lingers from the Wampanoag and the Pequot on the East coast, to the Pacific Northwest where the bones of Kennewick Man were placed in the Earth thousands of years before Cyrus the Great, before Stonehenge, before the last volcanic eruption of Mount Damavand. Almost before Atlantis.
The Trail of Tears is more than a poetic turn of phrase. It was one of many atrocities inflicted upon the indigenous population by foreign invaders. You may be surprised to learn it hasn’t stopped. Right now, there is an ongoing tragedy that brings shame to all who avert their eyes. These people crossed no borders. The border crossed them. Some nations were so totally obliterated “they exist only as a name on a subway stop in New York City.” Imagine dear reader, that you and everyone you love, are on the losing side of that story. Someone has to play that role, otherwise there’s no story. Imagine you can see the spirits, the ghosts. The invaders don’t.
Welcome to Ferdowsi’s world.
To illustrate the magnitude of his triumph, I will note that Ferdowsi’s prose has transmitted Farsi continuously for over a thousand years. It is remarkable that even though it was written so long ago, modern Iranians can easily read it today. Try reading the Canterbury Tales. That’s only 625 years old and it’s almost unintelligible. I’ll spot you “The Wife of Bath’s Tale,” but past that, it’s hard sailing. On the other hand, Ferdowsi’s 1,000 year-old prose is closer to the modern Iranian ear than Shakespeare’s 400 year-old prose is to ours. That is one reason why the characters in his epic resonate so deeply with the Iranian street today.
The impact of Ferdowsi’s cultural transmission was felt far beyond the borders of Iran. The form of Persian that Ferdowsi codified went on to serve as the basis for Turkish, Bengali and Urdu. Shakespeare, Dante and Cervantes can make no comparable claim. He is immortal and proof of that is the fact that his impact continues to this day. It is Ferdowsi’s Farsi that powers the AI translation tools everyone uses. In his current incarnation, Ferdowsi is a ghost in the machine.
Good prose can keep your name on people’s lips for a long time. Achieving immortality requires the power of myth. Myths are the tapestries our ancestors wove with the threads fate handed them. Myths are letters written in the past and addressed to ourselves in the future. What was written as mythology serves as prophesy because we have all been here before. Myths communicate empirical lessons learned from bitter experience, not abstract principals derived like the Schrödinger Equation. Once you destroy them, you don’t get them back. When our cultural heritage is obliterated, the messages they transmit are lost. That means we have to go through the whole experience again before we know why it was a bad choice the last time people tried it.
A brave heart is a powerful weapon.
This brings us to what’s going to happen in the coming days. We are rapidly approaching a Berlin Wall moment in history. In spite of all efforts to the contrary, the young people in Iran, Generation V, are well-versed in their history. They won’t be sleep walking in to their future because their myths live and breathe. They see the ghosts and the spirits that walk amongst them, guiding, encouraging and inspiring them. They recognize the existential threat in front of them by its true name because they remember it. They don’t need to build new and untested models for addressing the current crisis. They already have the documentation. They don’t have to fill Kaveh’s shoes, just follow in his footsteps and know this: A brave heart is a powerful weapon.
Zahhak
Zahhak is a central character in the Shahnameh. He is the embodiment of evil. He is Lucifer manifest in human form. He is Dracula with an army. He obtained absolute power by making a deal with the Devil, himself. He’s actually a blend of Zoroastrian and Persian culture. In the Zoroastrian tradition, Zahhak is the son of Ahriman. Ahriman is the nemesis of the principal god in Zoroastrianism. He is called Ahura Mazda, The Creator. Ahura Mazda is an ancient god. He is so old he still writes his name 𐎠𐎢𐎼𐎶𐏀𐎭𐎠. To sum up on the Zoroastrian side, this is the age old story of good vs. evil. Like I said, we have all been here before.
On the Persian side of the story, things are very different. This is where the subversive aspects of the myth come out. In this version, Zahhak has a different father. His father is an Arab king named Mardās (pronounced Mardaas). In this version, Ahriman convinces Zahhak to kill Mardās to gain the throne. There’s a lot to unpack here. Freud and Jung would have a field day with this. Iranians get it immediately, but this might be your first time, so I will walk you through it. Bottom Line: It took big brass balls to write this. Then he signed it. Then he handed it to the Sultan.
When Ferdowsi wrote this portrayal of Zahhak as an Arab monster, he wrote it during a time when the Islamic Conquest already had spent three hundred years consolidating power all around him. Things moved slower then, but three hundred years was still a long time. There was no question who was in charge and he still put his name on it. That’s courageous.
The name of Zahhak’s father is a clever play on words. Clever enough to get the message out, without getting your head handed to you. In Farsi “mard” is “man.” By itself, “-as” is ambiguous and could be “the one” like an ace. Or it could be something close to “gentle.” Interestingly, the name is written exactly the same way in Arabic and Farsi, but it has an entirely different meaning in Arabic, where Mardās means “crushing.” It’s an antiquated masculine name used among some rural Arab tribes that symbolizes a brave warrior who “crushes” his enemies. The double entendre is elegant. The epithet could be either very good or very bad depending on which side of the story you see yourself.
Up to this point, it’s still easy to interpret Ferdowsi as saying the Arab king was the good guy, or maybe a tough guy. All the double entendre stuff can be plausibly denied. But, change the inflection and read “Mardās” as “Mard dās” and now you have a totally different ball of wax. In Farsi, “dās” means “sickle,” that curved harvesting tool the Grim Reaper carries everywhere. Now, with just the most subtle change of inflection, Ferdowsi is calling the Arab ruler “the sickle man.” If you looked at the word written on paper, you would see nothing out of the ordinary. Spoken to a foreign ear, it could go unnoticed. But to a sophisticated Farsi ear, it’s a different story. Nobody is talking about farming here.
The Persian Empire in Ferdowsi’s time during the rule of Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni
You have to admire the communications skill it takes to be that subversive and survive. To be celebrated for it while you are still alive is testimony to Ferdowsi’s genius. To be fair, he had a little bit of luck that went a long way. When he wrote this epic, Mahmud of Ghazni was Sultan of the Ghaznavid Empire. Badmouthing Arabs probably didn’t bother the Turkic son of a Persian mother. This is what happens when you have thousands of years to work with, the melting pot becomes more like a slow cooker. There’s a lot of mixing going on.
A few relevant comments about Mahmud for the Western audience:
Mahmud was the first Sultan of the Caliphate. Up until then, rulers were called Emirs. Basically they were governors or commanders. That meant they answered to the Caliph in Baghdad. A Sultan, on the other hand, is THE authority. He doesn’t answer to anybody but God. Mahmud calling himself sultan is comparable to Napoleon crowning himself emperor. They both had the same problem. How do you rule like a king without officially being one? They both came up with similar solutions. Make up a grand new title and tell everyone in your army to use it.
I’m leaving out a few details, but now you know enough to know that we have two guys at the table. Neither of them answer to anyone but God, and they are getting ready to throw down. There is one more detail I do need to add. I saved the best for last. Mahmud was Ferdowsi’s primary patron. Remember when I said Ferdowsi didn’t have to worry about money? Well, now you know why. Anyone who’s been to the Sistine Chapel knows where this is going. When he finally finished his epic, Ferdowsi presented it to Mahmud anticipating a huge payday. He didn’t get it. What I mean by that is that Mahmud understood the poem. He just didn’t think it was worth as much as Ferdowsi did. Ferdowsi didn’t take rejection well.
He put his grievances in writing.
Here’s the opening couplet:
Know, tyrant as thou art, this earthly state
Is not eternal, but of transient date;
Yes, Virginia, he wrote a “Dear Tyrant” letter in rhyming couplets to the Sultan. And signed it.
Knowing my temper, firm, and stern, and bold,
Didst thou not, tyrant, tremble to behold
My sword blood-dropping? Hadst thou not the sense
To shrink from giving man like me offense?
I think Cyrano de Bergerac would have loved this guy. Frankly, I am more amazed he survived writing this letter than he did writing the Shahnameh. Which we now return to...
So what exactly made Zahhak, this Arab monster in the Shahnameh, so wicked? That’s a legitimate question. Once Zahhak had taken the throne, the Devil kissed him on both shoulders as a sign of respect and affection. That’s when all hell broke loose.
از شانههایش دو مار سیاه بیرون آمدند؛ هر جا که بریده میشدند، دوباره رشد میکردند.
"Two black snakes emerged from his shoulders;
wherever they were cut, they grew back."
Sounds bad.
Don’t worry.
It gets worse.
به جز مغز مردم مدهشان خورش
"Except for the brains of people, do not give them food.”
You read that right. Human brains. On the daily. Try cutting off the serpents, they just grow back. They’re also insatiable. One brain per day per serpent. Don’t feed the serpent? The serpent eats you! As you can imagine, if you have a mad king driven to consume the brains of your children on a daily basis, things might get ugly.
They did.
Kaveh
Kaveh’s Flag (Derafsh-e Kaviani) after Fereydun bedazzled it.
Enter Kaveh, the blacksmith, one of the most beloved characters in all Iran. You might compare him to Moses who led the Jews out of bondage, but Kaveh is no Moses. He is a righteous man with a brave heart. But he is humble. The affection people in Iran have for him is close to how people feel about Dolly Parton. Everybody loves him, and for good reason. He didn’t wander around the desert for forty years. He went and got help.
When we meet Kaveh he has already lost two children to Zahhak. Right off the bat, you know this is a noble and honorable man who is not looking for a fight. No one would have blamed him if he had gone berserk after losing even one child. But he didn’t.
Kaveh did not rise up until the provocation was intolerable. He rose up when Zahhak demanded yet another sacrifice. How can anyone tolerate an insatiable monster? That is when Kaveh took off his blacksmith apron, and attached it to a lance that he had made specifically for this purpose. It will come as no surprise that under that banner Kaveh rallied an army that defeated Zahhak.
I’m skipping over a few details, but the important point here is the flag of this beloved hero moved from myth to reality when it became the heraldic symbol of the Sasanian Empire. That’s the Iranian empire that chased out the Roman invaders. Coincidentally, they are also the same empire that got curb stomped by the Islamic Conquest. The flag that fell in 642 at the Battle of Nahavand was Kaveh’s Flag.
The Islamic Conquest of Persia started in 622 CE. I wonder if maybe that is why the current year in the Islamic Republic is 1404. I guess it’s sort of like the US using 1776 to mark our beginning, rather than 1787 when we actually had a constitution. The difference being we don’t treat our calendar the way we treat the metric system. Either way it’s weird. You’d think the people who invented the postal system would have had a calendar.
You are probably wondering, “What happened to Zahhak?” Short answer,he gets killed by a warrior Kaveh recruited to the cause, named Fereydun (pronounced Faridoon). At least that is what happens in the Zoroastrian version. In the Shahnameh, Fereydun comes in strong, too.
Fereydun Crossing the Euphrates with mace in hand.
نه تاج و تخت و نه بخت و اقبال برای همیشه در اختیار یک نفر نخواهد ماند... من از ایران آمدهام و جنگ میآورم، و تا زمانی که سرش را زیر گرز گاو سر خود له نکنم، به ضحاک پلید آرامش و آسایش نخواهم داد.
“Neither the throne nor fortune will remain in the hands of one person forever... I have come from Iran and bring war, and I will not give the evil Zahhak peace and comfort until I crush his head under the club of my bull-headed mace.”
With Fereydun in the lead, the army achieves its goal, but in this version, an angel stops Fereydun at the last second from dealing the fatal blow because Zahhak’s allotted time has not finished. Instead, Fereydun bashes Zahhak’s head, flays him alive, and chains him inside a cave under the summit of Mount Damavand, where he will remain until the end of time.
Mount Damavand
Mount Damavand is the highest mountain in Iran, and also the highest volcano in Asia. It’s a good thing it’s so big; it’s packed full with symbolic meaning. I’m just going to focus on the volcano part because this is a story about existential threats. Mount Damavand is not an active volcano. It’s not extinct, either. It’s dormant. The last time Mount Damavand erupted was about 5,350 years ago. Kennewick Man had been dead for a few thousand years at that point. Cyrus the Great would not arrive for another couple thousand years. However, the archeology is clear. There were people living in that area when it erupted. They had been there for thousands of years. The remnants surviving the blast left few tangible remains, but the memory of that collective nightmare survived in the mythology. Lava flows around the peak bear testimony to the apocalyptic threat still lingering under the summit.
Zahhak Revisited
In contemporary Iran, Zahhak still breathes. Generation V knows exactly where to look for him. They recognize him from Ferdowsi’s description.
Zahhak
از شانههایش دو مار سیاه بیرون آمدند؛ هر جا که بریده میشدند، دوباره رشد میکردند.
"Two black snakes emerged from his shoulders;
wherever they were cut, they grew back."
Zahhak
When you hear people in the street shouting for the death of Zahhak, or you hear the Crown Prince, Reza Pahlavi, warn about the threat of Zahhak, they are not talking about an abstract, metaphorical threat. They are talking about the embodiment of evil that walks amongst them today. The monster who obliterates their past so he can devour their future.
به جز مغز مردم مدهشان خورش
"Except for the brains of people, do not give them food.
The ruler who has an insatiable appetite for the brains of your children. They are talking about the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic in Iran, Ali Khameini. Once you know this, you will be reminded of it every time you see him in front of the dual microphones, feeding on the brains of the youth. We have all been here before.
This is not a fringe movement. This is not an esoteric intellectual amusement. This is the popularly held position by the majority of Iranians.
Here are a few examples.
People are responding to this call and taking to the streets in numbers that stunned even the most optimistic supporter of regime change. This same scene is being repeated in every one of the cities marked on the map at the top of this post. This is happening every day and night. This isn’t a protest march. It’s a movement. And it’s gaining momentum.
The response to this call is more than people coming out in to the streets. This is a multi-pronged offensive. There are three parts to what I refer to as the “Pahlavi Plan” for regime change.
Maximum Pressure
Maximum Support
Maximum Defection
Maximum Pressure refers to the international community sanctioning Iran. The US has been leading this effort. The US was first to label the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). Since the Women, Life, Freedom (WLF) movement started in 2022, several countries have taken aggressive stances against the IRGC. Canada recently added them to their terrorist lists. Australia is in the process of deciding. It is extremely important to note that the IRGC is also listed as a terrorist organization by Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Those are Muslim countries.
Maximum Support referred to efforts largely directed by the Crown Prince and his supporters to get financial assistance to Iranian workers striking against the regime. As the economic situation deteriorates, this is an increasingly important lifeline for many ordinary people inside Iran who are putting their lives and livelihoods at risk.
Maximum Defection was the one critical element missing until now. This referred to the Army and the IRGC commanders defecting and joining the people. This is starting to happen. Here are two videos from the last 24 hours in two different parts of Iran.
Bandar Abbas is a very important region financially and strategically. Bandar Abbas is a port on the southern coast of the country, on the Persian Gulf. The city occupies a strategic position on the narrow Strait of Hormuz. It is the location of the main base and headquarters of the Iranian Navy.
The first defections appeared in Ilam. This is a strategic location as well. It is on the Western border with Iraq. If the Islamic Republic tries to bring in foreign fighters to quell the rebellion, this is a major transportation route. With police and army joining the rebellion, that avenue of support is going to get choked off. That’s especially important now that their escape route to Venezuela has been cut off. That was the mullahs plan. They were going to loot what they hadn’t already taken and high tail it to Venezuela. The loss of that option dramatically increased the likelihood they will fall. It wasn’t just an escape avenue. It was also a revenue source. They were getting billions of dollars in gold from Venezuela. Not anymore. The reason that matters now is that was the money they needed to pay their proxies and surrogates. The foreign fighters they finance by and large have no religious interest, they are in it for the money. If you are not paying cash, they aren’t showing up. The defections will make this even harder for the regime.
During the Green Revolution in 2009, and even during the WLF uprising in 2022, no one was seriously considering the defection of armed forces. Everyone hoped for it, but no one expected it. After today, it is now a topic of serious discussion.
The tempo of operations is accelerating, the end of this regime is drawing near. My hope and expectation is they will be gone by March 20th. That is the Zoroastrian New Year, which falls every year on the spring solstice. It is a very important time for Iranians. I do not see Iranians entering the New Year with Zahhak unchained. This brings us pretty much up to date and sets the stage to have the conversation we need to have if we are going to be useful in this revolution.
Chalk Talk
When the latest round of protests broke out, I was surprised by the lack of response on the streets of American, Canadian and European cities. I assumed it had to do with the fact the protests kicked off around Christmas and escalated into New Year as more and more people flooded the streets. In contrast, there were massive demonstrations of support around the world during WLF. This time, crickets. This is a real problem. The Iranian people are protesting against the exact same government today as they were during WLF. For them, the only thing that has changed is things are worse. Something clearly disconnected somewhere.
The lack of news coverage by corporate media is certainly a major factor contributing to this issue falling out of attention for people already focused on the Epstein Files, ICE, Venezuela, Gaza, ACA, inflation, and whatever crazy distraction KKKaroline and fiends cook up to keep people spinning. Even with that full plate, the cone of silence that covers Iran is remarkable and clearly reflects an editorial decision that is propagating across media platforms,. To be fair, this sort of treatment is not new. It is not unique to Iran. Activists of all stripes will complain bitterly about the lack of attention media pays to their cause. Just ask them, “What do they saying about this in the news?”
The silence of the American Left at this Berlin Wall moment is a mistake that will haunt us for ages. It hurts us in several ways going forward. First, it cedes the support for a truly indigenous uprising against an oppressive occupation to Republicans. We see it on TV. Who is there speaking for the Iranian people? Lindsey Graham. Tom Cotton. Ted Cruz, and Laura Loomer.
Seriously? These three senators and — I don’t know what the hell that is.
These are not authentic voices for women’s rights. These are not authentic voices for prisoner rights. These are not authentic voices for civil rights. These are not authentic voices for indigenous rights. But because they have been the only voices out there, the Iranian diaspora in the US has gravitated to them. We made it easy for them to capture that following and brand this revolution as their cause by simply not showing up. The Left didn’t fall asleep by accident. It was lulled to sleep. I will explain that in detail at the end, but first, we need to address a bigger problem.
Iranians revile Carter, Obama and even Biden. They love Nixon, Reagan and Trump. Here’s why that’s OUR problem. Carter engineered the return of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979. Obama failed to provide any support for the 2009 Green Revolution. Biden actually gets a bum deal on this. Unfortunately, nobody cares about Joe’s feelings. It wouldn’t matter if they did. Trump successfully pulled off a stunt in his first term that endeared him to Iranians til the end of time. He authorized the assassination of Qasem Soleimani.
Qasem Soleimani was a highly ranked Iranian military officer in the IRGC. From 1998 until his assassination by the United States in 2020, he was the commander of the Quds Force, an IRGC division primarily responsible for extraterritorial and clandestine military operations. Imagine if someone had successfully assassinated David Petraeus during the invasion of Iraq. This is even bigger. Once Soleimani was gone, the disarray in his highly compartmentalized system of terror cells started to unravel. This led to the targeted killing of terrorists across the region. More importantly, terrorist leadership had to expose itself in their attempt to meet and mitigate the damage. Soleimani was no Che Quevara. He was more like Bashar al-Assad, orchestrating violent crackdowns on protests in Iran and Iraq, supporting militant groups that targeted civilians, and killing hundreds of American soldiers through his leadership of the Quds Force. Quds forces also were instrumental in setting up the drone program the Russians have been using to hunt humans in places like Kherson, Kyiv, Kharkiv, the list goes on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on.
Killing Soleimani was every bit as big a deal to the Iranians as killing Osama bin Laden was to Americans.That is not going to get papered over. Iranians have the memory of elephants on Ritalin.
I bring this up to emphasize the real challenge we face adding our voices to this fight.
In spite of all that, I am here to tell you we can still lend a hand, because I have been doing it for almost 17 years now and I can point to real tangible successes. I am going to walk through a couple major successes we have had in the US and then outline how I found a path forward to work productively in a hostile environment as a progressive Democrat. Let me put your mind at ease from the start. This did not require me to disavow or abandon my political beliefs. This did not require me to stay silent when I thought core values I hold dear were being attacked. Here’s the cherry on top. The approach is ecumenical so it works for everyone, left, right, and center.
I have been unapologetic and forceful about my support for Biden and the Biden Doctrine. It’s not a secret.
Since the October 2022 surprise surfacing of the Ohio-Class USS West Virginia in the Arabian sea, my hashtag on Twitter for Joe Biden has been #TRwNukes.
It’s a bit telegraphic. But it stands for “Teddy Roosevelt with Nukes”
I say this because the Biden Doctrine maps surprisingly well to what people call “The Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.”
The bullet point version is this:
1) Project credible military force
2) Force the other side to the table
3) Deal fairly
4) Never Bluff
5) Offer a face-saving exit
People can fault Teddy Roosevelt for a lot of things, but it’s worth remembering that he got his Nobel Peace Prize the old fashioned way. He earned it by negotiating an end to the Russia-Japanese War. He also had very progressive domestic policies with regards to labor, health and safety. In this regard, I would point out two things. First, Joe Biden is the only American president to ever walk a picket line. As a union member, that matters to me. We all know how important the CHIPS Act and the Inflation Reduction Act were. Second, Joe Biden not only delivered a ceasefire that everyone on the Left was calling for in Gaza, he negotiated the release of 138 living hostages. The Israelis freed about a dozen, but killed several along the way by accident. Any way you slice it, Joe was doing a decent job. And that was not counting the outstanding work done during the massive missile barrage Iran launched against Israel in 2024
I go further, because this is where we on the Left make our camp. I agree with the Biden Doctrine.
America is the essential partner. But America leads best when we lead by the power of our example, not by the example of our power.
I don’t try to defend Carter’s mistake in 1979. When you get in to the details of it, you realize it wasn’t a mistake at all. It was about the oil.
- The Iranian oil industry was primarily governed by concession agreements, which allowed foreign companies exclusive rights to explore and produce oil in Iran.
- The most significant agreement was the D'Arcy concession, granted in 1901, which established the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) and set the stage for foreign control over Iranian oil.
- By 1979, the primary oil lease agreements were nearing expiration. The original D'Arcy concession was set to expire in 1979, that led to rising tensions over control and revenue from oil production.
I do try to explain Obama’s mistake, something even he has admitted to. But explaining does not excuse it. I believe I could make a good argument for Biden, but they are not going to be receptive, so I let it go. When it comes to Trump, my warning is consistent. In the end, he always betrays everyone around him, with the exception of Pooty-Poot. Yeah, I got a long memory, too.
MAHSA Act
With my approach I can point to one very tangible and powerful result that is sitting out there ready to be used in the coming days and weeks. It’s called the MAHSA ACT.
As a direct result of the grassroots organizing, recruiting, training, and advising largely online via twitter, telegram, Reddit and Instagram we were able to get that Act passed in the House 410-3. The people voting against it were Thomas Massie, Ilhan Omar, and Cori Bush. Massie hates omnibus bills on principal, so he wouldn’t have supported it if it included free ice cream. Regarding Omar and Bush, I am aware of their overall stats. 85% and 72%, respectively with Biden. I invite you to review their documents and draw your own conclusions. We may need to talk to these people again about something.
The real challenge came in the Senate. We ran into surprisingly strong resistance from Democrats, particularly Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Even more particularly former Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD), who was chair of the committee. I’m not going to sugar coat it. He lied to our fucking faces. The guy who wrote the Magnitsky Act tried to act like he had no idea about the torture, rape and murder the Islamic Republic routinely visited upon political prisoners. They did everything they could to bottle it up, water it down, slow walk it. In the end, MAHSA Army was able to force it out of committee. When it got to the floor, the White House tucked it into the Omnibus authorization for Ukraine aid that was being fought over. Joe put us over the finish line. Just like Gaza and the hostages, Joe delivered what people were pleading for. They still don’t give him proper credit.
The MAHSA Act is not some toothless resolution that makes everyone feel good about themselves and little else. At least it won’t be if someone pulls the pin on it. It’s a bull-headed mace aimed directly at the head of Zahhak. This Act holds accountable by name, the Supreme Leader, Khamenei (NFL), the President, Pezeshkian (NFL), their offices, and all offices, agencies and organizations that report to them for any and all human rights violations they commit.
I realize that sounds like Betty in HR collates the regional reports of human rights violations that were committed in the last quarter before sending them up to the Supreme Leader. That’s certainly one way of reading it. The year 2025 has been characterized by a dramatic rise in executions compared to previous years, with much of the activity reported in the latter half of the year, particularly in response to increasing rebellion.
Getting the MAHSA Act signed was a significant achievement. But it’s also the gift that keeps on giving. There’s a saying “the real treasure was the friends we made along the way.” Sounds cheesy, but it’s actually true. The process of building that grassroots citizen powered lobbying machine paid dividends. After fifteen months of labor, the MAHSA Army was born. And she was beautiful and smart and she had the heart of a lion. She loved the world and the world loved her back. You might be wondering, “What happened to her? Where did she go? Did she move away?……. Did she die?” Rest easy. Like the Immortal Guard, the MAHSA Army walk amongst us.
The key feature that distinguishes the MAHSA Act from many similar acts is that it turns the law from shield to sword. I bring this up because I believe if Trump decides to insert troops into Iran, the Supreme Leader and those around him will be the target. This could be the law that is used to justify that.
The anti-interventionist wing will cringe at this, so let explain how I, a former ardent anti-interventionist wound up changing my opinion. To be clear, this is not John McCain’s “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, Iran” with a cute dress. This was a play in three acts.
1) Russia
2) Ukraine
3) Iran
The invasion of Ukraine in 2022 really opened my eyes. Watching the horror unfold day after day in Bucha, Marioupol, Sievierodonetsk , Donetsk, Lysychansk, Luhansk, Kherson, Kharkiv, Bakhmut, and all the places whose names I forget, that opened my eyes to a stark reality that resulted in a Gestalt Shift in my perceptions of world politics. Reality is a bitter pill. It’s a hard pill to swallow, but no harder than the rows upon rows of graves Russia, like Tamerlane, left in its wake.
Here is the lesson, paid for with blood and horror. You get it for free.
Reagan and Romney were right about Russia.
I never thought in a million years that I would be agreeing with Reagan on much of anything, let alone his “Evil Empire” stance. But over the last 4 years, I’ve seen too much horror to ignore. Throughout this entire post, I have been steadfast in not trauma dumping on people. The impact of vicarious or virtual trauma is real. You need supports if you are going to successfully cross the event horizon and continue operating without damaging yourself. I’m not going to open that Pandora’s box now. I will say this: I have no sympathy for Russians in Ukraine. None. The only caveat to this is the sympathy I have for the poor bastards they shanghai to the front.
I would remind folks that on this matter, once again, Joe was right there. Another master stroke by Biden was the pre-positioning of resources so the Russians failed in their objective to secure the airport in Kyiv. Had that happened, Ukraine probably would have been over run in a matter of days. Joe doesn’t get credit for that either. I remember his visit to Kyiv on President’s Day to stand in front of St. Michaels. That’s courage. That’s commitment. That’s the kind of ally I want us to be. Like everyone else, I am waiting for Trump to betray Ukraine. My hope is our allies will be sufficient to pick up the slack. I have faith in Zelensky and the people of Ukraine. They will not break and I will not turn my back on them. Standing with Ukraine is something I do proudly and actively with purpose and intention.
Finally, we come to Iran. I remember the 1979 Revolution. I remember the Green Revolution, too.
I was in the streets when Reagan was saber rattling and rabid war-mongers were chomping at the bit to “kick their ass and take their gas.” I listened to the mouthpieces of the Islamic Republic in 2009 who spoke so sensibly, seducing us with their soft vowels, convincing us to do nothing lest the mullahs declare it a CIA plot. Obama was a straight up target of an influence operation. It’s got a face, a name, and a think tank or two. What he didn’t have was a FARA registration. The “he” in that sentence would be Trita Parsi, the founder of NIAC and Quincy Institute. For legal purposes, I will note that is not my opinion. That's the opinion of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. If you have a beef, take it up with them. I think if you read what he did, you will see why I said all that. That does not elide the fact this should have never happened in the first place. Rookie mistake.
The problem at the time was NIAC voices were the only voices in the room, so everyone listened to them. It wasn’t until years later we learned that NIAC was a front for regime mouthpieces. Moosh tried to change their profile. Parsi opened a new think tank, Quincy Institute. They were quickly unmasked, as were their associates and sympathizers in the State Department and the UN. There is also a serious problem with influence operations moving in to academe to gain a veneer of respectability. For example, Parsi was at Hopkins for awhile. This is one more area where MAHSA Army has been active with some notable successes.
The unmasking of NIAC was critical to blunting their ability to slow down legislation. But they are not amateurs. They had contingency operations in place. The influence operation run by Iran is every bit as sophisticated and wide-ranging as the Russians or the Chinese. They have been operating like this for over a thousand years.They are very good at what they do. It’s not a coincidence that the game of chess arrives in Europe with the Islamic Conquest.
Just as Russia infiltrated the Republican Party, the NRA, and other various right-wing Christian nationalist groups, the Islamic Republic has infiltrated the Democratic Party through massive laundering of donations. I found one guy, [Subsequent edit based on thread in comments] His name is Mohamed Soltan, his father is Saleh Sultan (sometimes transliterated as Soltan]. associated with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, who was donating $10,000 a month like clockwork to various Democratic candidates and causes. He also spread the money across NGOs like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and others. It works. The silence of Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and others to what is going on in Iran is just embarrassing.
Amnesty hurts me the most. I remember working with countless others to secure the release of Jacobo Timmerman. When he got out, he did a “thank you” tour of all the groups that had worked for his release. We were having lunch and he was being so gracious singing our praises that I felt uncomfortable and said something to the effect, “We really didn’t do that much. All we did was write Christmas cards.” He got very animated and said, “Oh. That was SO important. That’s when the beatings stopped!” Apparently they had gotten groups around the country to write and then they delivered all of the letters and cards to the prison. The way he told it, the guards came in to his cell with a large bag of mail. They dumped it out on the floor in a pile and said, “You’re lucky, the Americans know where you are.” That had a profound impression on me. This is not the same organization I remember from the 1970s. If I was associated with them today I would suffer from humiliation.
Democrats, with our embrace of multiculturalism and immigrants, are easy targets for these types of predators who have no qualms abusing our good will. The reason they didn’t make any headway on the Republican side is the Christian Nationalists recognized their con game because it’s one they play themselves. Game recognizes game.
Here is my second epiphany.
Given we are dealing with a transnational criminal enterprise, understanding how they operate is critical because standard forms of political discourse and analysis are inadequate in most cases. They’re criminals. As previously noted, NIAC was successful in lulling the Obama administration to sleep in 2009. They seduced people with sensible sounding talk and soft vowels. Psychological manipulation. They are very good at it. It’s one of the hallmarks of a millennial culture. If you are not steeped in the culture, you don’t even see it. You walk right into it.
Similarly with the Ultra-Monarchist version of the Faux Monarchists, they come on very combative and dogmatic just to create drama. Sometimes they work together in small groups, but behave as if they are independent. The goal is always the same. Waste as much time as possible. If they can wear you down with emotional swings, so much the better.
We need to work on this because they are already working on their skills. Once I happened upon a small group I’d been keeping tabs on and realized they were taking turns trying out each of the roles in different twitter spaces. In one space one would play the terminally confused blockhead asking endless pointless questions. The other would trauma dump. The third was hard to describe, but it was a tremendous time suck. Then I came across them in a different space and I realized they had switched roles! The time suck kept doing his routine. It was like watching a magic trick. You could see what he was doing. You just couldn’t see how he did it.
To be honest, there are times when I am watching someone and honestly can’t decide if they are on a payroll or off their meds. For me, those are the worst. You want to be polite, but you think you’re getting played, but you’re not sure. So you waste time because you want to be compassionate in case they’re struggling. I can’t help wonder if they are just working on their routine because they don’t care what they are saying as long as it wastes your time and keeps everyone from doing anything productive. In the interest of enhancing productivity, I will end this commentary with a final thought. Conflict in the 21st century is kinetic and mimetic.
In conclusion, let me thank you for taking the time to get to the end. The impact of this fall will resonate far beyond the borders of Iran, far beyond the Middle East, and far beyond our lifetimes.
For those slowly waking up to this event, I suggest you meditate on this:
How did the Islamic Republic lull you to sleep in the first place?
My father says, “Your freedom and mine cannot be separated.”
My father says, “I am not less life loving than you are.”
My father says, “It is futile and useless to keep talking peace and nonviolence against a government whose only reply is savage attacks against unarmed and defenseless people.”
My father says, “I will return.”
