Iran and the western left?

[rickyrickygrimes]

Can someone explain the background to this? I keep reading snippets online but I can’t get my head around comments like this:

‘It is striking how few of those who most loudly called for a ‘Free Palestine’ are now calling for a ‘Free Iran’

is it as simple as Gaza = Islam, therefore Islam = good? But Iran also = Islam, but clearly in this case Islam = bad?

genuine question.

The best way to think about modern western politics at this level is as a status struggle within the middle class. There’s barely any difference between the two sides, but the successful ones code as right and the less-successful ones code as left.

The ‘left’ is constantly trying to supplant the ‘right’, which leads them to attack anything that supports the system within which the ‘right’ is successful, which in this context ends up meaning any established order except those parts which the ‘left’ is confidently in control of.

Hence you get the odd phenomenon where certain parts of the state—universities, NGOs, the NHS—are beyond criticism, while others are irredeemable. And any poor sod who ends up trying to ride both horses while being ‘of the left’ becomes hated more than anyone.

Foreign policy doesn’t really matter except as a tool for rhetoric, so it becomes pure ‘enemy of my enemy’ stuff. So don’t look there for principles – they will support whatever is useful to make the successful part of the middle classes look bad, it’s not about supporting causes for their own sake.

Whilst I'd love Iran to become a secular, democratic state, once bitten, twice shy. We were told that Iraqis and Afghans would jump at the chance to be democratic and westernised- and even you must see where that led. Last time there were protests in Iran that got rid of the Shah and were supported by the 'Western Left', instead of democracy the Iranians got theocracy. Not exactly a great track record and western intervention doesn't really seem to help much.

Iraq and Afghanistan were never westernised though - Iran was until 1979, when it went back to the Middle Ages (and those who had the means to flee did so). They are also tribal communities, with Sunni Islam in the majority (Afghanistan) or comprising a much larger portion of the population (Iraq).

The Shah was basically a shill for the West, and the anti-capitalists rejoiced when he was deposed.

Plenty of Iranians want to make Iran Persia again, as the excellent Telegraph article says.

@ScholesPanda

Do you think that preventing a British Jewish MP from visiting a school in his constituency due to Palestine protests - or banning Israeli football fans from a match and pretending it was due to their previous behaviour... when in fact it was because UK Muslim groups were known to be arming themselves in order to to attack them - will encourage Israel to stop defending themselves?

Defending themselves against people who entered their country and tortured and slaughtered 1219 of their civilians - families and young festival goers - in a genocidal 'kill-as-many-jews-as-you-can' attack...and are still armed, still firing missiles into Israel, and still consistently say their aim is to destroy Israel. Which still means 'kill Jews'.

Really?

Or can you see that the protests have a different purpose?

If Iran becomes a good place to live again there will be less migrants. Freedom for people in Iran is a win situation for UK as well, not just the right thing. Downfall of the regime will mean less funding for terrorists abroad, and importantly women of Iran be free again. Prayers to them.

@strawberrybubblegum I've tried to answer your question, not that I think you will take my answer in good faith:

Nowhere have I said I support either of those actions. I don't know whether protests in other countries are successful in influencing either Israeli public opinion or its government's actions- I suppose those who organise them must think they have an effect or they wouldn't bother. I was putting forward my opinion on what the OP had asked.

I do think it is possible to be concerned by the Israeli government's actions in Gaza and the illegal settlements in the West Bank; without supporting Hamas, Hezbollah, or Palestinian attacks on Israel. In fact, based on conversations with real British people in real life, of all political persuasions, this is where a lot of public opinion sits.

Yes 100% but it would depend on a relatively peaceful transition or like Syria, a civil war, Syrians who have come back, have come back to ruins.

I just think that those who are now supporting the Iranians, should also look at their views on asylum seekers... which have been abhorrent, send back any Iranian, Afghan asylum seeker, with no appeal no listening to their case, no exceptions and pay these rotten regimes to take them back... to be killed.. lovely.

Anyway, both Badenoch and Farage have more local issues to deal with now 😂

I would support a targeted refugee programme for Iran, and also a general burden-sharing agreement with other European countries (ie allowing applications offshore) for other countries.

The fiendishly difficult thing is how to manage incentives. Almost any set of rules you define for who qualifies for asylum will capture a far greater number of people than the UK can handle (as in, a few percent of the world’s population, plus at least the same again of people we can’t distinguish from the first group). And if you remove the channel as your filtering mechanism and process applications remotely then you will get a huge number of applicants that meet the criteria and far more refugees than we can handle.

Yet the channel is a terrible filter too. It filters the wrong people and it’s deadly. It also doesn’t make sense in that it accepts only those who are already in a safe country.

Not sure what the ideal answer is, but I might be persuadable that we should have zero ‘general’ (as in not country specific) asylum route. Then we need to do our moral duty another way by funding refugee support closer to source (where the same money helps a lot, lot more people, so is arguably morally preferable). And if we are having no ‘general’ route then returning all channel crossers is sensible to remove the incentive. Obviously remove to France, not to their origin country. How to get France to agree is a different matter, they are probably quite pleased to see a portion of their asylum seekers move on to the UK.

Of course. Channel crossing is a chaotic and not a good system, it’s unsafe and drives vast profits to the sellers. It is possible to have humanitarian schemes as we have done and other countries do.

Interesting take and I see your point. It's been obvious for some time that many in the Labour party despise the working class that founded it while purporting to represent them.