By Bill Narvey

A number of Western leaders and political/military analysts have, in denouncing Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s anti-American and anti-Israel/Semitic hate-filled ravings, made the point that the majority of Iranians do not support their current theocracy. The West would do well to support that majority in effecting a regime change from within Iran.

I have not however read any precise analysis on just what it is about the current Iranian theocracy that the majority of Iranians do not support.

Are they against all the Iranian theocracy’s policies, positions, beliefs, politics, support of Hezbollah and Hamas radicalism, terrorism, hatred of America, Israel and the West, both domestically and in foreign relations? Or are the majority of Iranians against their theocratic government in just some respects, but not others?

If the latter, what do the majority of Iranians support and what don’t they support about their theocratic government?

If the majority of Iranians and especially the youth of Iran are so against Iranian foreign policies, one has to wonder just how they are against those policies when anti-British student demonstrations outside the British embassy in Tehran have followed Iran’s recent taking of British sailors hostage.

There have been a few reports of the mood of Iranian students who want more freedoms, to have access to world news from non-Iranian sources, to be able to listen to Western music and the like. Those reports include comments such as the majority of Iranians do not want this theocratic government that denies them these freedoms, but they are too powerless, oppressed, intimidated and frightened to do anything about initiating regime change from within Iran.

Such reports usually offer that Western nations should somehow support the majority of Iranians in a way that empowers them to bring about regime change from within Iran. Those reports never say how and why that would lead to an Iranian government that is any better as regards relations with the West, America and Israel then Ahmadinejad’s current theocratic government now.

If there have been any reports about the majority of Iranians being pro-Western, pro-American, and pro-Israel in terms of preferring Judeo-Christian culture over their own, of wanting to adopt Western ways, justice, morality and values and of wanting a government that satisfies those wants, those reports must be few and far between or just non-existent.

The West would have lost WWII had they taken the view that their fight was only with the relatively few German rotten apples of German leadership and therefore refused, for fear of harming innocent Germans who were against the Nazis, to take the war to all of Germany and force Germany to her knees in abject capitulation and defeat. One can just imagine the kind of world we would have today if Germany under Hitler won WWII and not much that can be imagined would be good.

It is outright idiocy to make a general statement that because a majority of Iranians have expressed dissatisfaction with their government that means that they are against all that the Iranian theocracy stands for in all respects and especially in Iran’s anti-Western views and actions.

Does it even matter if the majority of Iranians don’t like their government in all respects, if they can’t stop their government from plotting, planning and executing all their evil objectives?

If the only way for the West to stop Iran from trying to destroy the West or at least harm material Western interests, is to destroy Iran’s military and economic infrastructures and capacities to make war on anyone, does it matter at all that there are a majority of Iranians who do not like their government, who can’t or won’t do anything about changing their government and who will be hurt in such war?

So just where do the majority of Iranians stand when it comes to their current government’s beliefs, policies and political and military agenda?

The West had better start asking that pointed question to get the hard and precise facts and stop this nonsense of generalizing about the mood of the majority of Iranians that is long on wishful thinking and short on facts.

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Related: Iran

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