𝑻𝒓𝒖𝒎𝒑 𝒊𝒔 𝒓𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕, 𝑺𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒎𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒔 𝒏𝒐 𝑪𝒉𝒖𝒓𝒄𝒉𝒊𝒍𝒍 - 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑷𝒓𝒊𝒎𝒆 𝑴𝒊𝒏𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓’𝒔 𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒂𝒍 𝒄𝒐𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒅𝒊𝒄𝒆 𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒓 𝑰𝒓𝒂𝒏 𝒑𝒖𝒕𝒔 𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒕𝒂𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒐 𝒔𝒉𝒂𝒎𝒆

A great piece from Allison Pearson - Allison was the journalist whose home was invaded by Essex Plod following a Twitter/X post on the pro-Palestinian demonstrations in London.

The last time the British liberal-left were this incensed was back in 1982, when the Argentinian military junta under General Galtieri invaded the British Falkland Islands. This was a junta that "disappeared" unknown thousands of its own citizens.

The then very unpopular Tory government of Margaret Thatcher - whose weakness and military cost-cutting induced the Argentines to invade - was forced to act. This unleashed a popular wave of long-suppressed patriotism that appalled the liberal-left.

Famously, a former Labour government minister talked of Thatcher "glorying in blood", and liberals took to referring to the Falkland Islands by their Argentinian name of Islas Malvinas. They hated it.

Strangely, they found themselves without a bad word to say about the fascistic Argentine government, and what occupation of the Falklands by this murderous regime must mean for the British crown subjects living there.

Starmer is cut from exactly that cloth.

Paywalled piece from today's Daily Telegraph:

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𝐂𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐯𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐄𝐔 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐟𝐞𝐫 𝐚 𝐩𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐲 𝐨𝐟 “𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭”. 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 – 𝐢𝐭 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧𝐬 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐈𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐫𝐨𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐚 “𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞” 𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐩𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝟑𝟎,𝟎𝟎𝟎 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬, 𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐠, 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐦𝐮𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐭𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐉𝐚𝐧𝐮𝐚𝐫𝐲, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐡𝐚𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐩𝐚𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐮𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐤𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦.

by Allison Pearson

At dawn on Aug 15 2004, Atefeh Sahaaleh (pictured) was executed in Iran for “crimes against chastity”. The 16-year-old had been raped repeatedly by a 51-year-old former member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and her punishment was to be publicly hanged from a crane – death takes considerably longer than by the trapdoor method.

In court, when Atefeh realised she was losing her case, the lively, intelligent girl removed her hijab and argued that her rapist should be punished, not her. She then took off her shoes and threw them at the judge, Haji Rezai. Passing her death sentence, Rezai described Atefeh as “a 22-year-old who had committed adultery” (her birth certificate proved she was 16 and she was unmarried).

The execution was rushed through in double-quick time because Judge Rezai said Atefeh’s hometown was “becoming lax and immoral”, and he was keen to clean it up. He put the noose around her neck himself, allowed Atefeh’s body to dangle for 45 minutes above the crowd before driving off in his black Peugeot.

“Atefeh used to say the moon won’t always stay behind the clouds,” her father recalled. More than two decades later, it is still almost unbearable to look at the black and white photos of the teenager, blindfolded and with the noose around her neck. You can see she is trying to remain strong and dignified, but her bottom lip seems to wobble like a child’s – here is the full barbarity of religious laws written in the Middle Ages and enforced by latter-day devils.

Under the murderous, misogynistic regime of Ayatollah Khamenei, the Islamic Republic of Iran became the world record holder for executing women (and massacring tens of thousands of political prisoners who were tortured before being tossed in unmarked graves). On Feb 23, a victim of forced marriage was hanged at dawn – it could have been for dancing or a few stray hairs escaping her scarf.

Over the past few days, we have heard from numerous so-called experts who care nothing for the grotesque suffering of girls like Atefeh, nor that of the Iranian people at the hands of vicious, puritanical clerics. Can they not imagine their own daughters in that situation? Loftily, they opine on why bombing Iran is the wrong thing to do, claim that regime change is almost certainly doomed and – oh, dear! – Operation Epic Fury by the United States and Israel’s Operation Roaring Lion are in breach of international law.

Because the IRGC and its assassins and terrorist proxies around the world are such sticklers for the rules-based order, aren’t they?

The Americans and the Israelis are under no illusion about the existential threat Islamic fundamentalism poses to the Western way of life – they know that it must be fought and destroyed. Complacent liberal commentators and nervous EU leaders prefer a policy of “containment”. Containment is the new appeasement – it means leaving millions of Iranians to rot in a “stable” hellscape where more than 30,000 protesters, most of them young, were murdered on the streets in January, and their parents had to pay for the bullets that killed them.

Iran with a nuclear weapon would make North Korea look like an eight-year-old with a Nerf gun. Once the Mullahs had the bomb, they would not hesitate to inflict a second Holocaust on Israel. Useful idiots like Hannah Spencer, the victorious Green candidate in the Gorton and Denton by-election, who courted anti-Zionists and hard-Left voters, would be foolish to think they’d be safe when Tehran then turns its attention to Europe. Place an order for that hijab, Hannah, love!

Let me suggest that all free, civilised people should rejoice that between 8.10am and 8.15am local Tehran time on Saturday, in one of the most devastatingly brilliant attacks in military history, Israeli missiles wiped out the top 40 commanders of the Islamic Republic, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Just five minutes to remove so much evil from this world. Over the next few weeks, the remaining Mullahs, myriad IRGC commanders, thousands of footsoldiers and apparatchiks in the state’s vile apparatus of repression will be hunted down. And all ballistic missiles will be neutralised until the conditions are sufficiently favourable for the Iranian people to take back control of their nation, and for a temporary administration to be formed and plan elections. There may be no such thing as a good war, but never doubt that this one is just.

It would not be right to say that, over the coming weeks, Iran will be bombed back to the Stone Age because the Stone Age is where Iranians have been condemned to live since the 1979 Revolution when a beautiful, Western-leaning country – a place of wonderful art and music where stylish women could live and dress as they pleased – became a theocratic torture state. Next time you come across some supine globalist criticising Trump’s inadequately planned and “unconstitutional” action, think of the older Iranian lady who joined a march against the regime last summer. Asked by a reporter if she feared being killed, she replied, “I have been dead for 47 years.”

While this momentous event in world history was unfolding, possibly vanquishing our worst enemy since the Nazis, what was Britain doing? Never fear, the Labour Government was unleashing “Operation Epic Appeaser”. “The United Kingdom played no role in these strikes,” began our Prime Minister, the most contemptible sentence Sir Keir Starmer has ever uttered in a hotly-contested field.

My God, the shame and humiliation that man has brought on the land of Winston Churchill, as the US president highlighted on Tuesday with his scathing observation about Starmer’s Chagos giveaway. “That island you read about... somebody came and took it away from him. This is not Winston Churchill we’re dealing with”. Even Left-leaning Canada and Australia had the sense to offer Trump their full support over Iran.

“But we have long been clear,” Starmer continued, the “special relationship” disintegrating as he blithered on, “the regime in Iran is utterly abhorrent. They have murdered thousands of their own people, brutally crushed dissent and sought to destabilise the region... So it’s clear – they must never be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon. That remains the primary aim of the UK and our allies – including the US.”

But it’s not clear, is it? If Iran not developing a nuclear weapon is our “primary aim”, then how did the Government think that would be achieved by denying the United States permission to use bases in Gloucestershire and Diego Garcia as a launchpad for an attack on the uranium-enrichment plants at Natanz? The UK’s stance appeared to be. “The Iranian regime is very bad, so we’re going to take a principled stand and do our best not to help those who are willing to fight them, which complies with international law while not riling all our voters who think Britain should never attack an Islamic country.” Pathetic.

The next day, when a British base in Cyprus came under attack, Starmer decided that Americans using our bases – described only hours earlier as a legal impossibility – was fine after all, but only for “specific and limited defensive purposes”. Starmer used to be indecisive – now he’s not so sure.

Think of the courage of the CIA and Mossad operatives who went undercover in Tehran to gather the intelligence necessary to topple the regime. Think of the Iranian women’s football team, who on Monday refused to sing their national anthem before their Asia Cup match against South Korea, when they knew full well the violent retribution that might await them. Those young women have more backbone than Starmer and his Attorney General, Lord Hermer, with their casuistical arguments in which moral cowardice finds in favour of doing absolutely nothing.

In 1939, no doubt Starmer and Hermer would have decided regime change in Germany was not compatible with international law and abandoned millions of Jews to their fate. They are beneath contempt.

“It is my duty to judge what is in Britain’s national interests. That is what I have done,” Starmer told the Commons. Since when was trashing the “special relationship”, on which our national security depends, in Britain’s national interests? When Trump told The Telegraph he was “very disappointed” in Starmer for blocking him from using Diego Garcia, which of us did not feel a pang when he said it was unlike anything that had “happened between our countries before”? There was a whole history of wonderful trust betrayed in that wistful observation. “This was the most solid relationship of all,” a wounded Trump told The Sun.

Frankly, it was hard to disagree with the scathing assessment of Senator Lindsey Graham, who chastised European allies, “You have gone pathetically soft and lost your zeal for confronting evil... It’s pathetic how far Western Europe has fallen.”

The Government may not want to admit it, but Iran is very much our fight. There is no greater threat to the UK than that posed by Islamist terrorism. In the last 42 months, the security services have foiled 20 Iranian plots. Yes, 20.

Maybe one reason Starmer wears the pained expression of a man with splinters in his backside from prolonged fence-sitting is because he must fear a terror attack from a sleeper cell if he offers assistance to bring down the Iranian regime. It is horrifying that British foreign policy has come to be controlled by a combination of Left-wing zealots and pro-Palestinians – even worse that an increasingly desperate Labour is beholden to that fifth column for its votes.

Incredibly, the recently-pulverised Ayatollah still has an office in London, the UK has still not proscribed the IRGC as a terrorist organisation and the Iranian ambassador has not been sent packing.

The Trump administration has long reached the conclusion that its wartime ally is no longer a reliable partner in the Middle East, because the Labour Government became a hostage to its Muslim voters and far-Left supporters, over Gaza.

In case you’re wondering, I am not naïve enough to think that Trump and Netanyahu are waging war against Iran on human rights grounds. Access to oil, the looming nuclear threat and state sponsorship of terrorism will be the dominant concerns. Still, as the awesome combined might of the US and Israel humbles the monsters and their axis of evil, the civilised people of the world can take a moment to celebrate the fact that Iranians, buried alive for 47 years, now have a chance – just a chance, but still a chance if they can only grasp it – of life as we are lucky to know it.

Let us remember today a 16-year-old girl who was sentenced to death for being raped, for a crime against chastity invented by medieval barbarians who, even now, have a toehold in our own society. A girl who took off her shoes and threw them at the judge who put the noose around her neck himself. I am sorry that my country is not part of the mission to avenge her murder, and the murders of many thousands like her, and I wish godspeed to those who are this hour sending fiends like Judge Rezai to the hellfire they deserve. International law be damned.

Atefeh used to tell her father that the moon won’t always stay behind the clouds. The sky is full of noise now, but the clouds are parting. Look up, daughters of Iran, help is at hand. See the moon.