Khamenei is dead – what will the Left do now?

As decent people everywhere celebrate the elimination of the despotic tyrant Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – supreme leader of Iran since 1989 – serious questions need to be asked of the Western left wing movement.

For nearly five decades, the Islamic Republic suppressed speech, denied women equal legal standing, executed dissenters, and exported militancy abroad – all while influential voices in the so-called ‘progressive’ left in the west have looked on approvingly and held it up as the poster regime for the ‘religion of peace’.

The contrast between realities couldn’t be more stark. In 1979, just before the Islamic revolution took place, Iranian society was already complicated and politically fractured – but on women’s legal rights, Iran had made real gains. Women had had the vote since 1963 and Family law reforms in 1967 (expanded in 1975) restricted polygamy, required court oversight for divorce, and created family courts – a serious shift of power away from clerical jurisdiction.

Within four years of the Revolution these gains were gone and the position of women was rolled back by more than a century. The Family Protection Law was repealed; new draconian policies targeted marriage, divorce, and custody rights; failure to wear a hijab in public was punishable by up to 74 lashes, and failure to wear a veil led to arbitrary arrests, detention, and denial of access to public services.

In every sense, humiliation of women was a core value of the Iranian regime – but it certainly wasn’t the only area in which it cracked down. Freedom of expression and political dissent were also punished. In 1988, up to 5,000 political dissidents were murdered in a series of mass executions and peaceful protests in 2009 and 2019 were met with live ammunition. In the more recent protests against the regime up to 30,000 protestors have been killed with many more disappearing under state crackdowns.

Despite this, activists in the West have opted for a narrative that frames Iran as a victim of U.S. influence on its citizens and as the face of the ‘resistance’ against Israel. In fact, so strong is this latter view that the left has knowingly turned a blind eye to Iran’s religious persecution, targeting of ethnic minorities, and brutal repression of youth culture because to acknowledge them would destroy their ability to demonise Israel (a nation which champions equal rights for all).

This utter hypocrisy was particularly evident during the recent “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising and the simultaneous broad protests against economic and political repression, in Iran, with leftwing groups in the West being nowhere to be seen while Christian and Israeli groups stood in solidarity with the Iranian people.

In other words:

• The Iranian people rose up for basic freedoms.
• The regime responded with bullets, arrests and executions.
• Much of the Western left looked away.

So what will the ‘progressive’ left do now?

1. Will it finally acknowledge that it lent rhetorical cover to a theocratic regime that crushed the freedoms it claims to champion?
2. Will it reassess its own values and admit that rights are universal – not a currency to be traded or contextualised?
3. Or will it simply pivot to the next cause without ever confronting its complicity in supporting a brutal dictatorship?

Since #3 is the only option which allows it to continue in its maniacal hatred of Jews and its satanic obsession with the abolition of Israel – you’d be safe in assuming that this is what it will choose.

None of this should come as a surprise to anyone who understands the bigger picture at play here, of course – and if you want to know more about the true purpose of Islam and the wests complicity in its rise in the 21^st century, register your interest in my upcoming book, ‘Prophecy Shock’, at www.prophecyshock.com….