https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14938/iran-we-did-we-didnt-game
For four decades, the mullahs have successfully practiced their “do-and-deny” tactic thanks to the indulgence, not to say cowardice, of Western leaders and the pathetic anti-Americanism of some Western pseudo-intellectuals.
Western anti-American intellectuals who become apologists for the mullahs are victims of their inability to conceive of a situation in which, while America may be bad, its adversary may be worse.
Then we had America versus the Third Reich. Later, America vs. the Soviet Empire, vs. the Vietcong and Khmer Rouge, vs. the Afghan Taliban, vs. Saddam Hussein. In every case, even if America was not the shining city on the hill, its adversary at the time was much worse.
Apologists for the Islamic Republic do not do it a service. By endorsing its illusions and shielding it against deserved criticism, they encourage its worst tendencies — tendencies that could cost Iran and the region more than they imagine.
How to take credit for a mischief you have committed but do not wish to own up to?
This is the dilemma Tehran apologists face when discussing the latest shenanigans in the region, including missile and drone attacks on Saudi oil installations.
On the one hand they want to take credit for the attacks and cast the Khomeinist regime as a mighty power capable of giving as good as it takes in a duel against the American “Great Satan.” They try to cast Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as the little Tom Thumb taking on Donald Trump as the giant of the folk tale.
On the other hand, they try to cast Iran as an innocent victim, highlight the sufferings of babies supposedly left without powdered milk and old women running out of medication.
Wrapping up that theme is the claim that the Islamic Republic has done absolutely nothing that merits sanctions, and that the latest attacks were the work of Yemeni Houthis, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Iraq’s PMF or even the army of djinns commanded by Zaafar al-Jinni from the 1001 Nights.
