Benjamin Kerstein is Right: "the Iranian Regime Must be Destroyed"
The Gifted Writer Responds With Force to the Assassination Attempt on Author Salman Rushdie
My pal Benjamin Kerstein - who has written a number of phenomenal short stories lately for God of the Desert Books - really hits it out of the park with his newest essay at his substack, “The Rushdie attack proves the Iranian regime must be destroyed.”
Here are the opening few paragraphs:
“They finally got him.”
Those were the words that first came to me when I heard the news that author Salman Rushdie had been brutally stabbed at a literary event in New York on the morning of Aug. 12.
We do not yet know the full extent of Mr. Rushdie’s injuries, or whether he will survive them, but he appears to be in extremely bad shape. His agent Andrew Wylie said, "Salman will likely lose one eye; the nerves in his arm were severed; and his liver was stabbed and damaged.”
The motive, of course, is obvious. The attacker, Hadi Matar, is described by the New York Post, citing law enforcement sources, as active on social media “in support of Iran and its Revolutionary Guard, and in support of Shi’a extremism more broadly.”
In other words, the attack was the work of a radical Muslim inspired by the Iranian regime’s 1989 call for Rushdie’s death.
This despicable fatwa was the work of the regime’s founder Ayatollah Khomeini (may his name be erased and his bones ground to dust). Khomeini, an avowed totalitarian theocrat and genocidal antisemite, got his knickers in a twist because Rushdie published a novel called The Satanic Verses, which Khomeini considered offensive to Islam. That being offended did not give him the right to kill people apparently did not occur to the decrepit old fiend.
As a result of this sentence of death, which Khomeini had no earthly or heavenly right to impose, Rushdie was forced to live as a fugitive for decades and several of his translators and publishers were attacked and/or killed.
Read the whole thing at Benjamin’s Substack and be sure to subscribe and follow him on Twitter too. We’ll be publishing more of Benjamin’s fiction soon and I’m going to start presenting narrated versions of the ones we’ve already published on our podcast too.
My position on Iran these days is fairly simple and straight forward: it is a genocidal antisemitic slave state holding its population hostage while funding terrorism at a global scale and thus does not have the moral authority to exist. Regime change is the only moral path to support. Continuing to prop up the existence of this totalitarian, theocrat regime is no more moral than supporting the existence of the USSR, Nazi Germany, or the Confederate States of America. It is a huge historical mistake to allow slave states to exist so that they can grow strong enough to attempt to impose their slave values on free societies. Choosing to ignore the evil of imperial slave states like Iran only means they get stronger over time and more capable of committing atrocities.
What do you think should be done about Iran?
Benjamin- Great post and your passion reads through in every word!
To answer your question as to what should be done with Iran, I don’t know that there is any non-celestial course of action the Western free-speaking and thinking world (at least those of us who still do indeed think for ourselves) can do.
Like Russia, Iranians are well past do for a major offensive to modernize their government and have basic needs and safety within reach (think Maslow).
If there is one thing the USA should have learned by now, it is that removing a regime only leads to greater dysfunction in a dependent, vastly impoverished and uneducated nation. Iran, Libya, Afghanistan? Russia is an exception but I think we can all agree that Putin has never fully left the drivers seat and Russians (despite their number of dissidents) perhaps do not have the stomach to do anything of consequence until they have lost an entire generation of children.
Putin will continue to fling green eighteen year olds at Ukrainian troops until there are no more bodies to spend. And then he may or may not decide to destroy every nation in NATO and beyond and perhaps the globe itself along with it.
Is he dying? Perhaps Putin doesn’t wish to go alone…or, he simply cannot imagine a world without himself so he plans to take the world to hell with him.
I wanted to respectfully disagree on your mention of the American Antebellum South in the regime equation but that talk may be for another time. My family has been in Southern Maryland for 300+ years and are still there. Working poor and uneducated but they inherently know the value of life, black, white, and everything in between, born and unborn. None of them owned or fought for slavery. They knew God and listened to His voice, whether they participate in organized religion or not.
Unfortunately, knowing God, at least the Judeo-Christian God who is fair, just and revels in His creation, is not perhaps currently stressed in the Russian Orthodox Church (that is run by Putin much like the Kingdoms of Europe were once run by the Pope). Ditto for Iran. Who is their God? Do they worship the One who is Truth or the leaders who keep them ignorant and dependent?
I had an idea after reading your post. The only answer I could think of to counter evil regimes in our world is to petition God to intervene. I do this for our own nation daily. Is our current government that different than Russia’s?
As for the dear life of the very brave Mr. Rushdie, I would love to see a universal interfaith prayer chain for his health and life. Prayers combat violence like no other action.
I said a prayer. Join me?