I find it to be so very bizarre. Back in my wild Marxist days, we leftists were all pacifists, isolationists, and anti-war activists. We hated the West, and of course, we hated Israel as well. Thankfully, my conversion to Christianity in 1971 put an end to all that nonsense.
Now however, we have folks who are up to the very same things - but they claim to be conservatives and Christians! They are fully into all the neo-isolationism, pacifism and railing against Israel and the West - while remaining silent on political Islam, jihadist terrorism, and what took place on October 7, 2023.
Even more bizarre, many of these guys are in the "freedom movement." What these folks seem to be clueless about is there will be little or no freedom for them and others if they keep demonising the wrong player in the region, Israel, and keeping giving tacit support for the enemies of freedom and democracy.
Why is it that so often when these folks open their mouths, I am reminded of Neville Chamberlain? Indeed, why do so many of these folks remind me of Greta Thunberg? While I have rightly abandoned my Marxist roots, these so-called Christians and conservatives seem to be heading in that very direction, at least in terms of geo-politics, international relations, and the ugly anti-semitism that goes along with the tainted vision of the secular left.
Sure, they might mouth some biblical texts here and there, but biblical concerns have never been about peace at any price. They have always been about peace with justice. If your home is under constant attack by belligerent and hateful neighbours who have sworn to annihilate you and your family, and no police force was available to protect you, if you took action to neutralise that existential threat to save your beloved wife and kids, you would be acting in a moral and biblical manner.
Last night I stumbled upon a film that came out last year that I had been intending to see. I refer to the 2024 American biographical drama Reagan, based on Paul Kengor's 2006 book The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism. It stars Dennis Quaid as President Ronald Reagan.
It was very timely indeed to see this, given some of these Israel- and Jew-haters. Reagan knew full well the evils of communism, and he would not rest until it was stopped in its tracks. And his tireless work, along with Margaret Thatcher, Pope John Paul II and real freedom fighters like Lech Walesa did help bring about the downfall of this godless, tyrannical empire.
Others come to mind.
Think of how someone like Churchill was in the right place at the right time to stand up to Hitler and the Nazis. He knew well before most others what a threat Hitler was to Europe and the world. Yet we had fools like Neville Chamberlain thinking he could appease Hitler.
He returned to England after a meeting with him in 1938 proclaiming "peace for our time."
But appeasement kills. Two weeks later Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia. Millions of lives were lost because people like Chamberlain were followed instead of Churchill. And bear in mind that Churchill also early on warned about the menace of Soviet Communism as well.
Donald Trump has also been strong enough to do great good. In his first term for example the Abraham Accords were one very important development. But of course under Biden the US went from strength back to weakness. With Israel now dealing with the very real existential threat of Iran and its nuclear weapons program, Trump has made it clear that if the Iranians dare to target any Americans, there will be hell to pay.
The film about Reagan reminded me of the same thing with the Gipper in the White House. Recall how the Iranian hostage crisis of some 444 days came to an abrupt end just when Reagan was inaugurated as President for his first term in office. And shortly after he finished his second term, we know that the Berlin Wall came crashing down, and soon the evil empire, the Soviet Union, would crumble as well.
This was all about eschewing appeasement and wishful thinking and pursuing peace through strength. And of course the left hated it all. He was called a fascist and a war monger, and the Democrats wanted to impeach him. Does any of that sound familiar today?
The truth is, at times of great crisis and impending evil, God will often raise up those who will take a stand and fight. And a dogged policy of peace through strength is usually how great things get done by these great men. We can be so thankful for figures like Churchill, Thatcher, Reagan and Trump.
People like Reagan knew what an enemy the Soviet communists were and dealt with them resolutely. We need leaders today who know our current enemies, including political Islam, and we need leaders today who know our friends, such as Israel, the only bastion of liberty and democracy in an anti-freedom and anti-democratic Middle East.
And we need to keep repeating basic truths here, even though the Israel-haters refuse to listen to them (just as Greta Thunberg refused to watch the Oct. 7 video, almost all of which was filmed by Hamas). These include:
Indeed, while Iranians are dancing and celebrating in the streets, hoping to see the fall of this evil regime, thanks to the work of Israel, we have clowns in the West saying Israel is committing genocide and are a bunch of war-mongers. I so tire of these folks. They should move to some of these Muslim-majority countries and see how terrific life is there.
These armchair critics who assume an air of moral superiority are simply guaranteeing more bloodshed, death and destruction. They might celebrate with the Islamists and the secular left if Israel is finally wiped off the map, but these folks will of course be next. But they seem clueless, and it is always so easy for them to criticise from a distance.
I quite like how Thomas Sowell put it back in August 2, 2014:
There is something grotesque about people living thousands of miles away, in safety and comfort, loftily second-guessing and trying to micro-manage what the Israelis are doing in a matter of life and death. Such self-indulgences are a danger, not simply to Israel, but to the whole Western world, for it betrays a lack of realism that shows in everything from the current disastrous consequences of our policies in Egypt, Libya and Iraq to future catastrophes from a nuclear-armed Iran.
Here's another one from the great Thomas Sowell:
If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilisation, then be prepared to accept barbarism.
But I still keep hearing the same idiotic refrains by these folks. 'We have no business to be in the Middle East.' 'War never solves anything.' 'Give peace a chance.' This drivel is taking me straight back to my radical hippy days when my hatred of America and the West was only matched by my complete ignorance of how the world really works - especially a fallen world.
Those folks droning on and on about 'What is happening there is none of our business' need to be educated - and fast. Otherwise we will all end up facing the historical Islamist set of demands: 'Convert, become a dhimmi (second-class citizen), or die'.
One person who clearly knows all about this is an Iranian living in Australia. Arman Rahimian is the pseudonym he uses, since revealing his real name would lead to the imprisonment and likely executions of his family in Tehran. What he wrote in Quadrant yesterday is a must read. He begins:
Why should an ordinary Australian, far from the bazaars of Tehran and the bloodied streets of Mahabad, care about a war brewing between Israel and Iran -- and the battle raging within Iran itself? It is a fair question. After all, in a world of so many tragedies, what makes this one yours to witness, to speak of, perhaps even to lend your voice to?
Let me start, humbly, with my conservative brothers and sisters. You believe -- rightly -- in the universal worth and dignity of the human life. You do not hide behind the excuse of moral relativism; you hold that every human being, born under any flag, possesses an unalienable right to shape his or her own life. This is not an abstract slogan; it is a duty written into the conscience of free peoples.
I do not say that the liberating Iran's millions should rest on Australian shoulders. But I do say this: your voice, your solidarity, your refusal to turn away could help a people stand taller at a moment when they are closer than ever to ending four decades of tyranny.
For forty years, a regime has done all it can to hollow out the human soul, to grind people into dust for an extremist utopia that never comes. It treats the individual not as sacred but expendable -- pawns to be sacrificed to hasten the apocalypse of which its clerics dream. If you think I exaggerate, know that this regime literally teaches its children to pray for the end of the world -- to await a saviour whose arrival they believe they can hasten by spreading blood and ruin.
In the eyes of these rulers, there is no number of bodies too high, no price too steep. Dignity, agency, the chance to fall in love, to speak one's mind, to laugh openly -- all these are threats to the grand design of a theocracy that must devour its own children to survive.
My Australian brothers: the Iranian man is not your enemy, nor alien to your dreams. He longs, like you, to build, to protect, to earn his bread with honour, to kiss his beloved without fear of the moral police. These dreams were not imported by Western NGOs -- they are native to the Persian spirit, and older than the regime that tries to stamp them out.
He concludes:
And now, in a twist of history, the war that Israel's government has chosen to wage against the bloodthirsty regime in Tehran may yet prove to be the best chance Iranians have had in decades to claim this dignity for themselves. Israel does not strike for conquest or glory; it strikes out of sheer necessity -- because no sane nation can tolerate a neighbour whose ruling ideology prays for apocalypse and sees nuclear weapons not as deterrents but as divine instruments to hurry the end of the world.
A nuclear Iran would not simply threaten Tel Aviv or Riyadh. It would pull the entire world closer to the edge of this suicidal vision. In the eyes of Iran's clerics, to unleash chaos is to be righteous; to sacrifice millions is a virtue.
So, when Israel fights Iran's regime, it fights not only for itself but for all of us -- for the stability of the Middle East, for the security of global commerce, for the prosperity of free societies, for the chance that the Iranian people might, at last, break their chains amid the weakening of the tyrant's grip.
This is why Australians should care. Because the Iranian people's freedom is not a distant fight for someone else's values -- it is the same fight that makes your own freedom possible. And it still matters, perhaps more than ever, whether the free world stands silent or speaks.
If you hear their song, do not hush it. If you see their fists raised, do not look away. If you see Israel's bombs strike the war factories of Armageddon, know this too is for your children's safety as much as it is for Iran's chance to finally be free.
Their struggle is your own in another tongue -- and today, at last, they may win.
Continue to pray for the peace of Jerusalem (Psalm 122:6).
And pray for Israel's success, so the Iranian people can have dignity. It may be the only hope they have.