Mahsa Amini's brutal death may be moment of reckoning for Iran | Iran | The  Guardian
[Source: theguardian.com]

It certainly looks to be that way—though many liberals and self-proclaimed feminists remain oblivious.

In an era increasingly awash with political instability, the latest protests in Iran are yet another manifestation of the plague of Western imperialism. The sudden death of Kurdish Iranian woman Mahsa Amini and the unclear circumstances surrounding her death have precipitated a remarkable global response condemning the Iranian government as well as purporting to champion the rights of Iranian women in defiance of Islamic fundamentalism.

Contrary to the narrative dominating Western headlines that a democratic and grassroots revolution is under way in Iran following Amini’s death, the author maintains that Amini’s death is being exploited by Western-backed forces to hasten a color revolution and create the conditions for greater destabilization and regime change in the region.

The Iran protests did not achieve worldwide attention because of some spontaneous and organic mobilization of women across the country, nor are they representative of some monolithic goal seeking to liberate all Iranian women from the alleged (and supposedly equally felt) brutal dictates of their Islamic Republic government.

One need not dig too far back into United States history to see a repeated pattern of allegations of human rights abuses being levied against adversarial governments as the raison d’être for Western intervention.

One of the most infamous in recent memory post-9/11 was George W. Bush’s disingenuous embrace of the cause of women’s rights to further justify his administration’s decision to invade Afghanistan in the disastrous War on Terror. In the first Gulf War, the false testimony of “Nurse Nayirah” al-Sabah to the Congressional Human Rights caucus—during which she accused Iraqi troops of invading a Kuwait City hospital and removing 312 babies from incubators to perish on the cold floor—was instrumental in tipping the scale for the U.S. Senate and the American public to overwhelmingly support military force in Iraq in its quest to “save Kuwait.”

Nurse Nayirah's" false testimony (Gulf War)(German Sub.) - YouTube
“Nurse Nayirah” al-Sabah testifying before the Congressional Human Rights Commission on the eve of the 1991 Persian Gulf War. [Source: youtube.com]

And who can forget the disturbing accusation by Western leaders of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad supposedly “gassing his own people” via a chemical attack on civilians in Douma in 2017. That the U.S. government had covertly backed rebel groups (including al-Nusra and ISIS) in the region against the Syrian government is as troubling as it is inconvenient.

Nevertheless, the chemical attack narrative struck an emotional chord with concerned Westerners who across the board (save for a few anti-imperialist voices) insisted that “Assad must go” to save the Syrian people!

Bashar al-Assad’s regime is planning another chemical attack, says White House
U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley showing photos of alleged chemical gas attack as part of campaign to sell U.S. military intervention in Syria. [Source: scroll.in]

A sobering analysis of U.S Empire and its legacy of defectors, color revolutions, and flat-out lies to justify militarism and war efforts begs the question: Are the Iran protests a legitimate call to action for women’s rights, or are they largely smoke and mirrors—a familiar yet questionable narrative of human rights violations once again being deployed to advance U.S. regime-change efforts in Iran?

Let’s first consider what prompted the latest (fleeting?) global moral outrage against Iran and supposed pursuit for the rights of women in the country. The unexpected death of a civilian woman, Mahsa Amini, on September 16, 2022, sparked sharp disdain for the Iranian government and their state apparatuses, most notably of their “morality police.”

The circumstances of her death have not yet been conclusively determined; all the while rage continues to fester within parts of Iran and in the international community. When alleged eyewitnesses and other “trusted voices” (like Iranian expatriate Masih Alinejad—a CIA asset who has worked alongside Mike Pompeo, Madeleine Albright, and other warmongers) claimed that Amini was beaten by Iranian police for incorrectly wearing her hijab, the Iranian government was quick to release CCTV footage that—contrary to what was being echoed at the time—showed Amini unexpectedly collapsing on her own inside Tehran’s police station.

[Source: youtube.com]

Refuting the claim of the Iranian government that she had a previous medical condition propelling a heart attack and subsequent coma, Amini’s family maintains that their daughter was beaten to death.

Of course, the death of this young woman is undeniably upsetting, and if evidence comes forward suggesting the morality police are to blame, then the reasonable demand is to put those officers on trial for policy brutality and demand accountability of the country’s state officials.

Who was Mahsa Amini, whose death sparked Iran protests? - The Jerusalem Post
Mahsa Amini [Source: jpost.com]

But one ought to cast a critical lens on how this singular event amidst a sea of human rights catastrophes so shamefully rampant in our current global milieu has caused a global uprising while the suffering of Palestinians under Israeli occupation, Yemenis at the hands of Saudi Arabia, and Armenians under Azerbaijan forces have gone largely ignored in the eyes of supposed justice-oriented Westerners.

It is also peculiar how U.S.-imposed sanctions against Iran for decades (principally and deleteriously felt by Iranian civilians including women and children) have managed to slip under the radar of demands by the masses for justice and democracy for Iranian women, conveniently eschewing any moral outrage for the myriad ways the imperial core has directly caused the suffering and deaths of Iranian civilians.

It also seems odd how quickly narrative management and new demands have been achieved as this story swept across the mainstream Western press and Meta’s social media. While Amini’s death initially sparked liberal demands to remove the mandatory hijab laws, it appears to have seamlessly shifted into manufacturing consent for regime change of the Iranian government.

It is all too convenient how the demands advanced by concerned Westerners and a specific faction of Iranian protesters for “justice and democracy” seem to fall perfectly in line with the imperialist ambitions of Iran’s principal adversaries, namely the United States and Israel. It makes you wonder if people’s moral outrage over Mahsa Amini’s death and disdain for Iran’s Islamic Republic comes from a genuine and lasting concern for Iranians, or because the latest war propaganda told them to.

Casting suspicion on the demands of these protests and expressing concern for its possible future outcomes are reasonable given the myriad angles on why these protests do not really make a lot of sense upon closer inspection.

First, protests of this size and sustained duration do not commonly erupt suddenly and organically. The success of these ongoing protests to capture the undivided attention of international audiences with such gusto involves very skilled organization with a history of strategic planning, resources, and sustained leadership—without which the protest(s) would inevitably lose steam.

While boots-on-the-ground military operations and coup d’états were once the primary strategy by which imperialist nations destabilized their enemies, embracing more covert strategies including astroturfing organic social movements or outright creating the conditions for political unrest within a country has become more normative and arguably more successful.

Under the deceptive exterior of functioning as a neutral non-profit organization, the primary function of CIA cut-outs like the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is to foist regime-change operations in countries adversarial to U.S. interests by arming and training rebel groups, defectors, agent provocateurs, and/or separatists to infiltrate protests and social movements in order to swiftly advance the imperialist ambitions of the United States.

While Westerners were seemingly out-of-nowhere captured by the call to support democracy for citizens in Hong Kong 2019/20 under the alleged brutal dictates of the Chinese government, critical investigative journalism has since revealed these uprisings were but the latest covert escalation in the United States’s cold war with China.

Behind a made-for-TV Hong Kong protest narrative, Washington is backing  nativism and mob violence - The Grayzone
Many of the Hong Kong “pro-democracy” protesters openly courted U.S. military intervention. [Source: thegrayzone.com]

Anyone who does not think Iran’s political adversaries are somehow involved tacitly or directly with these mass protests is certainly naïve to the sly tactics of these color revolutions. It is also no accident that certain so-called movements for “social justice,” “democracy,” or “women’s rights” are embraced and promoted by the U.S. Empire, while truly revolutionary movements such as the Sandinistas, the Bolivarian Revolution, and the Palestinian Resistance Movement do not get anywhere near the same global attention and are actively repressed in the Western press.

The fact that these protests in Iran have received wall-to-wall coverage should raise a few eyebrows.

The moral condemnation people express over the practices embedded in certain Islamic republics but not others is also quite curious. Why, for instance, do Westerners (in the last two weeks especially) deem the Iranian Islamic Republic so morally aghast for women’s rights, but the same disdain (as demonstrated in global uprisings for example) is not reserved for the Saudi government and its strict adherence to extremist Wahhabism?

While it can certainly be argued that Iran ought to modernize some of its laws pertaining to the rights of women, Saudi Arabian authorities have enacted far harsher repressive tactics upon the women in their own country, all the while directly engaging in the ethnic cleansing of the citizens of Yemen. I have yet to see a call to action from Western liberals to demand justice for Saudi (and Yemeni) women living under the dictates of this repressive regime.

What can women still not do in Saudi Arabia? - BBC News
[Source: bbc.com]

Finally, make no mistake, we are living in a time of grossly hostile geopolitics led predominantly by the United States and its junior partners, and causing numerous political quagmires worldwide—so many that we can’t keep up. Masses of people are swallowing war propaganda like it is kool-aid, and sadly it is only become more sophisticated and covert through the advancement of private and corporate-run social media companies.

It is no coincidence that, within this milieu of disastrous geopolitical conflicts, the imperial core continuously sows disdain for Iran (of varying degrees depending on the current political climate) in its quest to manufacture consent for eventual war with them. Just two years ago, we were caught in the throes of a possible war with Iran after the Trump administration ordered the assassination of Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani on January 3, 2020.

Trump New Year's sparkler lights up Iran General: Darcy cartoon -  cleveland.com
[Source: cleveland.com]

The U.S. Empire does not care about Mahsa Amini, but they do care about exploiting her death to achieve their own political ends. These ends of course are to successfully reinstall a Western puppet to lead Iran (like the West did in 1953, overthrowing Mohammad Mosaddegh and installing the Shah in its place until the 1979 Islamic Revolution) and have it become a subservient neo-colony of the United States.

As one of the members of the Axis of Resistance against Western-led imperialism, however, Iran continues to be a thorn in the side of the United States and makes their intended goals very difficult to achieve.

The Iran Nuclear Deal is at a standstill since Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the JCPOA in 2018. More recently, Iran supported Russia’s military operation in Ukraine with the assistance of combat drones and also joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) supplying oil to China in exchange for China’s investments in Iran’s infrastructure.

Explainer: What Putin wants from Iran and why Tehran might be cautious |  Reuters
Vladimir Putin shakes hands with Ebrahim Raisi during a meeting in Tehran in July 2022. [Source: reuters.com]

Iran also has a history of supporting other U.S. adversaries and fellow members of the Axis of Resistance, including Hezbollah; the Houthi movement; Palestinian resistance against Israeli occupation and Zionism; and the Assad government in Syria. A nuanced understanding of this context certainly illuminates why global outrage against Iran was never only about the death of a single civilian but, instead, was a global reaction to a cleverly orchestrated destabilization effort by the imperial West.

The question then lingers: What is an appropriate response by concerned citizens globally (but especially those residing in the imperial core) as a show of true solidarity with the women of Iran during these contentious times?

As a concerned observer in Canada, I have been sorely disappointed by several factions of the so-called socialist Left which have failed to support one obvious measure that would alleviate women’s suffering and death in Iran: the lifting of crippling economic sanctions by Western nations.

Decades of sanctions in Iran have prevented the regular flow of food, medicine and other essential supplies into the country, the negative effects of which are predominantly felt by the most vulnerable people in society.

Does EU Sanctions On Iran Reveal Double Standards On Human Rights? – The  Organization for World Peace
Protest led by CodePink demanding lifting of sanctions on Iran—something that would genuinely ease the plight of Iran’s women. [Source: theowp.org]

Somehow though, at the height of the trending concern for Mahsa Amini, the United States deemed it necessary to temporarily adjust just one type of sanction—the country’s access to the internet—allegedly in order for civilians to evade surveillance and censorship by the Iranian government in the wake of the Amini protests.

The United States swiftly activated Elon Musk’s Starlink internet services to assist in this effort.

Any claim by the United States to suddenly embrace the noble pursuit of Iranians’ fight against censorship is laughably hypocritical as the U.S. Empire engages in the slow assassination of Julian Assange and the complete annihilation of press freedoms.

Further, if the U.S. can lift internet sanctions with the snap of the finger (to “help Iranian women”), what is stopping them from lifting sanctions on food, medicine, and life-saving medical devices? This is precisely because sanctions are a covert act of war designed to destabilize the living conditions of citizens in hopes that they will eventually seek to overturn their own government.

While the Western left has been quite eager to organize symbolic rallies of supposed solidarity for #MahsaAmini, and to publicly condemn the “repressive and reactionary” Iranian government, most of these groups subtly maintain that their calls for justice do not advocate for Western intervention in Iran or regime change. From an outsider looking in though, it is difficult to distinguish how the messaging relayed in these left-leaning protests differ meaningfully from those echoing State Department talking points.

Masha Amini: West Hollywood community holds vigil for Iranian woman who  died in police custody
Vigil in West Hollywood by women in solidarity with Mahsa Amini. [Source: foxla.com]

Vulnerable groups of people, oftentimes women in Middle-Eastern countries, are routinely used as pawns to advance the imperial ambitions of the West. The blowback of foreign governments inserting themselves into the internal politics of other sovereign countries, mostly for nefarious reasons, cannot be ignored.

If Western observers of these protests truly want to help, the most meaningful thing they can do is to challenge the dictates of their own imperialist governments and demand an end to the brutalizing sanctions that have directly caused immeasurable suffering and death of Iranians. It is, indeed, the most meaningful show of solidarity one can do in pursuit of Iranian prosperity.


CovertAction Magazine is made possible by subscriptionsorders and donations from readers like you.

Blow the Whistle on U.S. Imperialism

Click the whistle and donate

When you donate to CovertAction Magazine, you are supporting investigative journalism. Your contributions go directly to supporting the development, production, editing, and dissemination of the Magazine.

CovertAction Magazine does not receive corporate or government sponsorship. Yet, we hold a steadfast commitment to providing compensation for writers, editorial and technical support. Your support helps facilitate this compensation as well as increase the caliber of this work.

Please make a donation by clicking on the donate logo above and enter the amount and your credit or debit card information.

CovertAction Institute, Inc. (CAI) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and your gift is tax-deductible for federal income purposes. CAI’s tax-exempt ID number is 87-2461683.

We sincerely thank you for your support.


Disclaimer: The contents of this article are the sole responsibility of the author(s). CovertAction Institute, Inc. (CAI), including its Board of Directors (BD), Editorial Board (EB), Advisory Board (AB), staff, volunteers and its projects (including CovertAction Magazine) are not responsible for any inaccurate or incorrect statement in this article. This article also does not necessarily represent the views the BD, the EB, the AB, staff, volunteers, or any members of its projects.

Differing viewpoints: CAM publishes articles with differing viewpoints in an effort to nurture vibrant debate and thoughtful critical analysis. Feel free to comment on the articles in the comment section and/or send your letters to the Editors, which we will publish in the Letters column.

Copyrighted Material: This web site may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. As a not-for-profit charitable organization incorporated in the State of New York, we are making such material available in an effort to advance the understanding of humanity’s problems and hopefully to help find solutions for those problems. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. You can read more about ‘fair use’ and US Copyright Law at the Legal Information Institute of Cornell Law School.

Republishing: CovertAction Magazine (CAM) grants permission to cross-post CAM articles on not-for-profit community internet sites as long as the source is acknowledged together with a hyperlink to the original CovertAction Magazine article. Also, kindly let us know at info@CovertActionMagazine.com. For publication of CAM articles in print or other forms including commercial internet sites, contact: info@CovertActionMagazine.com.

By using this site, you agree to these terms above.


About the Author

6 COMMENTS

  1. What I would like to stress again in relation to this article about the protests in Iran is the author’s very apt emphasis on the remarkable nature of the instantaneous Western media propaganda. It is just as if a light switch – or rather in this case, a switch of imperial darkness – had been suddenly turned on.

    Watching it all unfold on TV in particular, I can say from a lifetime of watching and monitoring the very hypocritical Western geopolitical vision of the world that I have never seen anything so demonstrative of just how easily our political establishment and media can now call the tune and manipulate their publics.

    I live in one of the so-called Five Eyes countries, i.e. New Zealand, and our mainstream media is uniform in warmongering on Ukraine, destabilising Iran under the cover of rights for women, starvation for Afghanistan, and whatever other war/human rights crime that the US & co. dictate.

    Most horrendously, we are all being marshalled for the jaws of Armageddon, and the space and opportunity for meaningful resistance is eroding as the Western capitalist power elite succeeds in dividing what is left of the real Left. Somehow, we have to think and act more laterally to achieve any meaningful progress for justice and survival.

  2. Although this article makes many valid points about the hypocrisy of the liberals and about the destructive role of the US and its allies in southwest Asia, it also descends into apologetics for the Iranian regime. This is exemplified in its repeated references to Zhina Amini (killed in the custody of the morality police), but the author never once acknowledges her actual Kurdish first name but always uses the name (Mahsa) which the Iranian regime imposed upon her.

    The regime in Iran has a dual character. Domestically it is a corrupt, exploitative, reactionary, theocratic, patriarchal, misogynist, and racist power subjecting the women’s liberation and other social justice struggles of the people to violent repression. At the same time, in its foreign relations, Iran is (to a significant degree) an anti-imperialist state targeted for regime-change by the US and Western imperialism. Although the US is exploiting the Iranian people’s struggles against their oppressive regime, the US cares nothing for the people of Iran or for their social-justice struggles (and, as the author notes, imposes hardships upon them).

    What should we in the West be doing in regard to the protests in Iran? (1) For progressives, social-justice activists, and the anti-imperialist left, our obligation is to express support and solidarity with the social-justice struggles of the Iranian people against their oppressive state; any apologetics for the regime’s persecutions is a violation of principle. (2) We should condemn the US government and its allies for their hypocrisy (ignoring similar oppressions in US allies such as Saudi Arabia) and for attempting to subvert the Iranian popular protests for use as a pawn in their efforts to achieve regime change and turn Iran into a client state; Iran needs regime-change, but not the kind which would turn it into a client state of Western imperialism. (3) We should demand that the US and its allies cease meddling in Iran’s internal political conflicts, meddling which undermines the Iranian people’s struggle against their domestic oppressors by enabling the regime to tar that struggle as a tool of the foreign enemy and thereby justify the regime’s repressive policies. (4) We should demand that the US end its sanctions and other hostile actions against Iran and its allies (in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq), policies which have imposed massive suffering and a huge death toll upon the affected peoples.

    Charles Pierce

Leave a Reply to Dennis SmallCancel reply