So, Iran.

Not simple, but spicy.

Image generated by me, using Nightcafe.

I remain gob-smacked by the Legacy Media’s continuing feigned ignorance into what is going on in Iran.

If the mullahs fall, the entire global stage will change — drastically so, in some spheres — yet the Legacy Media is desperately pointing everywhere but Iran.

If the mullahs fall, one of the top two drivers of international terrorism … goes away. Without the mullahs supplying cash, weapons, and training terror groups that have had the world on edge for 40 years … lose their major support.

And yet … crickets from the Media. Sigh.

So, your Humble Scribe will try to fill in the gaps. The biggest question I get is: “What next?”

That’s a good question. Broadly speaking — very broadly — there are two major players positioned to fill the gap if the mullahs fall. One one hand you have the exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi. Two weeks ago I would have held that he didn’t have snowball’s chance in hell of becoming a power player in post-mullah Iranian politics, but over the last fifteen days or so he’s made some pretty canny moves; and seems to have garnered support. On the con side he’s got baggage from his father in the form of memories of SAVAK.

While I don’t consider SAVAK to have been any more brutal than several other Middle Eastern Secret Police of that era, and the post-79 revolution view of SAVAK we see is certainly propagandized to a fare-the-well, the truth is that they were brutal, repressive, and committed atrocities. People — especially in that region — have long memories.

But the son is not the father.

Also, he’s a Shi’a muslim, and I have a reflexive distrust of any Shi’a. However, he’s been in the States since 1979, and maybe that’s driven home the importance of separating Church and State. We can hope.

On the other hand you have Maryam Rajavi and the People's Mujahedin of Iran¹. Much as I favor the wicked twinkle in her blue eyes, Maryam started out as a Marxist-Muslim² — and we’ve had quite enough of that bushwa thank you very much. Plus, about ten years ago she publicly made nice-nice with Mahmoud Abbas, who was the Palestinian President at the time. Since the mullahs are only reason the Palestinians have enough ass to be a nuisance, that’s a concern.

SAVAK murdered one of her sisters, and the mullahs murdered the other, so she’s got skin in the game, but — again — PMOI/MEK³ started out as a Marxist-Islamic movement, and though they’ve disavowed the Marxist part lately, they’re still heavily leftist.

While both are Shi’a muslims, neither Reza Pahlavi nor Maryam Rajavi are the mullahs, so either one is a win for the world as a whole, and both are promising a secular government, with firm separation of religion and State.

Those are pretty promises, and they’re both saying the right things — but that’s what power players in 3rd world countries do … until they get the reins of government firmly in their hot little paws, at which time those pretty promises tend to get forgotten.

But — like I said earlier — neither one are the mullahs, so either would be a positive.

It’s interesting, having a ring-side seat to events that will probably have an entire chapter in future history books, while Western Media jams its fingers in its collective ears and chants “La, la, la!”

Not, you know, for the people of Iran — they’re getting done dirty — but that’s the messy part of history.

Ian

1. “Mujahedin” gives me a reflexive twitch.

2. Or Islamic Marxist — take your pick.

3. “People’s Mujahedin of Iran“ in Persian.