Israel Punches Up Against Iran's Fanatical Rulers: A Thought Experiment

The Enlightenment and the Power of Shame

Has civil resistance ever worked against governments in societies that did not participate in the Enlightenment?

The most notable instances of effective civil disobedience are Gandhi’s approach with the British in India and Martin Luther King Jr.’s campaign during the Civil Rights movement in the United States.

I would contend that civil disobedience was successful in those cases primarily because the cultures of England and America had deep-seated liberal ideals. Civil resistance worked not by introducing new moral principles, but by exposing glaring violations of principles already embedded in their respective societies.

In both cases, civil disobedience served as a mirror. It illuminated practices—imperialism, racial segregation—that were already incompatible with the highest self-conception of those nations. These injustices, while real and pervasive, were culturally vestigial hangovers from older, illiberal traditions. Enlightenment principles were beginning to erode them. Civil resistance forced those contradictions into the open, making a mockery of their hypocrisy and accelerating their proper resolution.

Anti-Enlightenment Shamelessness

Civil disobedience didn’t work in the Soviet Union. It hasn’t worked in Communist China. Nor in North Korea, Iran, or Cuba. Why not?

Societies with no cultural heritage of valuing Enlightenment concepts, such as humanity, individual liberty rights, and the rule of law, have more durable forms of oppression. Yes, people in them value classical liberal principles. Many long for their natural rights to be respected. But without a cultural framework that esteems liberty, reason, and the sanctity of the individual, these regimes have no internal brake on their tyranny. Civil resistance, however brave, cannot succeed where the culture does not shame brutality and systemic oppression.

Such regimes shamelessly disregard liberty because they have no frame of reference for caring about it. Civil resistance cannot work where there is no internal moral tension for it to press against.

You can’t reason a person out of a position they didn’t reason themselves into, unless they first come to value reason. And you can’t shame a regime for brutalizing its people if it never had any basis for feeling shame in the first place.

Will Putin adopt the values that would make him ashamed to have invaded Ukraine? To have disappeared and murdered his political opponents and war protesters?

Will the mullahs in Iran read Hume, Locke, Montesquieu, Adam Smith, and Thomas Paine, recognize that they’ve been remarkably wrongheaded, apologize to the families of the dissenters, women and gay people they’ve tortured and murdered until they lose their voices, and change their tune entirely? When? Next year? In two decades? A century?

How many lives would you gamble on that kind of progress ever happening via civil disobedience?

Just Use of Force

All uses of force reflect a breakdown in rational, consensual behavior. But not all uses of force are tragedies. Force used in defense against aggression is not only justified, it’s morally necessary.

Liberty and Justice cannot preserve themselves against people determined to destroy them. Sometimes Liberty and Justice can be preserved through persuasive argument, for example, if you're dealing with people who recognize the value of a cogent, logical, empirical case.

Someday we may live in a world where that is the extent of human conflict—passionate debate resolved by reason.

But we’re not there yet.

In this world, when you’re up against people who believe they are entitled to dominate others by force, people who value Liberty and Justice will survive only if they’re willing to defend them by force when necessary.

Even if you think all uses of force are tragedies, they’re not all equal. If there is a tragedy greater than the morally necessary use of force in defense of Liberty and Justice, it’s the surrender of Liberty and Justice for the sake of avoiding force when a forceful defense was possible.

What we’re seeing right now in Israel is a genuine moment of moral clarity—the use of force against a relentless, merciless, genocidal aggressor. Israel’s strikes against Iranian military and political targets are a reminder to the world that those who value Liberty and Justice must rise to their defense or perish.

If you value Liberty and Justice, then this is a day you hoped would never come, but understood might be unavoidable after October 7th, 2023.

Since Hamas’s inhumane, Iranian-backed slaughter, Israel has faced a relentless multi-front war for its existence. And that war has been harder to wage because of the dispiriting lack of support from people who should know better. Elites in journalism. Academics on college campuses. Cowards in the halls of power. Rabble-rousing, hate-filled ignoramuses online, feigning moral sophistication while sympathizing with those who cheer for death and tyranny.

But not everyone has failed the test of this moment.

By and large, Iranians and Persians have consistently expressed support for Israel against the genocidal maniacs attacking them. They’ve spoken out against the regime that oppresses them, and against its terrorist proxies. Many have voiced solidarity with Israel, mainly from visceral recognition of the real monster Israel is confronting.

They know exactly what Islamist tyranny looks like and what it has cost them and their families. They know that theocracy offers outrageous cruelty with divine pretensions.And they know that freedom is not a Western fetish. It is a human birthright, as equally yours as anyone’s on this planet.

The Enemies of Freedom and the Denial of Reality

It now seems possible that the Iranian regime may fall in the near future. In a sane world, this would be cause for celebration.

But instead, some people are expressing outrage. They demonize Israel’s attack on Iran’s political and military leadership. As they demonized the Israelis raped and murdered on October 7th. As they demonize secular culture in general.

Toppling the Iranian regime would be an unmitigated good, but there are people who don’t see it that way.

People enthralled by ideological premises that teach them up is down, music is sin, dogs are filth, rape victims should be hanged, Jews secretly run the world, capitalism is oppression, and totalitarian theocracy is virtue. People with inexhaustible certainty in their righteousness, and incurable hatred for anyone who disagrees. People who yearn for death and unending sexual pleasure in an afterlife they’ve fetishized. People terrified by rational, independent thought, who applaud irrational acts of terrorism.

People who think Israel’s strength in defense of Liberty and Justice is a vice, and Iran’s weakness in defense of repression and terror is a virtue. Because in their upside-down worldview, power is villainy, and weakness is sanctity.

These are people for whom the Enlightenment never happened. People who believe it never should have.

They are possibly the least curious people on Earth.

People who somehow have all the answers, despite never having asked a single rational question.

Today is a difficult day for them.

For ideologues who’ve mistaken moral relativism for wisdom. For those so drunk on certainty they will ally with any cause that claims to be “anti-imperialist,” even if it means defending regimes that hang rape victims, criminalize religious tolerance and pet ownership, and martyr their own children for imperialistic and genocidal aims.

By and large, the people opposing Israel’s strikes are not the Iranian people. Not Persians. Not those who understand that aggressors deserve no sympathy, that it is not possible to “punch down” against a malevolent bully.

Iran does not have a government in the Enlightenment sense of the word. Its state was never consented to by the people over whom it exerts power. It is, for all practical purposes, a gang of murderous thugs with police power, holding control despite the fear and loathing it inspires among its citizens. Everyone has the right to overthrow regimes like this. The Iranian regime has no more right to exist than an organized crime syndicate.

The Stakes: Have They Ever Been Higher?

While Israeli armed forces risk their lives to keep the only classical liberal democracy in the Middle East safe, we must ask ourselves: what’s at stake for us?

This is a moment to be honest. What are we actually willing to risk to preserve Enlightenment values and the peaceful, pluralistic way of life they make possible?

Are we putting in the effort required to defend Liberty and Justice in our own societies? Are we consistent advocates of the values we claim to cherish?

And if not, what exactly are we counting on?

The people marching through New York City, screaming “globalize the intifada,” are not simply threatening Jews. They are declaring war on Western principles. What is our response? Silence? Pretending this is someone else’s problem?

The professors indoctrinating our children into a racialized, Marxist worldview that overrides liberty, reason, and impartial justice—are we naïve enough to believe that kind of intellectual poison won’t enter the bloodstream of our culture?

If Israel succeeds, then within our lifetimes, the people of Iran may have a real shot at living in a free, humane society. The Middle East may become measurably more peaceful. And the world will be better, by every civilized standard, if Iran is no longer ruled by religious zealots whose desires are as sadistic as our worst nightmares.

Will the world express its gratitude to Israel if that happens?

I will. Thank you, Israel. For standing up for the values of the Enlightenment, for life, for liberty, for justice. I hope the Iranian people are able to seize on the opportunity you’re opening up for them to take their country back from the evildoers who have oppressed them for decades. I hope an age of peace and tolerance is accelerated by your efforts. I believe in what you’re trying to do. On behalf of my family, I’m grateful for the risks you’re taking and for what this is costing you.

That said, even if Israel is successful, Jihadist Islam in the West remains our problem.

If we don’t meet this threat with courage, clarity, and honest discourse and action today, we will force our children to face a more advanced, more dangerous, more urgent threat to Liberty and Justice in their time.

What will our generation’s legacy be?

Adam W. Cohen earned his BA by majoring in "History of Ideas" at Brandeis College in the USA, arguably the most elite Jewish-based undergrad school. He is based in CT & NY. Leap of Curiosity is Adam Cohen’s podcast, YouTube channel, and an essay series about why Curiosity and the Freedom to Act on It lead to personal and societal flourishing.