Every morning I receive an email from the Wall Street Journal summarizing the articles it wants to bring to my attention. This morning the teaser for their article on the mass slaughter of Iranians demonstrating against the government, thousands in just a few days, as “unprecedented”. I pushed back on that idea in comments to the article and I want to repeat that here.
The Iranian mullahocracy murdering its own citizens in large numbers is not unprecedented; it is an instrument of its rule. When the present regime consolidated its power in 1979 by most accounts 8,000-9,000 Iranians were executed. Some of those executed were college classmates of mine. Again in 1988 the regime demonstrated its willingness to exterminate is own population, killing an estimated 30,000 political prisoners.
For this regime murdering its own citizens is a small price to pay for what they see as a divinely-mandated right to rule, immune to consent, law, or human cost.
Why do Western institutions keep treating predictable behavior as shocking?
Update
The Financial Times is also describing the mullahs’ response as “unprecedented”.
