Theocracy Is No Cure for the Demoralization of Society

Sept. 21 2023

As the United States becomes less religious, and is beset by a variety of concomitant social ills, a number of thinkers have sought out some alternative to present political arrangements in which the state will help more actively to restore moral order. Max Prowant acknowledges the appeal of such arguments, but points to the case of Iran—where Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini established a regime with the goal of combatting secularization—as evidence of their weakness:

The post-liberals will be happy to learn that there are no pride parades in Iran (the authorities do not allow that). There is also no drag-queen story hour. Religious symbols and exhortations, along with portraits of martyrs, adorn the streets of Tehran. But despite Khomeini’s efforts, Iranians are growing less and less religious. In 2020, a survey found that over 30 percent of Iranians identified themselves as either atheist or “none.” What is more, a full 88 percent of Iranians believe a democracy is the best form of government while two-thirds believe this government should be secular.

The decline in religiosity is surprising given the popularity clerics enjoyed in the days of the shah. Before the 1979 revolution, the clerics were respected to an astonishing degree, in part because they were a strong voice of resistance to the shah’s forced modernization programs. Their network of 70,000 mosques proved essential in every mass political movement in 20th-century Iran. Indeed, when Khomeini returned from exile in 1979, he was greeted by millions in Tehran and even more across the country. But because of the discretionary powers clerics enjoy in the judiciary and their privileged economic access, the clerics as a political class have proven prone to corruption.

Post-liberals are right to bemoan the sad state of social discourse and cultural stagnation in the West. But the Iranian case should serve as a warning to their authoritarian prescriptions. . . . This happens wherever final authority is endowed to a special class of persons, be they ayatollahs, popes, unchecked bureaucrats, or any messianic man with good intentions. Post-liberals would do well to remember this bit of liberal wisdom.

Read more at Law and Liberty

More about: Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran, Post-liberalism, Religion and politics

Donald Trump’s Plan for Gaza Is No Worse Than Anyone Else’s—and Could Be Better

Reacting to the White House’s proposal for Gaza, John Podhoretz asks the question on everyone’s mind:

Is this all a fantasy? Maybe. But are any of the other ludicrous and cockamamie ideas being floated for the future of the area any less fantastical?

A Palestinian state in the wake of October 7—and in the wake of the scenes of Gazans mobbing the Jewish hostages with bloodlust in their eyes as they were being led to the vehicles to take them back into the bosom of their people? Biden foreign-policy domos Jake Sullivan and Tony Blinken were still talking about this in the wake of their defeat in ludicrous lunchtime discussions with the Financial Times, thus reminding the world of what it means when fundamentally silly, unserious, and embarrassingly incompetent people are given the levers of power for a while. For they should know what I know and what I suspect you know too: there will be no Palestinian state if these residents of Gaza are the people who will form the political nucleus of such a state.

Some form of UN management/leadership in the wake of the hostilities? Well, that might sound good to people who have been paying no attention to the fact that United Nations officials have been, at the very best, complicit in hostage-taking and torture in facilities run by UNRWA, the agency responsible for administering Gaza.

And blubber not to me about the displacement of Gazans from their home. We’ve been told not that Gaza is their home but that it is a prison. Trump is offering Gazans a way out of prison; do they really want to stay in prison? Or does this mean it never really was a prison in the first place?

Read more at Commentary

More about: Donald Trump, Gaza Strip, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict