Dr. Reza Parchizadeh, a political theorist and analyst, recently noted on Twitter that “the Iranian regime has turned the late #George_Floyd into Saint George, Shiite-style!” And sure enough, Parchizadeh posted a painting of Floyd depicting him in the way Shi’ite Muslims often depict their holy figures: in a green robe and surrounded by an aura of holy light.
The Iranian regime has turned the late #George_Floyd into Saint George, Shiite-style! #Beware_Foreign_Influence pic.twitter.com/ofTtW5J3px
— Dr. Reza Parchizadeh (@rezaparchizadeh) June 1, 2020
As incongruous as the image is, it’s perfectly fitting: Floyd, whose murder touched off the rage for destruction that is afflicting America today, is the perfect symbol for the Iranian Islamic regime’s oft-repeated aspiration: “Death to America.”
Floyd’s criminal record and history of violent behavior and drug use may seem at first glance to be incompatible with sanctity, even sanctity as the Iranian mullahs envision it, but actually the canonization of Floyd is entirely reasonable within the context of present-day Iran.
When it ordered the Iranian people to scream “Death to America” every Friday in mosques, the regime already made the destruction of America into a holy act. The destructive riots and ongoing unrest in the United States that began with Floyd’s murder can be seen, through pious Shi’ite eyes, as a manifestation of Allah’s judgment against the Great Satan. So they are holy as well, and therefore their linchpin Floyd is a saint. What else could he be?
Few Americans realize it, but “Death to America” is not just empty sloganeering or braggadocio. It is a deeply-held guiding principle of the entire Iranian regime. Even as Barack Obama’s calamitous nuclear agreement with Iran was being concluded, a decisive majority of the Iranian Majlis (Parliament) declared: “The martyr-nurturing nation of Iran is not at all prepared to abandon the slogan of ‘Death to America’ under the pretext of a nuclear agreement.”
Remember also: in an Islamic context, a “martyr” is not simply someone who dies for his faith. It is someone who takes hold of the Qur’an’s promise of Paradise to those who “kill and are killed” for Allah (9:111). If the Iranian nation is “martyr-nurturing,” it is raising a generation of killers.
The assembled parliamentarians added that “Death to America” — which according to Agence France Presse is “chanted at the weekly Friday prayers in mosques and at protests” — had “turned into the symbol of the Islamic Republic and all struggling nations.”
Chanting “Death to America” is the “symbol of the Islamic Republic.” A communal desire to destroy the United States and commit mass murder of its citizens is the Islamic Republic of Iran’s very reason for being.
A supporter of Iran demonstrated that anew when Left-fascists started pulling down statues all over the United States, tweeting: “America wanted to level 52 Iranian cultural sites and in response, their own got destroyed. Allahu Akbar.” On June 8, according to Al Arabiya, “Iranian lawmakers chanted ‘death to America’ during a parliamentary session on Sunday, claiming they were ‘in support’ of the protests against racism in the US.” An Iranian lawmaker said in the Iranian Parliament: “To show respect for the movement of the oppressed in the US, I ask you to stand for a few seconds and chant ‘death to America’ to show our respect.” The assembled parliamentarians happily complied.
Meanwhile, in a May 30 interview on Iranian TV, Dr. Sam Mehdi Torabi, director of Iran’s Risalat Strategic Studies Institute, called for revolution in the United States, and offered Iranian help:
The reality is that there is an oligarchy in America. There is no democracy. The existing legal process and the American Constitution are not supposed to reform America. Don’t pin your hopes on reforms through the existing legal methods in America. So long as the power and the wealth are held by one percent of society, America will remain the same. If we want America to change, we must deal with those people – not in legal ways but through a revolution. I’ve said before that I don’t pin much hope on the Americans carrying out a revolution, but the only solution that will bring an end to this Satan, in the words of Imam Khomeini, is for those oligarchs to be annihilated. If the Americans have the courage to do it – by all means. We will help them, too. If they do not have the necessary courage, someone from the outside must finish those [oligarchs] off.
Who better to be the face of that revolution than George Floyd?
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 19 books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is The Palestinian Delusion: The Catastrophic History of the Middle East Peace Process. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.
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