Some of the people who are the most excited about Zohran Mamdani’s victory in the New York City mayoral election are the ruling mullahs of the Islamic Republic of Iran, who see the triumph of their fellow Twelver Shi’ite Muslim as a marvelous harbinger of even better things to come. America is on the ropes, the mullahs think, or want the world to think, and Mamdani could be just the man to administer the coup de grâce.
The Tehran daily Hamshahri, a decidedly pro-regime publication, was enthusiastic about the deep divisions in American society that Mamdani’s win seemed to portend. According to Iran International, Hamshahri ran the happy front-banner headline, "America Against America," and really, that's not wrong. The question now will be whether Americans who value the free society that the United States has been all these years will be able to triumph over those who want to replace that free society with a totalitarian, socialist, internationalist hellhole — with Zohran Mamdani leading the way.
Meanwhile, Abolghasem Jarareh, a member of parliament from Tehran, stood up in that august body and offered his sage analysis. “Zohran Mamdani’s victory,” Jarareh declared, “shows the strength of the slogan ‘Death to Israel!’”
Now, it is unlikely that Mamdani’s victory will actually bring about the death of Israel, but the incoming mayor will certainly do all he can to bring that death closer. As Intifada on the Hudson: The Selling of Zohran Mamdani explains, Mamdani said back in 2020 that the Palestinian jihad against Israel made him a socialist as well as a politician: “I sincerely believe in this political project. I sincerely believe in socialism. For me, it was Palestine that brought me into this movement.” The Palestinian jihad against Israel is why Zohran Mamdani is mayor-elect of New York City today, and so no one should expect him not to pursue it with all the power of the nation’s foremost city at his command.
Apparently aware of this, Abolghasem Jarareh, in the Iranian parliament, did not stop to explain why he thought Mamdani’s victory was a manifestation of the strength of the chant “Death to Israel.” Instead, he and his judicious colleagues simply joined together in a few hearty rounds of chanting “Death to Israel” on the parliament floor.
Abdolmotahhar Mohammadi, a spokesman for Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani, was more forthcoming, explaining that “the clear message of Zohran Mamdani’s election… is that the people of New York reject the influence of a genocidal regime in US governance.” There was no genocide and no clear mandate for anti-Israel measures in Mamdani’s victory, but the facts didn’t deter Mohammadi as he celebrated the happy event of the young Muslim Marxist’s election. Mohammadi added that Iran “welcomes any strengthening of anti-racist and pro-Palestine discourse anywhere in the world.”
Mamdani himself has touted his faith as an inspiration, saying, "To stand up for justice, to stand up for that which is right, often means doing something difficult. Imam Hossein's, peace be upon him, conviction in spite of the odds is something that inspires me."
Aside from the Islamic content, that sounds like pious boilerplate the likes of which we have heard from multitudes of American politicians, but as Islam is a political and supremacist religion, the influence of that religion in Mamdani’s victory, and the opportunity the victory afforded, did not go unnoticed in Iran. An academic at Tehran University, Foad Izadi, said that Mamdani’s victory heralded “the arrival of the message of 13 Aban in New York.”
Related: Did You Catch the Scariest Part of Mamdani’s Victory Speech?
Aban 13, or November 4, 1979, according to the Western calendar, was the day that Iranian students stormed the American embassy in Tehran, beginning the Iranian hostage crisis that went on for 444 days, until the mullahs released the hostages upon the inauguration of Ronald Reagan as president of the United States. So Izadi was essentially saying that Mamdani was going to bring Iran’s Islamic revolution to the United States.
That doesn’t seem likely, but the young incoming mayor can certainly do a great deal of damage as he works in that direction. The glee of the Islamic hardliners in Iran was not misplaced: Mamdani gives every indication of regarding America as it is currently constituted with as much, or more, distaste as they do. He will almost certainly be working from his first day in Gracie Mansion to weaken and ultimately destroy the free society we have known.
In New York, he won’t even be the first mayor to do this. He could, however, conceivably be the last.
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