Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei may be one of the last men standing in that particular arm of the government of the Islamic Republic, but that hasn’t deterred him from attempting to seize the moral high ground in this present conflict. And that’s understandable. Baqaei and his colleagues have watched over the last two and a half years as world opinion turned sharply against Israel after Hamas’ massacre of 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023, and they are no doubt hoping to pull off the same feat regarding the tottering Islamic Republic. What cannot be accomplished in the arena of battle could very well be attained in the court of public opinion.
And so Islam Times reported Saturday that the righteous Baqaei “lashed out at US President Donald Trump for sharing a post advocating the assassination of Iranian officials who oppose an agreement with the US, describing the move as evidence of a deep moral collapse.” And there’s one thing you can say about the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran: when they start talking about deep moral collapse, that’s one subject that they know a very great deal about.
What actually happened was this: Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen, of all people, opined on Wednesday that some Iranian leaders are “betting that Trump, under political and economic pressure at home, does not want to restart the war,” and that Trump “needs to disabuse them of that notion.” Thiessen thinks that he can do this by resuming combat operations if the Iranians fail to make a serious offer toward achieving a lasting negotiated settlement, and that those operations should begin with “strikes targeting Iran’s recalcitrant leaders.” Thiessen declares: “If the Iranian regime is really ‘fractured’ between a faction that wants a deal and a faction that does not, there is a simple solution: Kill the faction that does not.”
That would have remained just Marc Thiessen’s opinion alone had Trump not posted a link to Thiessen’s article on Truth Social. The president commented “Very true!!! President DJT” over this: “Marc Thiessen: Trump doesn’t need a deal to get what he wants from Iran: washingtonpost.com/opinions/20.” That was it. So is Trump agreeing that he doesn’t need a deal to get what he wants from Iran? That seems certain. Is Trump also agreeing, as Esmaeil Baqaei claims, that the path to a deal is to kill the Iranian leaders who oppose a deal? That is by no means clear.
Nonetheless, Baqaei had his high horse saddled and ready, and raged: “The President of the United States has reposted a statement from an individual openly calling for ‘killing the ones who don’t want a deal.’” Yeah, no. Trump didn’t repost Thiessen’s statement calling for the killing of Iranian leaders who don’t want a deal. He reposted a link to Thiessen’s article that contained that call.
Is that a distinction without a difference? Not at all. There is no indication that Trump even read Thiessen’s article, or was agreeing with any part of it beyond the headline. Baqaei, however, charged on: “The United States, which once presented itself as a cradle of democracy, freedom, and human values, now appears to become a promoter of terrorism, murder, and mass violence. What should one call this, if not a profound moral failure?”
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All right. But Esmaeil Baqaei has thereby unsheathed a sword that cuts both ways. The Islamic Republic of Iran enforces Sharia, the all-encompassing legal code that Muslims believe is the perfect and unalterable law of Allah himself. It was to protect and defend the regime based on that legal code that Islamic Republic enforcers murdered over thirty thousand of their own people earlier this year, and countless more in the 47 bloody years of the existence of this regime. Is that not a far greater “profound moral failure” from the regime that is supposed to be based on the perfect law of the one and only true god than a questionable reference in a Trump Truth Social post?
By Esmaeil Baqaei’s lights, no, it isn’t. He believes that his regime has not only the right, but the responsibility, to “strike terror in the enemies of Allah” (Qur’an 8:60). His god commands that believers be “ruthless to unbelievers” (Qur’an 48:29), not kind or merciful. And whatever Baqaei may think he is, he doesn’t think he is a hypocrite. Those who do not wear his particular set of blinkers will disagree.
