Real Lessons Of Middle East Violence: The Left Is More Willing To Be Brutal To Stay In Power

With protests breaking out from North Africa to Iran, more than half a dozen regimes are now facing large angry crowds. And who’s willing to do whatever it takes to stay in power? Which regimes are the most brutal?

It’s not the more pro-western regimes of Egypt or Bahrain. They are only willing to go so far to fight protesters. Contrary to what the Noam Chomskys of the world think, these regimes have some sense of decency and political reality.

Who’s willing to literally gun down people in the streets? The leftist “revolutionary” regime of Libya and the Islamist fanatics in Tehran. Libya has been using snipers to kill protesters in cold bold and the body count is climbing. And Iran seems unconcerned about what the western world thinks. Some might reject me calling Iran and “leftist” regime. But they are collectivists, anti-western, and generally anti-capitalist. Their faith may be old, but it is not as distinct from the revolutionary left as many might believe. Islamists and leftists have more in common than Islamists have with western conservatives.

So why is it these revolutionary regimes are so willing to be so much more brutal? In part its because the revolutionary regime in Libya and the Mullahs in Tehran both have a messianic view of themselves and their ideology. Both revolutionaries and mullahs are fanatics. They are “truth believers.” And whoever gets in the way must be removed. The other autocrats in the region have enough self-doubt and reject the absolutism necessary to gun down large numbers of people in the streets.

The second reason is simply that they don’t undergo the same scrutiny from the western media as pro-western regimes do. Journalists aren’t allowed to camp out in Libya to watch the violence unfold as they did in Egypt.

History confirms that it’s the “revolutionaries” of the left that have the largest body counts. Current events in the Middle East demonstrate that history has not changed. Will we learn the lessons of history?