In this mailing:
- Raymond Ibrahim: "Burned Alive": Persecution of Christians, June 2020
- Amir Taheri: Iran's New Make-believe Diplomacy
by Raymond Ibrahim • July 26, 2020 at 5:00 am
A Christian teenager was sexually assaulted by his Muslim employer in early June. The boy's father and brother were then beaten for trying to seek justice for him. — Persecution.org, June 19, 2020, Pakistan.
"These Muslim Fulani herdsmen have been attacking our communities because we are Christians. Their desire is to take over our lands, force us to become Muslims, and if we decline, they kill us...." — Ibrahim Agu Iliya, Morning Star News, June 3, 2020, Nigeria.
Police killed a man after he cited his Christian faith as reason not to falsify his testimony, as police were urging him to do....Police were trying to get Younas to recant his eyewitness testimony against a Muslim family accused of murder.... When beating him did not yield results, they tried to bribe him.... "During the attack, one of the officers shouted, 'We will teach him a lesson for insulting us!'" — Persecution.org.; June 25, 2020, Pakistan.
"Is it wrong to have another religion? Is Christianity wrong?" — Fitri Handayani, a woman who converted from Islam to Christianity, describing her ordeals at the hands of her family, YouTube; June 17, 2020, Indonesia.
"These are our houses. In ten years, none of you will be left here and then your homes will be ours anyway." — Kurdish representative in Qamishli to Christian family; World Council of Arameans (Syriacs); June 17, 2020, Syria.
Pictured: In June 2019, at least 100 Christian men, women and children were murdered by Fulani gunmen in Sobame Da, a village in the Mopti region of central Mali. Pictured: The village of Sobame Da. (Image source: United Nations/MINUSMA/Flickr)
The Slaughter of Christians
Nigeria: The jihad on Christians continued in the West Africa nation without letup. In what police described as a "brutal assault," suspected Muslims raped and slaughtered Uwaila Vera Omozuwa, a 22-year-old Christian girl studying inside Redeemed Christian Church of God in Benin City. "We are all devastated by her death," a spokesman of the church said, before explaining: "She [had] decided to do some private studies during the lockdown because the church was peaceful. She's been taking the key from the parish pastor and returning it after her studies." The slain girl's mother described what happened after she heard of the attack:
by Amir Taheri • July 26, 2020 at 4:00 am
Now, however, it seems that, for the first time, the Khomeinist ruling elite is beginning to understand that it can neither reshape the world nor join it on its own antediluvian terms.
Unable to admit that reality, the Tehran ruling elite is trying to conjure a fantasy world in which the Islamic Republic retains some relevance.
Zarif is trying to square the circle by defining a place for an Islamic Republic that wants to be part of a world order which it hopes to destroy.
To please his hate-America audience, Zarif insists that the US no longer has a leadership position.
Zarif's expose contains no mention of "exporting revolution", the regime's perennial obsession. In other words, the Islamic Republic no longer hopes to make the region like itself. Yet it is too early to say that it may be starting to think of becoming like the rest of the region.
Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif is trying to square the circle by defining a place for an Islamic Republic that wants to be part of a world order which it hopes to destroy. (Photo by Ahmad al-Rubaye/AFP via Getty Images)
How does the Khomeinist leadership in Tehran see the contemporary world?
The question has intrigued Iran-watchers for decades.
One reason for being puzzled is the fog of slogans that covers the reality of Iran's behavior.
Besides that opacity, we have the reality of a bifocal foreign policy divided between a faction that dreams of reshaping the world and another that craves admission to it.
Now, however, it seems that, for the first time, the Khomeinist ruling elite is beginning to understand that it can neither reshape the world nor join it on its own antediluvian terms.
Unable to admit that reality, the Tehran ruling elite is trying to conjure a fantasy world in which the Islamic Republic retains some relevance.
One sign of that came last week when Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif addressed the newly formed Islamic Consultative Assembly (an ersatz parliament).
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