NYT Plays Defense For Iranian Mullahs: Demonstrators ‘Ignored Calls For Calm,’ Defied ‘Moderate’ Iranian Leadership

On Monday, The New York Times ran the latest in a series of despicable pieces dedicated to making excuses for the tyrannical Islamist Iranian despotism. Here’s their tweet on the regime’s killing of dissidents:

Yes, it’s the fault of the demonstrators, who have somehow merely refused to heed the decent calls for calm from the Iranian mullahs. Oddly, The New York Times never has such words for Palestinian rioters who throw rocks at Israeli troops at the behest of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. When that happens, it’s Trump’s fault or the Jews’ fault. Somebody else’s fault, anyway.

But when it’s democracy-seeking Iranians, then they’re the problem.

The piece itself, by Thomas Erdbrink, is a disaster area. It contains lines like this one:

Despite Mr. Rouhani’s diplomatic language, it was clear the demonstrators would be given no leeway…Mr. Rouhani has urged demonstrators to avoid violence but defended their right to protest. He did so again on Monday on Twitter.

Rouhani is a tool of the regime, of course, and a radical Islamist to boot, as well as a Holocaust denier. But according to the Times, he’s a moderate:

This time, it is the failure of President Rouhani, a moderate, to deliver greater political changes and economic opportunity, despite the lifting of some of the sanctions against Iran as part of the nuclear deal. Young people are especially angry. The average age of those arrested is under 25, one official said.

And the protests are about economics, not about the repressive regime. Of course, the regime has spent billions of dollars on terrorism abroad, including the maximization of its bloodshed in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen. But it’s just that the Iranian government hasn’t redistributed the oil wealth enough. The Iranians probably just need Bernie Sanders or something.

Erdbrink’s love for Rouhani isn’t well-hidden in his coverage – he thinks that Rouhani is trying his best, but the dastardly Americans are the problem:

Many youths in larger cities enthusiastically voted for Mr. Rouhani when he was re-elected in May, raising expectations among many in the reform camp. But since then even many of the president’s supporters say he has failed to fulfill his promises for improving an economy sorely hobbled by years of sanctions, corruption and mismanagement… Beyond that, the United States has continued other sanctions, making it still harder for Mr. Rouhani to make gains. The economic frustrations do not appear to have been offset by the greater social freedoms that the president has granted young people.

Those “greater social freedoms” do not include converting to Christianity; in June and July 2017, the Iranian courts have issued lengthy prison sentences to 11 Christian converts.

But at least we know the real bad guys: those protesters. And Trump, of course.