Confessions: The Iranian Revolution sinks and stinks

The Iranian regime was repugnant from the start. I have often mocked and criticized those Arab leftists and liberals (like Adonis, Hazim Saghiyyah, Anour Abdel-Malak and many others) who praised the Islamic Revolution and who jarred my ears with talk of "authenticity" (asalah) when I was not even twenty. I never knew the impact of that revolution on instigating a religious revival the likes of which we have not witnessed in the Middle East for centuries, until many years later. I fault those of us on the left who were opponents of the Revolution from the start for not realizing the size of the dangers of the revolution and perhaps in dealing with its consequences. I blame those leftists and Arab nationalists in the region who were blinded from seeing the nature of the regime because it opened a Palestinian embassy and raised slogans of death against the enemies of the Arabs. And Khumayni's perspective on Palestine was different from my perspective from the start. Not all who chant for Palestine are my allies. The sight of confessions particularly annoys me because I remember the plight of the Tudeh Party: which had supported the Revolution and had believed Khumayni's deceptive promises from Paris about pluralism and freedoms, only to later see its leader appear on Iranian TV to make one of those "confessions." Something about confessions and brutal regimes: all Arab regimes have engaged in them: from Egypt, to Jordan, to Iraq (in fairness, in Iraq they don't allow "the accused" to confess, Saddam and his cronies used to confess on their behalf), Syria, Saudi Arabia, etc. Confessions are all the weapons in the arms of the regime: they think that they are being persuasive and technically legalistic. They don't know that they are adhering to the playbook of worst dictatorships. The ultimate irony of autocrats and dictators is that sometimes there is a risk that those who forced confessions are made to confess when the regime is overthrown. This has happened in Iraq and Russia among other places. When the regimes think that they are being legalistic, is when they appear as most absurd in their oppression and in their attempt to cover up the true nature of the regime. Of course, one can point out to the hypocrisy of the Egyptian and Saudi regimes which are far more brutal and savage in dealing with their own dissidents--and that hypocrisy should be equally extrapolated on the Western governments that remain silent vis-a-vis Middle East regimes that are so subservient to the West and Israel that they are accorded the label of "moderate"--moderate as they behead in public squares and as they arrest thousands in one year merely for suspicion of sympathy with an outlawed organization--as Mubarak regimes deals with supporters of the Muslim Brothers. Those who hoped that the West cares about the Iranian people (and not about the King of Pistachios, Rafsanjani) or that CNN is being humane in its coverage must now feel like fools. Or they should.