Opinion: Ashley Church.
As decent people everywhere mark the elimination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – Iran’s supreme leader since 1989 – serious questions need to be asked of the Western left.
For nearly 5 decades, the Islamic Republic suppressed speech, denied women equal legal standing, executed dissenters, and exported militancy abroad – all while influential voices in the so-called “progressive” left in the West framed Iran as a victim of U.S. influence and as the heroic face of “resistance” against Israel.
The contrast with reality could not be more stark. In 1979, just before the Revolution, Iranian society was making real gains on women’s rights. Women could vote, Family Law reforms restricted polygamy, and court oversight was required for divorce – major shifts away from clerical jurisdiction.
Within four years of the Revolution, those gains were all erased: marriage, divorce and custody laws were rewritten; failure to wear a hijab became punishable by lashes; women faced arrest, detention, and exclusion from public life. In practical terms, the legal position of women was rolled back by generations.
And it wasn’t just women.
Freedom of expression and political dissent were crushed. In 1988, thousands of political prisoners were executed in mass killings. Protests in 2009 and 2019 were met with live ammunition. More recent uprisings brought mass arrests, killings, and disappearances under state crackdowns.
Despite this record, many Western activists opted for a narrative that cast Iran as noble “resistance” against Israel – a view that was so strong that they turned a blind eye to Iran’s religious persecution, targeting of ethnic minorities, and brutal repression of youth culture, because acknowledging these would destroy their ability to cast Israel as the villain.
And that is the core moral failure here: demonising Israel became so important that Iran’s victims became inconvenient.
The hypocrisy was particularly visible during the recent “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising and the simultaneous protests against economic and political repression. While Iranians risked their lives for basic freedoms, many Western left-wing groups were nowhere to be seen – while Christian and Israeli supporters openly stood in solidarity with the Iranian people.
In other words:
• The Iranian people rose up for basic freedoms.
• The regime responded with bullets, arrests and executions.
• Much of the Western left looked away.
So what will the “progressive” left do now?
1. Acknowledge it lent rhetorical cover to a theocratic regime that crushed the freedoms it claims to champion?
2. Reassess its values and admit that rights are universal – not a currency to be traded or contextualised?
3. Or simply pivot to the next cause without ever confronting its complicity?
If you want to explore the deeper picture behind this – including the wider spiritual and geopolitical forces at work – register your interest in my upcoming book, Prophecy Shock, at www.prophecyshock.com
