In December 2016 I wrote a piece entitled “Sam Harris and the collapse of the counter-jihad Left,” about how Sam Harris and his close friend and collaborator Maajid Nawaz speak well about some of the problems with jihad violence and Sharia oppression of women, gays, and others, but object to serious and concrete steps to doing anything about this threat.
Here is more confirmation of that, as well as of the Left’s increasing opposition to the freedom of speech. Sam Harris wants Twitter to ban President Trump for supposedly issuing “credible threats of war” against Iran. Trump uses Twitter to speak directly to the American people, without the tendentious filtering of the Leftist media, and this drives Leftists crazy. For decades, the establishment media had a virtually monopoly on the public discourse, and told Americans what they should believe about issues and individuals; now that monopoly is crumbling, and the Left’s fear and hysteria over losing its hegemony is palpable.
As Trump’s tweet, it’s noteworthy that the Islamic Republic of Iran has been issuing credible threats of war against the United States for years, and Sam Harris has said nothing. As I show in my book The Complete Infidel’s Guide to Iran, for years, Iranian leaders have engaged in extremely bellicose rhetoric against the U.S. On February 11, 2014, the thirty-fifth anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, Iranian Chief of Staff Hassan Firouzabadi boasted: “Iran is prepared for the decisive war against the U.S. and the Zionist regime….Iran has been making plans, conducting maneuvers, and preparing its forces for this battle for years now.”
Such threats weren’t limited to Revolution Day. In a Friday sermon on February 21, 2014, the head of Iran’s influential twelve-member Guardian Council of the Constitution Friday worship, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati preached this: “The Imam Khomeini said that the U.S. is the Great Satan, and we expect the officials” of the Iranian government “to recognize the enemy. The U.S. is the Great Satan, yesterday and today… While the enemy carries out ugly actions and says evil things, the Iranian nation has shown fervor and, with its enthusiastic turnout [a week and a half before, for the February 11 Revolution Day celebrations], made it known that will not tolerate humiliation.”
Jannati thundered: “The first option on our table is ‘Death to America.’ The entire people’s slogan is ‘Death to America’… Another option on our table is the defense of Palestine; other messages from the Iranian people to their officials are not to fear the enemy and not to fear death.” The Americans, he added, “already want us to capitulate on the nuclear issue – but on what basis are they interfering in Iran’s affairs? If we let them, the Americans will destroy Islam and the Revolution, because they have no honor and no humanity… See how they left the helpless people of Iraq. They carry out massacres in Palestine, and support takfiris who slaughter people.” (Takfir is the practice of declaring a Muslim who is considered to hold a heretical form of Islam to be a non-believer. Shi’ites often refer to Sunni jihadis as takfiris, because they do not regard Shi’ites as true Muslims.)
In May 2014, senior Iranian commander Massoud Jazayeri warned that if the U.S. attacked Iran, not only would the result be “the annihilation of the Israeli regime,” but war in the U.S. itself. The Americans, Jazayeri said, “know that aggression against the Islamic Republic of Iran would mean annihilation of Tel Aviv and spread of war into the United States.”
Fadavi added in an interview at that time: “Today the Americans and the entire world know that one of our operational goals is destroying US Navy Forces.” A specific target would be aircraft carriers, since they “provide US airpower in combat; therefore it is natural that we want to sink them…destroying, annihilating, and sinking US boats has and will be in our plans.”
Then in September 2014, Fadavi asserted that Iran already had hegemony in the Persian Gulf: “The US is obedient and passive in the Persian Gulf and we impose our sovereignty right in the Persian Gulf very powerfully….We observe confrontations and, as a matter of fact, debates between Iran and the foreign vessels in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz on a daily basis and they always comply.”
In May 2015, the IRGC’s Salami actually said that Iran wanted war with the United States: “We have prepared ourselves for the most dangerous scenarios and this is no big deal and is simple to digest for US; we welcome war with the US as we do believe that it will be the scene for our success to display the real potentials of our power.”
In light of all that and much more like it, President Trump is not issuing “credible threats of war,” he is responding to them. And he is responding by demonstrating that the Obama era of appeasement of the Islamic Republic is over. But apparently Sam Harris and his ilk would rather have continuing appeasement of this brutal, bellicose, rogue regime that has oppressed its own people for decades, rather than a strong stance for freedom.
Can Sam Harris at this point really be said to be opposed to the global jihad in any genuine sense?