Let us be clear from the outset: the sight of Iranian-Americans waving the Tricolour and chanting for women's rights outside a football stadium is not merely a sports story. It is a geopolitical tremor, a crack in the edifice of the Islamic Republic's moral authority. And yet, as UK security services monitor the predictable backlash from extremist quarters, one cannot help but feel a profound weariness at how the West continues to misinterpret such displays.
First, the facts. During Iran's World Cup match against Wales, protesters gathered in Doha, many of them dual nationals from the United States, demanding an end to the regime's brutal suppression of women and minorities. They held signs reading "Woman, Life, Freedom"—the slogan of last year's uprising—and called for the release of political prisoners. This is not new. The Iranian diaspora has long been a thorn in the side of the mullahs, who respond with predictable fury: accusations of treason, threats to revoke citizenship, and a state media campaign painting protesters as Western puppets.
But here is where the Western response becomes flaccid. Instead of hailing these protesters as heroes, British security services are reportedly bracing for a backlash from Islamist groups who see the demonstrations as a provocation. The assumption is that we must tolerate the intolerant, that the loudest voices demanding the destruction of our values deserve a seat at the table. This is the intellectual decadence I have long warned about. We have reached a point where the very act of protesting a theocratic dictatorship is treated as a security risk, as if the regime's apologists are equally legitimate interlocutors.
This is not the first time the West has failed to read a historical cycle. Compare this to the 1936 Berlin Olympics, when American athletes like Jesse Owens triumphed over Nazi ideology, yet the world turned a blind eye to Hitler's regime for another nine years. Or consider the 1978 World Cup in Argentina, when the military junta used the tournament to whitewash its crimes, while dissidents dared not speak above a whisper. Today, the Islamic Republic is similarly desperate for legitimacy. Its economy is in ruins, its people are in open revolt, and its influence across the Middle East is waning. The World Cup is one of its few remaining stages to Project strength.
And yet, instead of amplifying the voices of Iranian dissidents, our security state focuses on the hypothetical threat of a few extremists. This is the pathology of a society that has lost faith in its own principles. We have become so obsessed with ‘community relations’ that we forget the obvious: the Iranian regime is not a community. It is a brutal dictatorship that executes gay people, jails journalists, and forces women to cover their heads at gunpoint.
The protesters outside the stadium were not engaging in ‘hate speech’. They were exercising the very freedoms that the West claims to champion. To treat their actions as a security problem is to hand a moral victory to the regime. It tells the world that our commitment to liberal values is conditional, that we will only support dissent as long as it does not challenge the sensibilities of those who wish us harm.
This is the lesson of the Fall of Rome. When the empire began to placate its enemies instead of defending its civilisation, decay set in. We are not there yet, but we are perilously close. The Iranian-American protesters are not the problem. The problem is a security apparatus that has forgotten the difference between a dissident and a terrorist.
So let us stop wringing our hands and start taking sides. The side of women who risk their lives to remove the hijab. The side of workers striking for bread and freedom. The side of an Iranian people who have made it abundantly clear they do not want the mullahs in power. Anything less is a betrayal of our own values and a recipe for endless conflict.
As for the extremists, let them fume. Their backlash is the sound of a dying order. UK security services should be monitoring them, yes, but not out of fear. Out of a desire to see justice done. Because justice, for once, is on the side of the protesters.
