Where have all the moralizing voices gone?

Where are the European leaders when it comes to defending the Iranian population, held in an iron grip by the Revolutionary Guards? It is true they were neither warned nor consulted — but for what purpose, after all?

Where are those who so quickly condemn Israel for its so-called war crimes while defending itself? The same individuals who appear to ignore what has been happening in Iran for years, where tens of thousands of citizens have been murdered, imprisoned, hanged, and tortured?

Where are the virtuoso diplomats of negotiation, whose trace has been lost for 47 years — since the arrival of the first Supreme Leader aboard an Air France plane — and for 37 years under his successor, whose hands were stained with blood, eliminated this Saturday?

Where are the intellectuals, artists, and actors who so willingly appear on our media platforms, ardent champions of the secularism we hold dear — yet whose silence is deafening when it comes to the fate of tens of thousands of men, women, and children, all victims of a dictatorial and deadly theocracy that has turned its country into a kind of prison under the rule of the wardens known as the Revolutionary Guards?

The Islamic Republic of Iran — the exemplary state of the past 47 years that the United Nations seems to appreciate, if one judges by the relationship between the institution and the Mullahs.

The Republic’s mandates within the UN:

Rapporteur within the First Committee (Disarmament and Security). When one considers the nuclear issue, questions naturally arise.

More notably, Chair of the Asia-Pacific Group of the Human Rights Council in 2025.

Vice-Chair of the Commission for Social Development.

For the UN, it is a country “under supervision.” One may wonder, because such prolonged supervision could — should — have resulted in conclusions. That is not the case. Supervision is extended, no doubt for lack of evidence. The question remains.

As a UN member state, Iran — since the establishment of the Islamic Republic 47 years ago — has relentlessly sought to destroy Israel. It has attempted to do so repeatedly through proxies it arms and finances, and directly through attacks, without success.

Yet there is an exception. What precedes applies only externally. Internally, the priority is preserving revolutionary order. For the regime, there are no oppressed people in the country — only counter-revolutionaries. Tens of thousands of opponents have paid in blood. The number of murdered victims is incalculable. The number of capital executions is among the highest in the world:

853 in 2023972 in 20241,500 in 2025 according to an NGO. Likely more after the January 2026 protests.

The regime sees and declares itself the bearer of a transformative project. It challenges the international order it deems unjust (for whom?), claiming a universal moral mission. This doctrine is embedded in its constitution and relentlessly promoted worldwide. The number of attacks carried out by its proxies across the globe is incalculable. France knows this well.

It supports movements it considers “resistant.” Lebanon knows something about that — and it may not be over yet; Hezbollah ensures that. Iran claims to defend oppressed peoples, notably:

– Palestinians– Certain Shiite populations– Groups in Lebanon– Groups in Syria (though circumstances have recently shifted)– Militias in Iraq that oppose the lawful government– The Houthis in Yemen, whom it arms and supports

Iran does not recognize Israel.

Official rhetoric targets the “Zionist regime,” considered an oppressor that Iran seeks to eliminate — and states so at every opportunity.

Are the Revolutionary Guards (the Pasdaran) a terrorist organization?

In January 2023, the European Parliament adopted a resolution calling for the inclusion of the IRGC on the EU terrorist list.

The Council of the European Union has not done so.

Have European countries officially designated the IRGC?

United Kingdom: strengthened sanctions, reviewing terrorist designation.France: supports sanctions but cites legal obstacles at the EU level.Germany: advocates a coordinated European approach.Netherlands: Parliament adopted a motion in 2023 calling for designation, not yet implemented.

Several countries imposed enhanced sanctions between 2022 and 2024.

But why apply sanctions without designation? Spot the inconsistency.

ABOUT THE RIGHT TO INTERVENE

Where are the great defenders and promoters of humanitarian intervention? Those of the well-intentioned, morally assured Left?

Incidentally, do you know who “invented” the right to intervene?

It is a concept born of gradual politico-legal development and popularized at the end of the 20th century.

The term is primarily associated with two French figures:

Bernard Kouchner, co-founder of Médecins Sans Frontières and later Médecins du Monde, who argued that humanitarian aid must be able to cross borders despite state sovereignty.

Mario Bettati, legal scholar and professor of law, who formally articulated the expression “right of humanitarian intervention.”

Their objective was to respond to humanitarian tragedies where states prevented outside assistance (Biafra, Khmer Rouge Cambodia, famine in Ethiopia).

To once again condemn Israel — and by association the United States — on the grounds that they violate international law is, at best, ignorance. In reality, it reveals absolute cynicism and moral bankruptcy.

Those who attempt to pass off illusions as truth would do better to remain silent.

What role does international law play when the largest powers — Europe foremost among them — have resolved nothing, and when we have remained powerless spectators before the latest massacres claiming more than 40,000 victims in January?

Suddenly, for lack of better options and means, some would like another powerless and partisan institution — the United Nations — to handle the matter.

Why did they not do so over the past 47 years?

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)