Iran’s Mass Expulsion Of Afghans Poses A Dilemma For Many Of Its Supporters
Andrew Korybko writes on Substack
Most of them are opposed to the expulsion of any illegal immigrants, yet self-censoring their criticism of Iran’s policy discredits their criticisms of Trump’s similar one, while acknowledging the “Weapons of Mass Migration” pretext upon which Iran’s policy is premised justifies Trump’s.
Approximately 800,000 Afghans have reportedly been expelled from Iran ahead of Sunday’s deadline for undocumented members of this estimated 4 million-strong community to leave. Publicly financed Press TV said that the policy is aimed at mitigating the security threat that they pose after some of them were caught spying for Israel and carrying out terrorist attacks at its behest during the latest conflict. In any case, this poses a dilemma for many of Iran’s supporters, most of whom oppose Trump’s similar policy.
After all, Trump’s justification for expelling illegal immigrants from the US is also partially premised on security-related reasons, yet his opponents still condemn it as “racist”, “fascist”, and “xenophobic”. Some of these same opponents at home and abroad also strongly support Iran, especially in the context of the latest conflict, and criticizing it for any reason is thus deemed to be “politically incorrect” according to their dogma. Self-censoring criticisms of Iran’s expulsions, however, discredits their criticisms of Trump’s.
Opponents of mass expulsions also tend to be leftist-aligned regardless of how they politically self-identify (e.g. “moderate”, socialist, communist, etc.), so they’re already ideologically in favor of “open borders” or at the very least consider the expulsion of any illegal immigrants to be unacceptable. The abovementioned problem though is that criticizing Iran for its mass expulsion of Afghans, despite being driven by “anti-Zionist” security-related reasons, could lead to them being “canceled”.
That’s because their online activist community regularly carries out inquisitions against anyone who doesn’t perfectly conform with their talking points at any given time. Even constructive critiques of various countries, leaders, and policies, no matter how mild, can lead to one being viciously smeared as a “Zionist” or “CIA agent” and accused of “infiltrating” their cause in order to “subvert it from within”. Criticizing Iran on this point right after the latest conflict could therefore destroy someone’s reputation.
The crux of their dilemma is whether the concept of “Weapons of Mass Migration” (WMM), which Ivy League scholar Kelly M. Greenhill introduced in 2010, exists. In this context, it refers to the weaponization of some migrant communities by foreign powers, exactly as Israel is suspected of doing with some Afghans vis-à-vis Iran. WMMs objectively exist, but most leftist-aligned activists have hitherto gaslit that they don’t, afraid to lend this concept credence that could then justify Trump’s policies.
It remains to be seen how this community as a whole reacts to Iran’s mass expulsion policy, if at all since most might prefer to remain silent to avoid being “canceled” by their peers, and whether they’ll still criticize Trump’s similar policy if they acknowledge that WMMs do indeed exist. The overarching issue is the interplay between ideology, groupthink, dogma, “cancel culture”, and resultant dilemmas, which isn’t exclusive to Iran’s supporters or leftist-aligned individuals but afflicts all causes.
For reasons of consistency, they’d do well to acknowledge that WMMs exist but with the caveat that they could be exploited as the pretext for massively expelling entire groups for ulterior reasons, which could even include those such as naturalized citizens who should be legally protected. The aforesaid proposal would require modifying the dogma to which many of Iran’s supporters adhere, however, which could ironically provoke a mass inquisition (“expulsion”) of suspected “subversives” from their ranks.
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