Democrats’ Disgraceful Moral Equivalence on Iran

Democrats have reached a new low in their reactionary opposition to President Donald Trump. Disagreeing with the ongoing American military operation against Iran is one thing – but drawing moral equivalence between the United States and the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism while lamenting the death of an evil dictator reveals a dangerous confusion about who our enemies are and what they represent.

A thoroughly repugnant op-ed by Virginia Senator Tim Kaine in The Wall Street Journal on Sunday is indicative of Democrats’ utter lack of scruple.

“The U.S. and Iran were friends and allies until the U.S. led a coup to overthrow Iran’s democratically elected government in 1953,” Kaine informs us. “That led to seven decades of hostility – the U.S. funding a brutal dictatorship that was toppled by the Iranian people in 1979.”

In Kaine’s telling, the 1979 revolution was really the fault of America because the Iranian people just wanted to be free from a “brutal dictatorship.” But this fake history conveniently skips over what pre-1979 Iran actually was. Under the Shah, Iran was one of the most modernized nations in the Middle East. The country experienced rapid industrialization, expanding infrastructure, rising literacy rates, and a growing middle class. Women gained the right to vote in 1963. They attended universities, served in parliament, worked as judges and professionals, and lived in a society that – while imperfect – was outward-looking and economically developing.

Yes, the Shah ruled as an authoritarian, and his secret police suppressed dissent. But there is a profound difference between a secular, pro-Western regime pursuing modernization and a revolutionary Islamist government that fused totalitarian politics with radical theocracy.

The 1979 Islamic Revolution did not bring freedom. It imposed compulsory veiling, stripped women of judicial authority, enforced religious codes through “morality police,” and imprisoned or executed political opponents. Religious minorities, including Christians, were persecuted. Homosexuality became punishable by death. The regime quickly established itself as the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, arming Hezbollah, backing Hamas, supporting Shiite militias in Iraq that killed American troops, and propping up Bashar al-Assad in Syria.

Kaine continues his America-bashing rant a few lines later, listing supposed injustices perpetrated by the United States against Iran alongside a few of Iran’s worst atrocities that killed American citizens. This parallel structure is a transparent attempt to suggest that the entirety of nearly 50 years of violence can be boiled down to a simple tit-for-tat between two nations. Then comes the real kicker: “The U.S. and Iran have both constructed narratives whereby the other is the aggressor in this longstanding conflict.”

Kaine’s assertion that the United States and Iran merely have a difference of opinion about who the aggressor is should be taken as an insult by every American. This is not a symmetrical conflict built on misunderstanding. It is a decades-long campaign by the Islamic Republic of Iran to target Americans, destabilize U.S. allies, and export revolutionary violence with the singular goal of destroying the American way of life and Western Civilization.

Iran’s regime did not just criticize U.S. policy. It seized the American embassy in 1979 and held 52 diplomats hostage for 444 days. It armed and funded Hezbollah, which murdered 241 U.S. service members in Beirut in 1983. It supplied bombs to Shiite militias in Iraq that killed and maimed American troops during the Iraq War. It bankrolls Hamas terrorism. Its leaders chant “Death to America” as a matter of official doctrine.

By contrast, the United States has sought to contain that violence, defend its forces, and prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons that would permanently destabilize the region. Those are not morally equivalent objectives. One side is attempting to protect its citizens and maintain regional stability. The other openly seeks to undermine both.

Kaine’s framing effectively reduces this record to a mutual grievance cycle, as though America and a theocratic regime dedicated to our destruction are simply trapped in a misunderstanding. Such an anti-American and historically illiterate view should have no place in the halls of Congress.

Even more troubling is what Kaine does not say. Nowhere does he express relief that a brutal dictator responsible for repression at home and terror abroad is gone. Instead, he mourns the unraveling of the 2015 nuclear deal – an agreement whereby the Obama administration funneled billions to a regime that used those funds to continue killing Americans. It was appeasement, not strength, that emboldened Tehran – and leaders like Tim Kaine who still cling to that failed approach bear responsibility for the world we now confront.

But Tim Kaine is hardly the only one. With a few noteworthy exceptions like Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, Democrats’ responses to the initial strikes that killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei and other top Iranian officials over the weekend had the undeniable tone of rage and even sadness at the news.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani called the strikes “a catastrophic escalation in an illegal war of aggression.” Rep. Rashida Tlaib went after Israel, accusing Trump of “acting on the violent fantasies of the American political elite and the Israeli apartheid government.” Rep. Ilhan Omar stated that “there is no moral or strategic justification for this bloodshed” – again denying what should be the obvious moral high ground the United States occupies in its relationship with Iran.

What all of these comments reveal is that Democrats have lost the ability – or the willingness – to draw a clear line between aggressor and defender, between a terrorist regime and their own country. Whether that moral confusion stems from blind opposition to President Trump or from a deeper ideological hostility toward American power hardly matters at this point.

What does matter is that the Islamic Republic of Iran has spent nearly half a century funding terrorists, murdering dissidents, repressing women, and chanting for America’s destruction. The United States has spent those same decades trying to protect its citizens, defend its allies, and prevent that regime from acquiring the most dangerous weapons on earth.

Reasonable people can debate strategy. They can debate timing, scope, and long-term objectives. They can argue about history and the wisdom of this or that action. But elected American leaders should take as a given that we in the United States are the good guys, and our enemies who try to kill us are the bad guys. Anything less is a betrayal of their basic duties and responsibilities to the people who elected them.

Shane Harris is the Editor-in-Chief of AMAC Newsline. You can follow him on X @shaneharris513.