https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/magazine\/2025\/06\/14\/israel-iran-attack-freedom-autocracy-00406288<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“Iran is the most aggressive and dangerous totalitarian force of our time. Its leaders seek to weaken and destroy free society, democracy and human rights with Russian and Chinese support. In Iran, women are systematically oppressed and abused. Homosexuals are murdered. Those who think differently are imprisoned and tortured. In Tehran, the cynical abuse of the civilian population in Gaza as human shields is also cold-bloodedly conceived and financed.<\/p>\n
According to official state doctrine, the primary goal of the mullahs in Tehran is the annihilation of the State of Israel. Ayatollah Khamenei has described Israel as a \u201ccancerous tumor.\u201d And clocks in the streets of Tehran celebrate countdowns to the \u201cdestruction of Israel.\u201d <\/p>\n
But Israel is only the first target. Once Israel falls, Europe and America will be the focus. Radical Sunni and Shiite Islamism has been preparing for this for decades. The fatwa against Salman Rushdie, 9\/11, the attacks in Paris, the caliphate of ISIS \u2014 each event was a warning sign. Only those who did not want to see the signs are surprised today. The attacks are directed against our values, our way of life.”<\/p>\n
https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/magazine\/2025\/06\/14\/israel-iran-attack-freedom-autocracy-00406288<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[272,355,2059,314,156,1047,1111,194,391,108,115,619],"class_list":["post-18236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-foreign-affairs","tag-foreign-policy","tag-fundamentalism","tag-international-relations","tag-iran","tag-islam","tag-islamism","tag-israel","tag-middle-east","tag-terrorism","tag-terrorists","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18236"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18237,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18236\/revisions\/18237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}