TEHRAN- I must state that life experiences have long taught me never to rejoice in anyone’s death, and this holds true for the passing of Senator Lindsey Graham, despite all his grave mistakes.
To give an example: years ago, on the morning Saddam Hussein was executed in Baghdad, a friend living in Canada called to ask for my thoughts and feelings. I told him, “My friend, Saddam committed countless atrocities. He forced me, as a mere student, to leave my school desk and spend my youth—from the age of 15 to 23—defending the besieged people of my city against his invading army.
Yet, I wish someone had taken Saddam by the hand in his youth and guided him so he wouldn’t meet such a fate. He was a potential talent who went down the wrong path.
“I view the life of Senator Lindsey Graham in the same echelon as Saddam Hussein’s, driven by a deeply flawed and toxic interpretation of life that cast a dark shadow over his entire destiny and that of his like-minded peers. Whenever reporters questioned Graham about the massacres in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran, his recurring justification was: “Did we not ruthlessly bomb all of Germany to overthrow Hitler? Did we not use atomic bombs to defeat Japan?
Using this very same logic during the initial days of Trump and Netanyahu’s unlawful aggression against Iran, he claimed that the country and its people should be wiped off the map within two weeks. This line of reasoning was also echoed by Netanyahu during Joe Biden’s first visit to Israel after the October 7th events. Biden recalled that when he urged Netanyahu to protect innocent civilians in Gaza, Netanyahu sharply retorted, “You Americans killed thousands upon thousands of civilians in German cities through aerial bombings during World War II; we are going to do the same, so do not preach morality to us.”
The arguments put forward by Graham and Netanyahu are akin to someone living in Medellín, Colombia, during the 1980s—the epicenter of the world’s most dangerous drug cartels—who feels entitled to brutally massacre their neighbor’s entire family, from the youngest to the oldest, over a minor verbal dispute regarding a parking space, simply because the city’s prevailing culture is built around “kill or be killed.”
1. The first fallacy: the ends justify the means
All these justifications for committing war crimes are built on the premise that because Hitler was a monster, any action is permissible to eliminate him—the classic maxim that the end justifies the means.
Robert McNamara, the US Secretary of Defense who planned and designed the aerial bombings of Japan during WWII, incinerated 60% of Tokyo’s housing in a single night using napalm bombs, burning alive roughly 200,000 civilians, including women and children. McNamara famously stated that if World War II had not ended in an Allied victory, those few who ordered the aerial bombings would have undoubtedly been tried as war criminals at the Nuremberg trials and hanged. Later in life, as the Secretary of Defense, he caused the deaths of millions of Vietnamese and thousands of American soldiers during the Vietnam War. Toward the end of his life, he suffered from severe illness and deep depression rooted in his actions, fully confessing to this futile remorse in a documentary about his life.
But the more critical question is: How did Western behavior help create a monster like Hitler in the first place?
Following World War I, European powers imposed the Treaty of Versailles, placing an unbearable economic burden on a war-torn Germany. They devastated the economy to the point where the German Mark became so worthless that people burned banknotes instead of firewood to heat their stoves.
The pain, suffering, and starvation imposed on the German people by this destructive treaty left them feeling that death was the only escape—until Hitler, the demagogue, arrived alongside his miracle-working economic minister, Dr. Hjalmar Schacht, and the inevitable catastrophe unfolded.
Hermann Göring, the commander of the Luftwaffe and Hitler’s final successor, famously said of him: “Hitler was first a man, then an angel, and finally a devil.”
In short, the humiliating treaty imposed by the West turned Hitler into a “saving angel” in the minds of post-WWI Germans. The millions chanting “Heil Hitler” were not doing so out of a thirst for war, but out of gratitude for being rescued from absolute economic misery—a nuance of the relationship between the German people and Hitler that Western media propaganda consistently omits. Similarly, figures like Lindsey Graham and Netanyahu never mention that the West itself is responsible for creating monsters like Hitler. Ultimately, there is no difference between the McNamaras and the Gorings of the world, except that the former won the war and avoided the Nuremberg trials.
2. The second fallacy: the existential choice
Throughout history, leaders other than Hitler, Netanyahu, and McNamara have faced the brutal realities of war but chose to act differently. Yet, their examples are entirely ignored by these warmongers.
For instance, when a monster like Saddam Hussein—backed by Western countries, particularly Germany—spent eight years slaughtering and wounding Iranian civilians and Iraqi Kurds with chemical weapons, Iran never retaliated in kind. Despite possessing petrochemical refineries and the capability to easily manufacture these weapons, every historical witness attests that Iran never dropped a single chemical shell on Iraqi forces.
Furthermore, from day one of that war, operating under the same foolish logic used by Senator Graham and Netanyahu, Saddam Hussein subjected Iranian cities and villages to relentless missile and bomb attacks. Iran, however, refrained from retaliating in kind for five years. Even when it finally did, it would issue warnings to the residents of those cities two days in advance, firing only a few cautionary shells—not to destroy, but to deter the enemy from attacking Iranian cities.
One of the reasons millions of Iraqis later participated in the funeral procession of the Iranian Leader in Iraq was precisely this adherence to humanitarian principles under the worst possible conditions—a concept the West, throughout its history, has rarely believed in.
Conclusion
Which path do we choose in our own lives? Do we justify our wrongs using the flawed logic of Lindsey Graham, McNamara, Hitler, Genghis Khan, Netanyahu, and Trump—who are fundamentally no different from one another? Or do we treat surrounding nations the way the people of Iran did, earning such profound devotion that even in a theoretically “hostile” country, millions mourn and honor their leader?
There is a mystical story in the poetic literature of the Iranians: A scholar of the Children of Israel was on his deathbed. In his final moments, he begged God for forgiveness. Gabriel delivered God’s response to him: “If I forgive you, what shall I do about those servants of mine who were led astray by your flawed knowledge and false teachings?”
The truth of any philosophy is revealed in its actions.
In closing, I pray that the remaining friends and ideological peers of Senator Lindsey Graham are granted the opportunity in this life to ask this question of their Creator and to meaningfully change their course of action.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: tehrantimes.com
