Back in December 2020, Benjamin Kerstein argued here that the Islamic regime that rules Iran is an enantiomorph — a mirror image — of the Nazi regime. If anything, the ensuing three-and-a-half years have proven him correct, and his article is worth revisiting.

Iran has been described as many things: “Islamic republic,” “Islamist dictatorship,” “the mullahs’ regime,” and so on. All of these terms make the same mistake: they assume the Iranian regime is something new. The problem is that this simply isn’t true. The Iranian regime is something we have very much seen before.

Put simply, Iran is a Nazi regime.

The parallels between the two are quite striking. They include:

One-Party Rule: Both Nazism and the Iranian regime are ruled by parties or movements that were once part of a spectrum of parties, but succeeded in crushing or purging their opponents and seizing absolute power, making the party and the government essentially synonymous.

It is true that what began as an authentic and anti-dictatorial popular revolution based on a broad coalition of all anti-Shah forces was soon transformed, after a seizure of power by Khomeini, into rule by Islamic fundamentalists. The other, non-theocratic, groups had assumed that Khomeini intended to be a spiritual guide instead of a ruler; he soon showed that he was determined to be both. These groups were all quickly crushed soon after Khomeini returned from exile on February 1, 1979.

The Nazis managed to consolidate power, similarly, soon after Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler to be chancellor in 1933. But unlike Khomeini with the anti-Shah leftists, after entering into an initial governing coalition, Hitler quickly dispelled any illusion that he was willing to share power. He always insisted that he, and the Nazis, would rule alone. Even fellow Nazis were not exempt from being crushed if they appeared to represent a threat to Hitler’s power. The Night of the Long Knives was carried out in 1934, a massacre of fellow Nazis, ordered by Hitler, with Himmler orchestrating the murders of all those who belonged to the SA (Sturmabteilung), or Brownshirts, led by Ernst Röhm. Hitler had been persuaded by Himmler and Goring to eliminate Röhm as a possible rival, and his SA, too, for they were seen as a group of “street thugs” who frightened people away from the Nazi movement. After that purge, 16 months after he was appointed Chancellor on January 30, 1933, Hitler held absolute power; Khomeini obtained the same absolute power even earlier, practically from the moment his plane touched down in Tehran on February 1, 1979.

Totalitarianism: Both regimes foster a cult-like mass movement in which every aspect of life is defined by the party. Everything down to one’s clothing — whether the compulsory hijab or the SS uniform — are decreed from on high. And they both, of course, have the idolatry of a supreme leader — whether Hitler or Khomeini. Without this totalitarian system, neither regime could have maintained itself in power for long.

Both Hitler and Khomeini were considered by their respective peoples to be the “absolute, wise, and indispensable” leader. The Complete Regulation of Life that was imposed by Khomeini, governing everything from dress, to food, to sexual behavior, was not, however, his invention – these were the rules not of Khomeini but of Islam; other Muslim regimes have had similar codes imposed. The rules set for Germans by the Nazis were indeed unique to them. And in both cases, as Kerstein maintains, the government was based on a mass movement. There is a certain simian similarity between the million Nazis shouting themselves hoarse at the Nuremberg rallies, and the hundreds of thousands of Iranians turning out to shout their “Death to Israel” and “Death to America” mantras in a dozen cities. Hitler was The Leader; Khomeini was the Supreme Leader, both were all-wise and all-knowing and therefore had to be, because they deserved to be, obeyed unquestioningly.

There are differences. The “SS uniform” was not compulsory for anyone but members of the SS; ordinary Germans – not in one of the branches of the military or police – had no particular dress requirements. In Khomeinist Iran, all women have to observe certain dress requirements, especially wearing the obligatory hijab or even, at times, the chador. They are required to wear loose clothing, deliberately shapeless, so as not to be dangerously alluring. Men have no particular rules, but many no longer wear ties, as they did during the days of the Shah; the tie is taken by some to represent unacceptable mimicking of the West, and considered un-Islamic.

Belief in a Single Metaphysical Force That Defines Existence: Both Nazism and the Iranian regime hold that there is a single, overriding metaphysical force that defines all of existence. In the case of the Nazis, this force was race. They held that all of human history is a struggle between the biologically superior master race — which was, of course, themselves — and all the inferior races. For the Iranian regime, this force is not race, but religion — a spiritual supremacism instead of a biological one: all of existence is seen as a struggle in which Islam will eventually conquer and destroy its inferiors.

Kerstein strikes me as absolutely correct here: both semi-demented regimes have reduced all of existence to an endless struggle. In the case of the Nazis, that struggle is twofold: the first, and greatest danger comes from the endlessly evil Jews, who must be wiped out, and second, there is the danger posed by all the other non-Aryans, who are inferior to Germans and deserve to be subjugated by them.

As for Khomeini, the Islamic supremacism that he preached was not his invention, but lifted entirely from the Qur’an, and especially from the many verses that command Muslims to fight, to kill, to smite at the necks of, to strike terror in the hearts of, all non-Muslims. Khomeini’s Mein Kampf was the Qur’an, and its key passages concerning treatment of Infidels are to be found especially in such verses as 2:191-193, 4:89, 5:33, 8:12, 8:60, 9:5, 9:29, 47:4. And this supremacism is pithily set out in two verses: Qur’an 3:110, which tells Muslims that they are “the best of peoples,” and 98:6, where non-Muslims are described as “the most vile of created beings.”

A Separate Army Loyal Only to the Regime: One of the Nazis’ most potent means of enforcing its power was that it wielded an elite army loyal solely to the regime, separate from the regular military. The Nazis originally had several such forces, but all were eventually crushed or purged except for the infamous SS, which led the way in committing the Holocaust. In Iran, this separate army is the fanatical Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which both runs the regime’s terrorist activities and helps enforce its domination at home.

Again, the SS was, inside Germany , the tip of the Nazi spear, consisting of the most fanatical and cruelest troops; they crushed the last rival to Hitler, Röhm’s Brownshirts, in 1934, and then went on to distinguish themselves as mass murderers of helpless Jews; the SS were the people who ordinarily manned the death camps. The IRGC plays a not dissimilar role in Iran. While the regular army is supposed to defend Iranian borders and maintain internal order, the Revolutionary Guard (pasdaran) is intended to protect the country’s political system – the Islamic Republic. The Revolutionary Guards base their role on protecting the Islamic system, as well as preventing foreign interference and coups by the military or “deviant movements.” But unlike the SS, which dealt mostly with enemies of the Third Reich (though it did recruit some foreigners for the Waffen-SS ), the IRGC works with Iran’s proxies and allies, channeling money and weapons to Shi’a groups in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.

AUTHOR

HUGH FITZGERALD

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