The Rushdie attack proves the Iranian regime must be destroyed

Whether the writer survives or not, he was the victim of tyrants who want to assassinate words and the freedom to use them.

“They finally got him.”

Those were the words that first came to me when I heard the news that author Salman Rushdie had been brutally stabbed at a literary event in New York on the morning of Aug. 12.

We do not yet know the full extent of Mr. Rushdie’s injuries, or whether he will survive them, but he appears to be in extremely bad shape. His agent Andrew Wylie said, "Salman will likely lose one eye; the nerves in his arm were severed; and his liver was stabbed and damaged.”

The motive, of course, is obvious. The attacker, Hadi Matar, is described by the New York Post, citing law enforcement sources, as active on social media “in support of Iran and its Revolutionary Guard, and in support of Shi’a extremism more broadly.”

In other words, the attack was the work of a radical Muslim inspired by the Iranian regime’s 1989 call for Rushdie’s death.

This despicable fatwa was the work of the regime’s founder Ayatollah Khomeini (may his name be erased and his bones ground to dust). Khomeini, an avowed totalitarian theocrat and genocidal antisemite, got his knickers in a twist because Rushdie published a novel called The Satanic Verses, which Khomeini considered offensive to Islam. That being offended did not give him the right to kill people apparently did not occur to the decrepit old fiend.

As a result of this sentence of death, which Khomeini had no earthly or heavenly right to impose, Rushdie was forced to live as a fugitive for decades and several of his translators and publishers were attacked and/or killed.

Today, the apologist media tells us, Iran has “distanced” itself from the fatwa, but we may take such assurances with a grain of salt. Suffice it to say, the fatwa has never been officially rescinded, and Khomeini’s heirs are celebrating today. Nor, one imagines, would it make much difference if the fatwa were rescinded. The damage, as we now know, has already been done.

The attack on Rushdie, however, is more than an attempt to kill a single man. It is an attempt, yet another attempt, one of many such attempts, to annihilate the most essential aspect of any free society.

As the post-Cold War wave of liberal democracy recedes and authoritarian regimes rise once again, it is becoming increasingly clear that freedom of speech is not simply one aspect of a free society, it is the only aspect of a free society. Everything else—the right to assemble, religious pluralism, the vote, representative democracy, civic involvement, minority rights, and so on—simply cannot exist if freedom of speech does not exist beforehand. What the ancient Greeks called parrhesia is the seed of every other freedom.

Khomeini’s fatwa and all the atrocities that have echoed it, such as the Charlie Hebdo massacre, were not only attempts to assassinate people, but also attempts to assassinate speech itself. They sought, in other words, to make freedom impossible.

If Mr. Rushdie does not survive, then all of us who use words, the speakers and the writers, will have our own martyr, our own shahid. And if he does survive, as I pray he will, the lesson will be the same: We can no longer tolerate this nonsense. We must put an end to this attempt to hold us all hostage and impose theocracy on those of us who do not want it.

The first step is to punish Mr. Rushdie’s persecutors—all of them. The assassin should, of course, be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. New York has no death penalty, but if Mr. Rushdie dies and federal charges can be brought, then Matar should face a capital sentence.

But this is only a beginning. The Iranian regime that incited and suborned this atrocity is directly responsible for it, and must be made to pay. Perhaps the US or Britain—of which Mr. Rushdie is a citizen—could take Iran to the International Criminal Court for terrorism or violating Mr. Rushdie’s human rights. Perhaps the US could bring criminal charges against top Iranian officials. Perhaps further sanctions could be placed on Iran in Rushdie’s name. In any case, those with the power to do so must flood the zone and keep the mullahs tied up in every conceivable court for the rest of their lives.

The second and more important step, however, is to finally make a decision in regard to the continued existence of the Iranian regime. The attack on Rushdie is only the latest proof that this regime is a cancer on the world, and must be dealt with like a cancer. In other words, it must be excised, and the sooner the better. The longer it is left untreated, the further it spreads, and the results are certain to be fatal.

To honor Rushdie and the sacrifice he has made on behalf of words themselves, on behalf of the power and honor of speech, the free world must decide on regime change in Iran. Yes, regime change is difficult. Sometimes, as in Iraq, supremely difficult. But to live as hostages and slaves to a terrorist theocracy is far worse.

The Iranian regime is determined to impose their debased and tyrannical ideology on all of us, by de facto or de jure means. We did not need further proof of this, but the attack on Rushdie has given it to us. All the more so because the attack took place in a nation where freedom of speech is enshrined as one of its supreme values.

In the name of that value, it is time for the Iranian regime to face the same fate it imposed on Rushdie and everyone else who has dared speak against it. The regime must be destroyed, and it must be destroyed now, before it is too late, and words are forbidden to us forever.

Photo: Bill Swersey/Asia Society