Why Not Our Own List of Nasties?

When Iran faced internal unrest, the response from Western governments and media institutions was swift, unified, and unforgiving. Condemnations flowed almost instantly. Tehran was accused of “brutal repression,” “state violence,” and “war against its own people.” Sanctions were threatened. Diplomats were summoned. Editorial boards pronounced verdicts.

The framing was decisive and moralistic. The Economist depicted Iran as a collapsing, illegitimate state clinging to power through force.
Time framed the unrest as a defining moral crisis for the international community. The New York Times, The Guardian, and leading European publications published editorials demanding punishment, isolation, and intensified pressure.

What was striking was not the criticism itself, but its certainty—and its refusal to engage with context. Because once context is introduced, the narrative becomes less convenient.

According to figures cited by the Associated Press, the unrest involved extensive destruction of civilian and emergency infrastructure. More than 350 mosques, 126 prayer halls, and 20 other religious sites reportedly sustained damage. In addition, over 400 hospitals, 106 ambulances, 71 fire service vehicles, and dozens of other emergency-response units were vandalized or destroyed.

These facts were rarely foregrounded in Western coverage. Yet they matter enormously. No Western government would classify the systematic targeting of hospitals, ambulances, fire services, and places of worship as “peaceful protest.” Nor would any Western capital hesitate to invoke emergency powers, deploy security forces, impose curfews, and carry out mass arrests if confronted with comparable levels of destruction. This is not conjecture. It is established practice.

One of the most glaring acts of narrative dishonesty in Western coverage is the deliberate erasure of dead Iranian police officers. Iranian authorities confirmed that security personnel were killed during the riots, with official figures placing the toll well into the scores and possibly the hundreds. These were not abstract symbols of “the regime” — they were human beings enforcing public order under violent conditions.

In any Western country, the killing of police officers would instantly redefine protests as insurrection and trigger overwhelming force. In Iran, however, the same deaths are treated as irrelevant — because acknowledging them would collapse the moral theatre of selective outrage.

How the West Responds When the Crisis Is Domestic

In the United States, large-scale unrest has repeatedly triggered militarized policing, National Guard deployments, federal intervention, sweeping curfews, and thousands of arrests. Armored vehicles patrol civilian streets. Protest zones are forcibly cleared. Journalists are detained. Emergency powers are normalized. This is described as restoring law and order—not repression.

In France, sustained protests have been met with aggressive crowd-control tactics, mass arrests, protest bans, and emergency legislation. Protesters have been seriously injured. Demonstrations restricted. Entire cities placed under extraordinary security measures. France is never described as authoritarian.

In the United Kingdom, recent legislation has dramatically narrowed the legal space for protest. Surveillance powers have expanded. Police now intervene pre-emptively to shut down demonstrations deemed disruptive. Britain’s democratic credentials remain unquestioned.

When Allies Act With Impunity

The contrast becomes even sharper when Western-aligned states employ harsher methods. Israel suppresses unrest using live fire, mass detention without trial, and sweeping emergency powers, yet faces no sanctions and enjoys unwavering diplomatic and military support. Saudi Arabia bans protest outright, imprisons critics, and carries out executions, while being treated as a strategic partner.
Egypt crushed demonstrations with mass killings and long-term incarceration, only to be reintegrated into the Western security and financial system. In these cases, repression is rebranded as “stability.”

The Real Standard at Work

The pattern is consistent and unmistakable. Western outrage is not triggered by violence, destruction, or the use of force as such. It is triggered by political alignment. States that resist Western economic, military, or strategic dominance are judged by absolutist moral standards. States that align with Western interests are granted latitude, excuses, and silence. This is why similar actions produce radically different reactions. Human rights discourse, in practice, functions less as a universal principle and more as a selective instrument of pressure.

Why Not Our Own List of Nasties?

For decades, Western powers have maintained lists of “rogue states,” “pariahs,” and “axes of evil,” claiming moral authority to police the international system. These lists have never reflected consistent standards. They have reflected power.

It is therefore reasonable—indeed necessary—to ask the reverse question. Why should the rest of the world not compile its own list? One that evaluates states not by their alliances, but by their conduct. Not by rhetoric, but by record.
Not by power, but by consistency.

Such an exercise would expose an uncomfortable reality: that many of the loudest moral arbiters in global politics routinely exempt themselves and their allies from the standards they impose on others.

 A Question That Refuses to Go Away

This is not an argument for silence, nor a defense of any state’s excesses. All governments should be scrutinized. But scrutiny without comparison is not analysis—it is narrative enforcement.

If international norms are to have credibility, they must apply across borders.
If global order is to be legitimate, it must survive self-examination.
And if moral authority is to mean anything, it cannot depend on who holds power. Until that happens, the question will remain—not as provocation, but as necessity:

Why not our own list of nasties?