‘Why Don’t You Criticize Iran?’

By Caitlin Johnstone  –  Jan 29, 2026

It flabbergasts them that I’m not saying harsh things about the latest Official Bad Guy of the Day.

Reading by Tim Foley:

Any time things heat up with an empire-targeted government I always get people demanding to know why I’m not critical of that government.

“Why don’t you criticize Iran? You spend all your time criticizing the west and Israel; you’re a hypocrite if you don’t criticize Iran.”

It flabbergasts them that I’m not saying harsh things about the latest Official Bad Guy of the Day. Everyone on TV is criticizing Iran. Both mainstream political parties are criticizing Iran. Their favorite mainstream political podcasters and online pundits are criticizing Iran. So why isn’t Caitlin Johnstone criticizing Iran? There must be something nefarious and treasonous about her.

It never occurs to them that a principled individual might prioritize opposing the abuses of the power structure they actually live under and can actually exert some influence upon, rather than impotently shouting at a foreign “regime” who has nothing to do with them.

It never occurs the them that the only reason we’re hearing so much about the Official Bad Guy of the Day is because the US is ramping up aggressions on the targeted country, and the imperial media are manufacturing consent for those hostilities.

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It never occurs to them that this frenzied propaganda campaign is the main reason the Official Bad Guy of the Day has been on their mind so much.

It never occurs to them to question who actually benefits from the western population chanting “IRAN BAD! REGIME MUST GO!” in unison like a bunch of animatronic theme park animals while the drums of war are beating louder and louder.

It never occurs to them that someone can simply oppose the warmongering agendas of the US empire on principle, because those agendas are reliably disastrous and the US empire is the most tyrannical power structure on earth.

These things never occur to them because most westerners spend their entire lives in a propaganda echo chamber which constantly feeds them stories about how evil the western empire’s enemies are, while telling them almost nothing about the empire’s own abuses.

The average westerner is not even aware that they live in an empire. The typical Australian thinks “I’m over here in my own separate, sovereign country, and the United States is another country over there doing their own thing, and also Israel is another independent country doing their own thing over there, and likewise with the UK and EU and New Zealand and Canada, and ever other country I’ve been taught to think favorably of.”

In reality they’re all member states of a giant globe-spanning power structure which functions more or less as a single empire with regard to foreign policy. And they work together to subvert, undermine and eventually devour the nations we’ve all been trained to hate.

The western press do not criticize this power structure. Westerners do not learn about it in school. They don’t know it exists, so it never occurs to them that it is something that can be justifiably criticized and opposed.

You don’t see the western press criticizing the US-centralized western empire. You don’t even see them criticizing the United States as a whole. You’ll see them publish criticisms of individual presidents, politicians or political parties, but you hardly ever see them talking about the behavior of the abusive warmongering, militarism, economic warfare and surveillance systems which persist from administration to administration regardless of who happens to be in office.

This is why it’s so baffling to a westerner to see another westerner criticizing western warmongering instead of the Official Bad Guy of the Day. They don’t normally encounter such criticisms. They haven’t been trained to expect it. All they’ve been trained to expect is criticism of Tehran, Putin, Hamas, Maduro, or whoever the empire happens to be angriest at on any given day. So any divergence from their conditioned expectations looks strange and suspicious to them. It looks like something bad is happening.

But it is not a sign that something bad is happening for a westerner to focus their criticism on the western empire. It’s a sign that something bad is happening that so few westerners ever do.

I don’t criticize Iran because I do not want to feed into an imperial war propaganda campaign for a horrific agenda that I do not support. I want to focus my criticisms on the power structure under which I actually live, because that is what one does when one is not a groveling bootlicker, and because the power structure under which I live happens to be the most abusive tyrant on the world stage.

 

(Caitlin Johnstone)