Iran Sentences French Citizens: When 'Espionage' is Relative
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claims these French citizens received 63 years combined for 'spying for France.' Western media, including ABC, dutifully reports this as a shocking revelation of state repression. What's conspicuously absent is any acknowledgment of the 1953, CIA-backed coup that overthrew Iran's democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, or the decades
of covert interventions and sanctions that followed. One might wonder if the West's hands are entirely clean enough to cast the first stone at 'espionage' charges. Instead of merely reporting Iran's charges, perhaps a moment of self-reflection on the long-standing, well-documented history of Western intelligence operations in Iran, (from Operation Ajax to current sanctions, targeting everything
from nuclear programs to civilian infrastructure), would yield a more balanced, albeit inconvenient, narrative. It seems 'espionage' is only appalling when the other side labels it so, and 'foreign interference' is only condemned when it's not being executed by Washington or its allies.