Elica Le Bon: Is War with Iran Coming?

Elica Le Bon, an attorney and Iranian-American activist, talks about Iran's recent strike on Israel on the latest episode of Just Asking Questions.

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Elica Le Bon: Is War with Iran Coming?

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Is war with Iran coming? 

Last Saturday, Iran launched hundreds of armed drones and missiles to attack Israel in retaliation for an airstrike on an Iranian consulate in Syria that killed seven members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, including a general. Israel and the U.S. report that they intercepted most of the drones, and the sole known casualty was a 7-year-old girl critically injured by falling missile shrapnel. Israel has not retaliated…yet. 

In the wake of all that, today's guest had something to say about the way some American activists loudly defended the Islamic Republic of Iran after staying conspicuously silent during protests against the regime and crackdowns that began almost two years ago.

That was Elica Le Bon, a first-generation Iranian immigrant born in the U.K. and currently living in Los Angeles, where she practices law and runs several large social media accounts that bring attention to the plight of the Iranian people. On the latest episode of Just Asking Questions, she talked to Reason's Zach Weissmueller and Liz Wolfe about the Iranian attack, the state of the protest movement and how social media has affected it, and her recent televised exchange with Dave Smith. 

Watch the full conversation on Reason's YouTube channel or the Just Asking Questions podcast feed on Apple, Spotify, or your preferred podcatcher.

Sources referenced in this conversation:

1. Amnesty International: Iran executes 853 people in eight-year high amid relentless repression and renewed 'war on drugs'
2. Mahsa Amini | Flickr
3.  Iran Population 2024 (Live)
4.  Dancing Iranian taxi driver becomes unlikely anti-regime hero
5. Iranian advanced nuclear centrifuges: https://isis-online.org/uploads/isis-reports/documents/Analysis_of_February_2024_IAEA_Iran_Verification_Report_March_4_2024_Final.pdf

• Producer: John Osterhoudt

Comments

[R Mac]

Helloooo Elica!

[Think It Through]

OT or not? Persian women are the most beautiful in the world.

[TheReEncogitationer]

Not off-topic at all! How do you say? Elica Le Bon est tres bonne!
🙂
😉

[tracerv]

Eastern Bloc or GTFO.

[TheReEncogitationer]

Relax, it's not a life-or-death struggle...although mud-wrestling could answer the question at least until the next round.
🙂
😉

[R Mac]

You’re welcome:

https://twitter.com/elicalebon/status/1548723562881486848

Edit: Off Topic?

[TheReEncogitationer]

Is "Yowsah!" the same in both English and Farsi?
🙂
😉
On a less lacivious note, she has many interesting thoughts. A little more Left than many Libertarians, but she is making a real effort to question. Nothing that some all-night Snoggle-and-Snuggle Sessions couldn't solve.
🙂
😉

[JeremyR]

The other day I saw a picture of the most absolutely gorgeous Iranian woman, but half her face had been scarred by acid because she wasn't wearing a hijab.

[TheReEncogitationer]

The Islamofascist asshole who did that needs steeping in a whole barrelful of acid until they look like Jeff Dunham's Ahmed The Dead Terrorist.

[Bubba Jones]

Unfortunate choice of photos TBH

She looks like a sex doll.

Close your mouth and look at the camera. Pick a shot where your clothes are not entirely hidden behind your hair.

She looks lifeless and naked.

[A Cynical Asshole]

She looks lifeless and naked.

Some people are into that.

[Graf Fuddington von Fuddrick]

Does she have an onlyfans?

[MWAocdoc]

The Iranian people had the most socially and culturally advanced nation in the middle east under the Shah and they had a choice between continuing that and switching to Russian style communism. So they chose a fundamentalist Islamic totalitarian theocracy instead. Sorry, but no sympathy for the Iranian people here.

[TheReEncogitationer]

Look, I haven't voted since 2004. Am I responsible fof all the absolute shit that has gone down in the U.S.? Or are those who have voted since?

[Don't look at me!]

Some of it is on you.
Here’s looking at you, sarcasmic.

[TheReEncogitationer]

I've still spoke out against it all, which is both my Natural and Constitutional Right, regardless of whether I vote.

If he were still around, I'd have to tell him:

"So, Herr Marty, I did speak up. And I did it at a time when you wouldn't. You know, before the Jackboots started wanting Swastikas on the choir robes?...So what now?"

Another argument for not voting: Not voting and letting your voter registation lapse keeps you off of Party mailing lists and hopefully government lists too. Hence, it adds to your efficacy as an activist.

[sarcasmic]

I've been told that not voting is the same as voting for the other team.

[R Mac]

Cite?

[TheReEncogitationer]

And I've been told that voting Libertarian only steals votes from the Party that is begging for them most (usually Republican, but I've heard Democrats say that too.)

So, again, you can't win with Statists/Collectivists even if you do vote.

[sarcasmic]

Last time I voted was for Gary’s Johnson. I could actually vote for that guy. At this point there’s nobody to vote for, and I simply refuse to vote against whomever I perceive to be worst piece of garbage on the ballot.

[EISTAU Gree-Vance]

Why would you vote for a dudes Johnson? How would that even work?

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

I voted for Bush in 2000 because he loves Jesus. I voted for him in 2004 because he tortured and slaughtered innocent Muslims!

[Graf Fuddington von Fuddrick]

Fuck off Pluggo. Don’t you have some kiddie porn to watch?

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Volokh has been banning people and I gave him a heads up about you…so you are on notice.

[VULGAR MADMAN]

Teachers punk

[TheReEncogitationer]

Again, Sam. Go practice some "Effective Altruism" on yourself. There are some fine Canadian Doctors who will help.

[TheReEncogitationer]

I guess what I'm saying is that no matter how a nation got into the mess it is in, what matters is what people do to get it out.

Myself, I choose not to support an electoral system that gives False Binaries between a Giant Douche and a Turd Sandwich. Elica Le Bon's tactics are her own unique choice too and I hope they work well.

Hey, if the libidos of the Mullahs and The Revolutionary Guard weren't dulled from snorting saltpeter, maybe Elica Le Bon could seduce them into freeing Iran!
🙂
😉

[MWAocdoc]

What you're saying is nonsense then. Nations don't just get into messes they are in. Someone PUTS them there or fails to stop it. I did not put America into the mess it's in although I have failed to stop others from putting us deeper and deeper into this mess. Every generation of my ancestors I have been able to document has fought in wars to get us out of the messes we were in at the time except my grandfathers (World War I) and I served during Vietnam although that was not a mess of my making and I protested against it before I joined up. The Iranians could have done the same and the most recent Iranian protestors - some of whom paid for it with their lives - deserve credit for the risk they took. Their parents screwed them over royally, but that doesn't justify this narrative that the Iranian people are victims. They unquestionably know EXACTLY what they have to do to eliminate Islamic rule in their country.

[mtrueman]

"They unquestionably know EXACTLY what they have to do to eliminate Islamic rule in their country."

They have to persuade the army and the police to oppose the Mullahs. That's how the Mullahs were able to pull off what they did against the Shah. Opposing the Shah, in that case.

[TheReEncogitationer]

I’m sure some are working on it. Months ago, women went out in the streets and dared morality police to arrest them for not wearing the Hijab.

The cities in Iran have a booming underground club scene. One old man nicknamed “Uncle Sedagh” danced on social media and drew such a fanbase, they forced the local Mullahs to back down.

I’m sure also that there are Iranian soldiers and regular beat cops ready to mutiny when the time is right. Must wait and see…

[R Mac]

The CIA had more to do with that than the average Iranian citizen.

[Square = Circle]

And the account that I've heard from more than one person who was there is that the point of the uprising was to set up a western-style democratic government, but that the students who fomented the initial uprising didn't (surprise, surprise) have a plan for what to do if they actually succeeded.

Unfortunately, unlike Paris 1968, there was an organized and well-funded group of religious fanatics waiting in the wings who did have a plan. Now the Iranian people have soured a bit on revolution given how very poorly the last one turned out.

[sarcasmic]

Their government doesn’t represent the majority of the people. But they’re stuck because they can’t do anything about it. Sure most of them identify as Muslim, but that's because they fear punishment if they say anything different. Think the cops here are bad, over there plainclothes men drive around in vans and physically attack people for violating Sharia law. Fight back and you’ll likely be killed. No courts and no accountability. I don’t know how they’re going to get out from under their theocratic despots without outside intervention.

[MWAocdoc]

It’s funny how communist insurgents are always so effective everywhere in the world with a few rockets and AK-47s but for some reason libertarian insurgents can never really seem to make any headway even with the backing of the CIA. It’s almost as if the Iranian people don’t really WANT freedom. They certainly have not rallied around their martyrs recently, risking their own lives to fight for freedom. Or maybe some evil secret conspiracy is working against liberty.

[n00bdragon]

Communist insurgents have something that libertarian insurgents don't: Apathy towards fellow human beings. Communism is infused from the ground up with righteousness. The entire premise is that no action is too heinous and no freedom is too sacred. "Effective" is a strong word. The societies that communists build are backwards and barbaric. Where humanity and progress exists inside them it does so in spite of the communism, not because of it. The basic human drive to build something better and leave something to the children is like a weed. Communism tries to exterminate it and sometimes, for awhile, it can appear to succeed. However, it always comes back.

[sarcasmic]

Communist insurgents have something that libertarian insurgents don’t: Apathy towards fellow human beings.

More importantly they have a desire for power over the lives of other people, while libertarians would rather leave people alone.

And that of course is the libertarian conundrum: How do you get people who don't want power into positions of power?

[Graf Fuddington von Fuddrick]

Cleanse the Marxists from our country.

[sarcasmic]

It’s funny how communist insurgents are always so effective everywhere in the world with a few rockets and AK-47s but for some reason libertarian insurgents can never really seem to make any headway even with the backing of the CIA.

It's easily explained by the fact that communists are passionate about changing society by force and have many roadmaps laid out for them, while libertarians have no such desire nor are there any historical examples of governments willingly giving up power that they could use as a guide.

[MWAocdoc]

The CIA arguably was involved to prop up the Shah against communist infiltration, if it's ever justified to try to explain what the CIA was doing or why. The domino theory was firmly in control of the ruling American elite and deep state at the time. I have heard analysts claim that the Russians were just as surprised at the Islamic revolution when the Shah fell as we were. It doesn't say much for Iranians that they were so easily manipulated by foreign powers and the slaves of Allah.

[tracerv]

Simon LeBon: Her name is Rio and she dances on the sand.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

Wait a sec ...

That was Elica Le Bon, a first-generation Iranian immigrant born in the U.K. and currently living in Los Angeles

Born in UK but she's an Iranian immigrant?

[n00bdragon]

She's an immigrant... in the US, from England.

[TheReEncogitationer]

Masha Amini | Flickr
The post from this person mentions "neo-liberal" policies of thr Mullahs. Where have the Mullahs done this? And does "neo-liberal" mean anything if it applies to Maragret Thatcher, the Clintons, and the Mullahs of Iran?

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Nobody with the last name “Bush” was ever president. 😉

[Graf Fuddington von Fuddrick]

Your display of retardation is breathtaking.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Clinton was president and then yada yada yada the gay black Muslim controlled by the Iranian puppet master destroyed America.

[TheReEncogitationer]

As much as I despised The Little Bush Boy, I’m not reliving 2000 and “dimpled chads.”

If you choose to live there in perpetuity, that is all the more reason for you to commit “Effective Altruism.” ‘Bye!

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

You will just relive 2020 and Dominion voting machines, right?? Btw, Democrats got everything we wanted in 2000 eventually…and Republicans apparently got everything they wanted with invading Iraq and waging war against the Taliban and tax cuts for the wealthy. Why would Democrats care if the wealthy got tax cuts but the government still spent all of the money necessary for Medicare Part D and Obamacare?? And as far as Roe v Wade—we had more abortions after it was overturned.

[TheReEncogitationer]

I'm not reliving any of it! You assume I'm MAGA just because I'm not a Democrat, which further emphasizes the Giant Douche/Turd Sandwich False Binary.

As a Extropoan/Transhumanist/Singularitarian, I say that my "Current Thing" and "Good Old Days" haven't come yet!

[mtrueman]

"Where have the Mullahs done this? "

In Iran. One of the key constituents of the revolution that brought the Mullahs to power were the Bazaari, Iran's merchant class. After the revolution conservative think tanks, like Canada's Fraser Institute praised Iran's changes and bumped the country up a few notches on their 'nations friendly to business' rankings up from their position under the Shah, a truly fascistic, nasty piece of work. Friend to US and Israel, yes, but no friend to the Bazaari, and a torturer and murderer to boot.

[Roberta]

So, yes or no? I'm not taking the time for a video.

[TheReEncogitationer]

I'll save you the time: Just submit yourself to the horrors of slavery under Islam instead of the horrors of war. You'll make some Mullah a great pet.

Meanwhile, real Libertarians will not fear or submit to either the Shahsdah blaring from a Minaret or the sound of a thermonucleat blast. We will live and die on terms to our own liking.