The Martyrdom of a Teenage Iranian Wrestler and the Hero of the Coming Rebellion

AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, File

"Choose your enemies as carefully as you choose your friends."
— Morton Blackwell’s Laws of the Public Policy Process (#35)

He had just turned 19. And now he’s gone.

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In a different, better, saner world, Saleh Mohammadi would still be alive — and all his dreams still within his mighty grasp: Olympic champion! Wrestling glory! Freedom for his people! Becoming a father!

And raising his children in a different, better, saner Iran.

On March 19, an executioner wrapped a noose around Saleh Mohammadi’s muscular neck. Moments later, in the city of Qom, he was murdered in broad daylight by the Iranian mullahs. And all his dreams were gone.

All his dreams but one.

He was arrested in January, sentenced to death in February, and murdered in March. It wasn’t done in secret: The same left-wing activists who took to the streets for the Palestinians could’ve supported him, too. At hoity-toity gatherings like the Academy Awards, there was ample time for all the caring, morally superior leftists to speak his name — and champion his cause.

No one ever did.

From CBS News:

Two sources confirmed to CBS News that Saleh Mohammadi, a young member of Iran's national wrestling team, was among the three men executed in Iran.

Rights groups said the trio were executed without a fair trial and had given confessions under torture.

Mohammadi, Mehdi Ghasemi, and Saeed Davoudi were hanged in the city of Qom, south of Tehran, after being convicted of the capital crime of waging war against God, known as moharebeh under Iran's sharia, the judiciary's Mizan news agency said.

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His “conviction” was a formality. The Iranian mullahs tortured Mohammadi for days, beating a confession out of him.

There had been particular concern over the fate of Mohammadi, a teenage wrestling champion who had taken part in international competitions, who, according to Amnesty International, was denied "adequate defense and forced to make 'confessions'... in fast-tracked proceedings that bore no resemblance to a meaningful trial".

Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights said after the executions the three "had been sentenced to death following an unfair trial, based on confessions obtained under torture."

It said Mohammadi had only turned 19 last week.

Iranian legal affairs monitor Dadban added that they were "deprived of effective access to independent counsel and the right to defense" and under such circumstances, the use of the death penalty resembles an "extrajudicial killing."

And in Western Europe, liberal America, and college campuses everywhere, there were no mass protests for Mohammadi’s release. No one waved homemade banners; no one spoke his name; nobody cared. Instead of being outraged, Leftists Of Superior, Enlightened Rationality — a.k.a. L.O.S.E.R.s — clenched their lips, shrugged their shoulders, and stayed perfectly silent.

"It’s a hell of a thing, killing a man. You take away all he’s got, and all he’s ever gonna have."
—William Munny (Clint Eastwood), Unforgiven

But that’s just not true: Death doesn’t take away everything. It can’t erase the reality of our terrestrial wake — or the consequences of our earthly choices.

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Our legacy, good or bad, will continue. Not even death can extinguish its flame. It’s as immortal as Mohammadi’s soul.

And sometimes, after death, our legacy grows.

Two thousand years ago, three men were killed at Calvary. Their legacy didn’t merely endure; it revolutionized the world.

Two thousand years later, in the city of Qom, three others were killed. They were decades younger than Christ — but just like before, the blood of innocents stained the earth.

Say their names: Saeed Davoudi, Mehdi Ghasemi, and Saleh Mohammadi.

And keep saying their names until every city, village, and enclave in Iran knows their story. If one of the goals of the U.S.-Israeli military is regime change, the red shirt is a green light for rebellion.

"The tyrant dies and his rule is over, the martyr dies and his rule begins."
—Soren Kierkegaard

History will record that it was a deliberate, calculated choice of the mullahs. Nobody forced them to rain missiles, drones, and bombs on their neighbors. They did it all on their own.

They chose their enemies… poorly.

And now the Arab world is united against Iran. The mullahs are isolated — and dying in droves. No matter how much they rage, rage against the dying of the light, it’s beyond their means to escape the darkness. 

Eventually, night comes for us all.

Yet Mohammadi’s soul marches on, ablaze with hope and faith. Finally free of his mortal chains, his future burns brighter than a thousand suns.

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Because successful rebellions are born of hope and faith. 

Which means, dictatorships stay alive by sowing despair, doubt, and fear. Without hope — without faith — freedom is strangled in the womb. An uninspired people will never rebel.

That’s why God blesses us with martyrs: They inspire us to see the light in the darkness, no matter how faintly it flickers.

Since this war began, Iran’s greatest external miscalculation has been attacking its neighbors. Now, the mullahs are isolated, alone, and forlorn. At long last, Iran is a regime without allies.

But its greatest internal miscalculation was giving the rebels a martyr.

When the U.S.-Israeli air raids stop, there will be a rebellion in Iran. It’s 100% guaranteed. Sadly, far more than 36,500 civilians will probably join Saleh Mohammadi in heaven — and Tehran’s streets will run with blood. It’s no longer a question of if, but a matter of when.

Because, when the Iranian people rebelled in December and January, the casus belli were economic factors: inflation, currency depreciation, and food prices.

All of which are now far worse.

But the one thing the Iranian civilians lacked was a martyr to rally around. A source of inspiration — a human face of the mullah’s cruelty — a hero of rare courage, hope, and faith.

Mohammadi was young, handsome, brave, and pure. His death was an abomination in the eyes of God.

And that’s a hell of a lot more inspiring than inflation or currency.

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On the morning of Thursday, March 19, Saleh Mohammadi was just a teenager. Today, he’s infinitely greater. When his body dropped and swung from a rope, his soul ascended, climbing to the highest seat in the sky — and now it burns with glorious brilliance, overpowering tyranny’s shadows. It blazes with such furious, uncompromising luminosity, blindness is impossible: Everyone can see everything.

He stripped the mullahs of their masks and will inspire a nation.

Don’t ever forget the name of Saleh Mohammadi. His people won’t.

He’s the hero of a rebellion that’s about to explode.

Related: How to Lobotomize Iran, Win the War, and Humiliate Europe in Two Easy Steps

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