Does it feel heroic? Does the blood taste different on your tongue when it’s spilled in the name of democracy? The world laughs and the headlines boom—'Iran's nuclear sites severely damaged.' And the very people who wring their hands about ‘world peace,’ who detest terrorism in all its forms, click, share, and smile with subtle satisfaction. Because this isn’t terrorism—this is the good kind of destruction, the blessed kind, the one painted in stars and stripes, not crescent moons.

Let’s drop the mask: the sanctimony spewing from Western lips about international law and moral high ground is a rotting corpse propped up for Instagram photo ops. The CIA boasts—openly, now—that sabotage works. That secret networks, cyberweapons, and remote-triggered explosions are more ‘civilized’ than suicide bombers or revolutionaries. Here’s the unvarnished hypocrisy: violence isn’t about method, it’s about authorship. Slaughter is only illegal if the other side does it.

Imagine the shoe on Tehran’s foot: Iran announcing it had hacked the Hoover Dam, shutting down a city’s power for a month, or that agents slipped into Los Alamos and set back the American bomb by a decade. Would the world applaud? Would talking heads wag their approval? No—you’d call it a war crime, an outrage, the first shot of Armageddon. But when clandestine American teams leave radioactive dust at Natanz, it’s celebrated as a masterstroke. The president winks at the cameras, the CIA director preens, and anxious cable hosts peddle the party line. ‘We had to do it. It was for your safety.’

Wake up: this is not deterrence, it’s a declaration. It’s permission—permission to bypass treaties, to eviscerate lines we pretend are sacred. We rail against enemies hiding behind civilian shields, while our media serves as the shield for state sabotage. The West’s monopoly on moral violence is a lie so deep, even self-styled progressives swallow it whole. Do you fear nuclear proliferation? You should. But you should fear more the precedent: might makes right, and the line between hero and villain is a coin toss away.

Don’t avert your eyes because you think the world is safer now. Don’t act surprised when the instruments of sabotage you cheer today are wielded against you tomorrow. History is a mirror polished by hypocrisy, and you’re staring right at yourself.

This article was inspired by the headline: 'CIA director says Iran's nuclear sites 'severely damaged''.