The Fall of the NGO-Administrative Complex

American Minds ^ | 4 Mar 2026 | Jennica Pound=s

[Rummyfan]

The global order is no fan of Iran. Atlantic writer and former National Endowment for Democracy board member Anne Applebaum has consistently named Iran, alongside Russia and China, as one of the three greatest autocracies threatening the world. Senator Chris Murphy, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a speaker at the Council on Foreign Relations, drew an explicit parallel during the 2022 Mahsa Amini massacres, declaring, “Just as we stood together with the people of Ukraine during their revolution of dignity, the United States must continue standing with the people of Iran.”

One might think that these defenders of democracy would celebrate the removal of the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a brutal fundamentalist religious totalitarian.

Instead, those same voices are now loudly condemning the airstrikes. Murphy’s reaction offered no sympathy for the thousands of Iranians killed by the regime—only outrage at Trump: “In America, we don’t allow one doddering, self-obsessed old man to waste our money on a dangerous, disastrous overseas war.” Similarly, Applebaum has criticized Operation Epic Fury’s supposed lack of strategic coherence, not the target.

What is louder than the condemnations of the establishment now is what they failed to do over the previous four decades. They never deployed the same aggressive democratization strategies toward Iran that they’ve applied across the Middle East and Africa. Instead, successive administrations released billions in frozen Iranian assets, negotiated the infamous Iran nuclear deal, and—as Politico’s 2017 Project Cassandra investigation documented—deliberately limited prosecution of Hezbollah drug trafficking networks operating inside the United States to protect those negotiations.

In short, those backing the so-called “rules-based liberal international order” actually wanted Ali Khamenei’s regime to remain in place. Actions speak louder than words. For an order that defines itself by the spread of democracy, this is a striking paradox.

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TOPICS: Miscellaneous; Politics; Society
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[Rummyfan]

Follow the money.....

[AndyJackson]

There is one good point here. The one country where democratization might actually have worked is Persia and that was the one place the global color revolution cabal never actually tried.

[PGalt]

BUMP

[AnotherUnixGeek]

When your income stream depends on complaining about the Iranian regime and pretending to work for its removal, the last thing you want is the removal of the Iranian regime.

This applies to all NGO grifts. The last thing "homeless advocates" want is an end to homelessness. Their income depends on the homeless, so in fact they want more homelessness and they work actively to expand homelessness.

[Robert DeLong]

In fact, increasing either means more money that can be pocketed by these grifters. 😁🤙