Malaysian politicians are full of surprises. Just when you thought they can't come up with anything dumber, they outdo themselves without failure, often to the dismay of their own people.
The country's Prime Minister, Anwar Ibrahim, has clearly gotten jealous of Western liberals and wanted to taste the drug of "virtue-signalling" by coming out in support of Iran, currently bombed by Israel which is trying to destroy its nuclear program.
Now, that alone wouldn't be anything special, of course (after all, even the Saudis feigned outrage) but his framing of the conflict is absolutely ludicrous.
Standing for the “oppressed”
Yes yes, ladies and gentlemen, in the words of Anwar Ibrahim Iran is "oppressed" and deserves international solidarity:
Mind you, he didn't mean the Iranian people, for decades actually oppressed by the theocratic, Islamic regime which murders thousands each year for protesting against its rule, corruption and political violence. Or which forces women to veil themselves (or else puts them behind bars or worse) and bans people from walking their dogs:
No, neither Anwar nor any other Malaysian leader has ever made a peep about the real oppression in Iran – perhaps because they themselves are busy oppressing their own non-Malay citizens, by keeping discriminatory Bumiputera laws, despite the fact it's 2025. And despite their own electoral promises.
Like all others before him, the "Reformasi" founder simply lied his way into power and then shrugged when asked why. And yet now he wants to assume some moral superiority when a brutal, bloody regime in Iran gets rightly bombed by the people it has for decades pledged death to.
But there's more.
"Islamic countries are rich but they are not strong. When it comes to defending Iran, not many dare to speak up. [..] That is why I told my Cabinet colleagues that Malaysia must be capable. We are an independent sovereign nation and we must defend the rights of Iran." - Anwar Ibrahim
Lo and behold, everyone, Malaysia to the rescue! Other Islamic countries are not strong enough, but Malaysia must lead by example by supporting the unfairly oppressed Iran!
Evil or just dumb?
There are just two ways to explain Anwar choosing to embarrass himself publicly in such a silly way in the age of the internet and global media, which will quickly pick up such statements and circulate them internationally.
Either he's a closeted extremist, sympathising with Iran's goal of acquiring nuclear weapons and wiping Israel off the map, or he is simply an idiot making a fool of himself and his country. Perhaps both.
Anwar is known to have had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, and Malaysia itself has long been sympathetic not only to Iran or the Palestinians, but has also harboured Hamas and allegedly was a training location for its terrorists.
In other words, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that Anwar is not the civilised reformist he portrays himself to be, but merely another power-hungry Islamist who got on the wrong side of his political rivals at some point and spent years in jail for it.
Nevertheless, he seems to also be quite dumb or, at the very least, banking on the stupidity of the public listening to him to score political points.
When he says that the Islamic world isn't all that vocal about the alleged injustice that has befallen Iran, it's not because it is weak, but because much of it has been the target of Iranian violence for years.
The Houthi rebellion in Yemen was supported by Tehran and led to a war involving both UAE and Saudi Arabia. Alawite regime in Syria has been allied to Tehran for decades. Hezbollah became a state within a state in Lebanon, dominating local politics, drawing the country into wars with Israel several times. Hamas and other Arab militia in Palestine were abandoned by Arab supporters since their Iran-funded extremism began spilling over to other countries. Which is one of the reasons the largest Arab nation, Egypt, participates in the security blockade of Gaza.
Iran's destructive influence on Muslim lives extends as far as Morocco, which continues fighting the Polisario insurgency that Iran armed via Hezbollah, what led to the severance of diplomatic ties in 2018 (which have not yet been restored).
Iran has done inordinately more damage to the Islamic world than Israel. And yet Anwar Ibrahim is perplexed why other Islamic nations are not too eager to speak up when it gets bombed.
It's very simple: they all want Jews to win.
