International Law doesn't apply
International Law doesn't seem to matter one bit when it comes to attacks against Muslim majority parts of the world. There's no better current example of that here on the 30th of Jan 2026 then
the escalating threat of imminent attack on Iran by the United States of America1. A threat that hasn't gotten any pushback from the supposed 'free world' of Western European and Anglo nations.
It's just like a videogame or movie
A part of this I think is how desensitized we have been made by our culture to the concept of attacks through airstrikes and explosions. Let us be clear that what an airstrike means is shredded children, shrapnel embedded in flesh, broken bones, the stench of blood, the screams of terror and anguish and pain from our fellow human beings, and the overwhelming horror of picking through rubble and scattered body parts to try to find your loved ones. A sensation and emotion that should be unimaginable but isn't for far too many of us as it is the actual reality of these actions.
Such devastation should only be allowed, if ever, under the most dire of circumstances, but no such circumstances exist even remotely in the Islamic Republic of Iran and that is a fact no matter what you think of that state and its governing structure.
But this desensitization does not explain why the 'free world' is able to mobilize to fight back against such horror in Ukraine and to the threat of it in Greenland but has the opposite reaction in Iran. For that we need to turn to.
Islamophobia
There is an underlying sentiment that I have experienced in Canada, and on the English internet, that the horrific violence and human tragedies that occur routinely in Muslim Majority parts of the world is 'just how it is', and 'that's how those people are', which is a shrug, and a dismissal, and a turning away from recognizing the full and equal humanity of the people in those places and who come from those places. A callousness that doesn't exist for Ukrainians for example. And this unexamined sentiment not only allows for turning a blind eye and a cold shoulder to the suffering, but also authorizes our governments to cause violence and pain and suffering in those regions.
This post is as much about Palestine and Libya and Sudan as it is about Iran.
The ramifications
So here is where I'm going to appeal to your self-interest. Callousness does not stay contained. As us Muslims are human, believe or not, any callousness that is allowed against us also extends to others that can be othered as we are. Up to and including people like Renee Nicole Good and Alex Jeffrey Pretti on the streets of Minneapolis, Minnesota for the United States of America23.
None of us are safe until all of us are. Call your politicians and demand they speak out against the attack on Iran.
All opinions are my own, in the end only God knows Best.