It's Persian Flu season again...!

Symptoms include not only sneezes, scratchy throat, fever, and a rash, but also delusions about the "Iranian people".

This flu does not merely affect the broader Western Mainstream, but has also infected the Counter-Jihad Mainstream (CJM).

The flu began in the last week of last year only as a mild cold.  About the mass protests in Iran, Robert Spencer, the éminence grise of the CJM, wrote:

The protests were, at least initially, over economic troubles, not against the Islamic Republic as such, but to chant “Death to the dictator” is getting quite close to calling for an end to the Islamic regime. Before the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Iran was a Western-oriented, relatively secular regime, and there is no reason why it could not be again.

Then, about this headline:

Iran: Hundreds of thousands of protesters shout “We don’t want an Islamic Republic”

Spencer's symptoms only got worse:

This is extraordinary, and could presage the return of some freedom to Iran, and its standing-down as one of the world’s foremost enemies of freedom.  

Another headline:

Iran: Tehran police say they’ll no longer arrest women for violating the Islamic dress code

And Spencer's Persian fever rose:

This is momentous: the first crack in the Sharia wall... Will American feminists stand with the Iranian women who have been bravely taking off their hijabs over the last few days? Not likely. In any case, we can hope that this is just the first sign of the regime’s weakness, and a harbinger of its impending demise.

About one of the alleged chants of the Iranian People  -- “Not Gaza, Not Lebanon, my soul for Iran.” -- Spencer writes:

They’re saying they want a government that will stop funding the global jihad and take care of its own citizens.

About another alleged chant of the Iranian People -- “Reza Shah, bless your soul!” -- Spencer writes:

Reza Shah was the Shah of Iran from 1925 to 1941 and the father of Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, the Shah who was overthrown in the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Reza Shah admired Turkey’s Ataturk and set Iran on a similar path of Westernization and secularization. In chanting this, the protesters are emphasizing that they do not want an Islamic Republic.

Editorializing on this headline --  Iran: Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps opens fire on peaceful protesters, murdering five, injuring four -- Spencer writes:

A tragedy and an outrage. And to think this criminal regime has apologists in the West.

 Then, as the crisis got worse (Iran: After cops murder protesters, protesters set fire to police and security offices) and publishing this tweet --



Spencer's Persian Fever spiked, with the first signs of hallucination (believing hundreds of thousands of Muslims can be "freedom fighters" just because they oppose other Muslims):

The freedom fighters aren’t giving up easily.

(More to come... In the meantime, here's some bedtime reading for your bedrest...)