This is a good time for a further look at the role of military men in politics. I was brought up on the liberal assumption that it is necessarily bad; but, like Aesop’s tongues, the man on the white horse may be either good or bad, depending on the man or men seizing or attaining power, and how they exercise it once they have it. Since it is impossible to escape the principle of relativity in political ethics, it is worth considering whether the rule of the soldier is better or worse than that which preceded it or may follow it.
Right now, for instance, if a military strongman deprived the Ayatollah and the other Mullahs of their presumption of transmitting the word of God in a theocratic state, most people would be relieved.
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