The Iran War Will Subject the First Amendment to Battlefield Testing

​While missiles are flying and bombs detonating in the Middle East, domestic political rhetoric has predictably become progressively more bombastic and incendiary. As in all wars, the First Amendment will be tested by the desire to shut down speech judged to be warmongering, unpatriotic, or just plain stupid.

It was off to the races after New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani called President Trump’s strikes on Iran “a catastrophic escalation in an illegal war of aggression,” adding: “I want to speak directly to Iranian New Yorkers: you are part of the fabric of this city – you are our neighbors, small business owners, students, artists, workers, and community leaders. You will be safe here.”

When we read this we had the same thought as millions of other Americans – yes, they will be safe here. No sanctioned religious police will cuff Iranian-American women about the ears if they appear in public without a headscarf on Lexington Avenue, or rape them in a police station if they are arrested. Iranian-American students, artists, and community leaders need not fear being slowly strangled to death by having a steel cable put around their necks before being lifted into the air by a crane.

Masih Alinejad, an Iranian-American journalist in New York, shot back at the mayor: “I don’t feel safe in New York listening to someone like you, Mamdani, who sympathizes with the regime that killed more than 30,000 unarmed Iranians in less than 24 hours.”

We would add that if Iran’s ambition to build a nuclear bomb is not arrested, then no New Yorker will be safe. But let us leave that point and examine how the First Amendment comes into this debate.

We predict that before the cherry blossoms bloom around Washington’s Tidal Basin, official threats will be leveled against the speech rights of critics of the attack on Iran. We also expect a few lonely voices in Hollywood, academia, and other centers of monolithic opinion will be hounded, harassed, and threatened if they dare break with the received views of the cultural cognoscenti.

With rhetorical bombs bursting in air, we should keep in mind that the United States has a history of government trying to crack down on “unpatriotic” speech on one side, and violence to end participation in a war on the other. During World War One, the Woodrow Wilson administration secured a 10-year prison sentence against presidential candidate Eugene Debs of the Socialist Party for criticizing America’s entry into that conflict. During the Nixon years, the Weather Underground planted more than two dozen bombs to protest the Vietnam War.

In the face of a new war, we should keep in mind that the First Amendment protects speech that is stupid, false, unpatriotic, warmongering, and ungrounded in fact. The hot exchange between Mayor Mamdani and Alinejad shows that speech and counter-speech can be pointed, polemical, and angry – hallmarks of American political speech since before we were a country – without resorting to laws or mob action to punish the speaker for speaking.
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President Trump said on Monday that the military action against Iran could last for weeks. As events roll forward, we should keep our emotions in check and respect the speech rights of all – even if we have no respect for what is said.

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