Ali Harbi Ali, a 25-year-old Muslim man of Somali descent, lunged at and repeatedly stabbed British MP Sir David Amess with a knife. Amess, 69, died soon after.... It is worth noting that, when it comes to severely persecuting and slaughtering Christians, Somalia is the world's third-worst ranked nation, after Afghanistan (#2) and North Korea (#1) . — United Kingdom.

"The Christians are treated as slaves bounded to Muslims... Christians enjoy no rights, no dignity, and no protection in this country. The overall system of society is based on religious hatred against Christians and other minorities." — Asif Muniwar, local human rights defender; International Christian Concern, October 12, 2021, Pakistan

[T]hree Christian workers died after Muslim emergency staff refused to rescue them because Christians are supposedly "ritually unclean." Problems began when the Muslim employers of sewage worker Michael Masih, aged 33, threatened to fire him unless he entered a highly toxic sewer without any personal protective equipment or masks.... "An emergency team got to the sewer within 10 minutes but on arrival they looked down the pipe and could see the men but refused to save them. This was on account that they were choorah [dirty cleaners] and would cause the Muslims to become ritually impure." — British Asian Christian Association, October 8, 2021, Pakistan.

"Many shops were looted after they set them on fire. Church of Christ in All Nation (COCIN) was also burned down.... "[M]any houses were set ablaze. Bulls used for farming were also killed." A local eyewitness said the murderers were dressed in Nigerian army uniforms and traveling in two vans owned by the Nigerian army. — International Christian Concern, October 17, 2021, Nigeria, which U.S. Secretary of Antony Blinken just removed from its 2021 List of "Countries of Particular Concern".

"[T]he herdsmen returned and shot [Dr. Habila Solomon, a medical doctor who also served as a Christian pastor] in his chest, killing him instantly. He was the reason why many people saw hope.... In the course of doing missions, God used him to provide drinking water, shelter, free education and feed the poor.... [and] also provided the [Muslim] herdsmen and their families with free medical care." — Morning Star News, October 25, 2021, Nigeria.

"Nigeria's government seems unable or unwilling to stop the growing carnage.... More Christians have been killed for their faith in Nigeria in the last year than in the entire Middle East. Unless we find our voice, what is happening in Nigeria will move relentlessly toward a Christian genocide." — Former U.S. Under Secretary of Education, Gary L. Bauer, calling Nigeria a "killing field" of Christians;" The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom 2021 annual report; Nigeria.

Although the abduction, rape, and forced conversion to Islam of Christian girls and other religious minorities is rampant in Pakistan—with Muslim police, judges, and authorities often siding with the kidnappers and rapists—the nation is now witnessing record breaking numbers.... a nearly 300% increase from 2020.... This report comes on the heels of the Pakistani government's rejection of an anti-forced conversion bill, which would have helped protect such minor girls. — Union of Catholic Asian News, October 14 and 18, 2021, Pakistan.

"My cross has been with me for 40 years. It is part of me, and my faith, and it has never caused anyone any harm.... At this hospital there are members of staff who go to a mosque four times a day and no one says anything to them. Hindus wear red bracelets on their wrists and female Muslims wear hijabs in theatre. Yet my small cross around my neck was deemed so dangerous that I was no longer allowed to do my job." — NHS nurse Mary Onuoha, who had fled from Uganda to the UK for religious freedom; Daily Mail, October 5, 2021, United Kingdom.

"Why do some NHS employers feel that the cross is less worthy of protection or display than other religious attire?" — Andrea Williams, chief executive of the Christian Legal Centre; Daily Mail, October 5, 2021, United Kingdom.

The argument [to bring Iran "in from the cold"] is that the Islamic Republic is behaving badly because, "excluded" from the outside world, it feels like a threatened lone wolf and thus obliged to adopt an aggressive posture.

The most persistent peddlers of that bill of goods have been US President Barack Obama and his Secretary of State John Kerry. It is their efforts that President Joe Biden and his Secretary of State Antony Blinken seem determined to resume.

But how true is the "exclusion" theory with regard to the Islamic Republic?

The answer is: not at all.

Far from trying to "exclude" the Islamic Republic almost every country, first among them the United States, have often gone out of their way to include and accommodate Tehran's new rulers. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's seizure of power was instantly accepted by all members of the United Nations.

The US was even in a hurry to curry favor with Tehran's new rulers.

The Carter administration quickly named Lloyd Cutler, the presidential legal advisor, as the ambassador-designate to Tehran and ordered the shipment of arms to Iran to be resumed. What happened was "self-exclusion" as a Khomeinist gang, with a nod and a wink from the Ayatollah, raided the US Embassy in Tehran and took its diplomats hostage.

"By the mid-1970s, Iran had a well-educated and motivated corps of nuclear scientists who, backed by substantial financial resources from the government, undertook research into all aspects of the new technology, including its military applications." — Ardeshir Zahedi, former Foreign Minister of Iran, Wall Street Journal, June 25, 2004.