Genocide has happened often enough that it is a legitimate field of study, and a very important one at that. Dr. Gregory Stanton has made a study of it --all 55 instances of it he has identified.  Like hurricanes, they can be predicted. Unlike hurricanes, they can be prevented. And Iran is following the pattern.

Mitch Ginsburg, in the Times of Israel, presents a fascinating and chilling description of what Stanton has discovered.

Over the years Stanton realized that all genocides follow eight stages. They are, in this order: classification, symbolization, dehumanization, organization, polarization, preparation, extermination and denial.

Iran, he said, had classified and symbolized Israel through exclusionary ideology and hate speech; dehumanized it - "overcoming the normal human revulsion against murder" - by portraying the potential victims as a "cancer" in need of eradication; organized fanatical militias (the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps); polarized the society by repressing dissent and arresting moderates;  prepared for the killing by denying a past genocide and by constructing weapons of mass destruction; and, through global terrorism, even begun the seventh of his eight stages: extermination.

Lamentably, the Obama administration is uninterested in preventing Iranian genocide of the Jews, but Canada, shamefully virtually unreported in the American media, is actively fighting Iran on genocide, setting an example that all civilized nations should follow. Here is an issue ready made for Mitt Romney if he has the wit tand organization to follow up.

Read the whole thing.

Hat tip: Karin McQuillan