What El-Sayed Won't Say About Iran Tells Michigan Everything

David Harsanyi on Sep 25, 2026

During a recent town hall, a Michigan University student named Iman Dashti confronted Democratic Party's Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed regarding his habitual whitewashing and rationalization of Islamic terrorism.

Dashti, who says his family is a victim of the Iranian regime's theocratic persecution, pressed the candidate numerous times to denounce one of the world's most odious tyrannies.

Did El-Sayed regret not speaking out against the tyrannical clerics of Iran?

Would he now renounce those who held vigils supporting the mass murderer Ayatollah Ali Khamenei?

Would he "unequivocally" condemn the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps -- a group that's not only tortured, imprisoned and killed tens of thousands of Iranian civilians in the past year but is responsible for the murder of hundreds of Americans?

The answer was no, no and no. El-Sayed wouldn't.

Rather, the candidate offered a platitudinous word salad on how the United States should avoid becoming "the world's policeman" and how we can still stand "in solidarity with freedom and democracy movements."

Dashti didn't ask El-Sayed about regime change in Iran. He asked the candidate to offer a condemnation of some of the most odious characters in the world. El-Sayed simply couldn't do it. And it is important to ask why.

There's nothing inherently wrong with arguing that the U.S. shouldn't be the world's policeman. But we already know that El-Sayed has no qualms demanding that Americans act like the police.

Otherwise, why would he demand the Trump administration arrest the elected prime minister of our ally Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, at the behest of an international "court" helmed by activists from France, Benin and Slovenia?

And El-Sayed's refusal to speak on the death of Ayatollah Khamenei, killed in a joint American-Israeli air strike, had absolutely nothing to do with an aversion to the U.S. meddling abroad. We know this from leaked audio in which the candidate instructed his staff not to comment on the death of the medieval Islamic Twelver radical who led his nation in chants of "Death to America" because "there are a lot of people in Dearborn who are sad today."

Judging from the preponderance of evidence, El-Sayed was almost surely sad, himself.

El-Sayed says he opposes foreign entanglements. But while he not only wants to cut off U.S. aid to Israel but also stop any sales of military equipment, even defensive ones, he supports military aid to Ukraine. The Senate candidate maintains the difference is that, unlike the Jewish state, Ukraine was attacked by Russia, who had broken "international law."

Which means that El-Sayed doesn't consider the murder of over 1,200 Israeli men, women and children against "international law." Nor does he consider the launching of over 350 ballistic missiles at Israel by Iran -- nearly two years before Operation Epic Fury was initiated -- a belligerent act of war.

It makes sense. The first instinct of El-Sayed, who once protested an appearance by reformed terrorists who had converted to Christianity, when a would-be Hezbollah terrorist attempted to slaughter a school filled with 4- and 5-year-old Jewish children, was "hurt people hurt people."

It is no surprise that this Senate candidate would invite Hasan Piker, the man who hasn't run across an Islamic terrorist group or murderous communist he didn't feel compelled to defend, to campaign with him.

These days, El-Sayed keeps referring to Piker as a "Twitch streamer in California" to gaslight journalists who ask him about the relationship. But if Piker was an irrelevant out-of-state social media personality, why did El-Sayed feel compelled to campaign on numerous occasions? Occam's razor tells us that El-Sayed feels a connection, even holds similar views, to a man who believes the U.S. deserved 9/11.

El-Sayed also believes, at best, that Western nations are as evil or worse than jihadists. That moral equivalence was on display in a now-deleted 2021 tweet commemorating 9/11. "Today, I mourn the 3K lives, 6K injuries, & infrastructural devastation in NYC perpetuated ignorantly in the name of my faith," El-Sayed tweeted before adding, "Tomorrow, I'll mourn ~1M lives, millions of injuries, & infrastructural devastation in 3 countries, perpetuated ignorantly in the name of my country."

It is clear from that comment that El-Sayed believes we are far worse than the Islamist extremists of the Middle East.

In a healthier era, any one of these relationships would have sunk a candidacy. At this point, Michigan voters are well aware of El-Sayed's radicalism, and yet he looks poised to become our first Islamist senator.

David Harsanyi is a senior writer at the Washington Examiner. Harsanyi is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of five books -- the most recent, "How To Kill a Republic," available now. His work has appeared in National Review, the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Reason, New York Post and numerous other publications. Follow him on X @davidharsanyi.

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