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Iran has now been offline for 96 hours

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Re: Iran has now been offline for 96 hours

#111

Post by swat535 »

EA-3167 wrote: post #89
nitwit005 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's possible, but remember that in an absence of any political or military rivals, you don't need the loyalty of the populace, only the military and police.

People love to remember the hits and forget the misses. They'll happily chat about how "hunger was the key to the French Revolution" while forgetting how many starved in the USSR, North Korea, China, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, etc... They love to imagine that the suffering of a populace is some guarantee of both a revolution and the success of that revolution. For some reason the near-total destruction of Syria and…

Iranian here (speaking from outside), fair but you have to consider the circumstances.

The regime currently is in its weakest position. Russia is busy with Ukraine, many of top IRGC commanders assassinated, HAMAS is in disarray, and their nuclear program has been crippled.

The water shortage was the straw that broke the camel's back. Years of sanctions, economical downturn and abuses by the Regime piled up to the point of no return.

Based on my last contact with my family, our people have crossed a line and there is no going back.

What Westerners don't realize is that if your back is against the wall, all you have left is putting your life on line.

People rather die trying because truthfully, what is the alternative?

Re: Iran has now been offline for 96 hours

#113

Post by ebbi »

red-iron-pine wrote: post #109
ebbi wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so sure. There are plenty of pro-regime protests in Iran currently, and the general replies on interviews I've seen is "yes we have our problems, but we don't want Israel and the US fixing it", which tracks with a lot of sentiment I've heard from Iranian friends of mine. There was also a three year old killed by anti-regime protestors which has heightened the sentiments of pro-regime protestors.

I don't think the US or Israel want to fix it, I think they want a pretext for bombing Iranian military sites to aggressively defang

I agree - their primary aim is to defang, but the regime change will need to follow so that they can put someone in power that they can control.

Re: Iran has now been offline for 96 hours

#114

Post by Cyph0n »

breppp wrote: post #79
Cyph0n wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the sense that an offensive war - especially one that intentionally targets civilians and their families - rallies people around the flag and provides a boost of support to whoever is in power. The regime was organically declining in popularity. Israel’s war simply rejuvenated the regime’s supporter base without any meaningful gains on the ground. There was minimal impact to the enrichment campaign. And the fact t…

> The regime was organically declining in popularity. Israel’s war simply rejuvenated the regime’s supporter base without any meaningful gains on the ground. That is a statement that might make sense two weeks ago, but now? Evidently the effect Israel war had was not enough to prevents riots, or arguably might have emboldened them

1. If you look closely, Western media is operating a coordinated campaign that is more interested than usual in what’s happening in Iran.

2. The scale of the protests is very likely overblown.

3. Iran’s purging of Mossad assets since the 12 day war has not yet wrapped up. The CIA is rumored to also have assets participating in these riots.

Re: Iran has now been offline for 96 hours

#115

Post by tptacek »

ebbi wrote: post #107
tptacek wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's an extraordinary claim.

Why do you think it's extraordinary? I know quite a lot of Iranians, and when I talked about this with them about a year ago, their lay of the land given their own opinions and their wider networks opinion is that the majority of Iranians are pro-regime change but NOT at the hands of a US/Israeli intervention. There are anti-regime segments that are pro-US/Israel intervention, but they think this is a minority and th…

The protests are, by credible reporting, huge, reflected in the scale of the number of arrests and fatalities. Their antecedents include sky-high unemployment, the highest inflation rates in the world, and water and power rationing --- far more severe and far more directly material conditions than what preceded the 2022 protests. Diverse outlets have the signal chant of the protesters "Neither Gaza Nor Lebanon, My Life Only For Iran", which correlates well with the belief the the IRGC is effectively an Iranian version of the KGB, a second "inner society" whose large membership has preferential access to everything ordinary Iranians don't.

Some of this is disputable, much of it isn't. Meanwhile:

* There's no evidence that foreign powers are behind these protests, just narratives. The track record on unsupported but convincing-sounding narratives everywhere is pretty bad; nowhere is it worse than in this part of the world.

* There's no evidence that the protests themselves are pro-US (and certainly not pro-Israel; most of the protesters probably don't like Israel!). They just want water, jobs, and currency that can reliably buy food.

* There's also not much evidence that any major government in the world wants Iran toppled. Iran is incredibly weak right now. Regional powers like Turkey, Saudi, and especially Israel --- which has basically depantsed the IRGC --- don't actually have much to gain from an Iranian overthrow, but the whole region has a lot to lose from instability.

So yeah, I'd say: pretty extraordinary claim --- again, that claim being, "the anti-regime movement is the product of foreign intervention".

I want to keep saying: I don't think the protests will be successful. It's a state specifically designed to prevent protests movements like these from being successful! They may suck at air defense, but I don't think they're bad at putting down rebellions.

Re: Iran has now been offline for 96 hours

#116

Post by tptacek »

red-iron-pine wrote: post #109
ebbi wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so sure. There are plenty of pro-regime protests in Iran currently, and the general replies on interviews I've seen is "yes we have our problems, but we don't want Israel and the US fixing it", which tracks with a lot of sentiment I've heard from Iranian friends of mine. There was also a three year old killed by anti-regime protestors which has heightened the sentiments of pro-regime protestors.

I don't think the US or Israel want to fix it, I think they want a pretext for bombing Iranian military sites to aggressively defang

I don't think either the US or Israel is all that worried about "defanging" Iran's actual military. Their proxies, like Hezbollah, Assadist Syria, Ansar Allah, and Kataib Hezbollah? Sure. But they've mostly already accomplished that. I think Iran's actual military is kind of a joke in military circles?

Re: Iran has now been offline for 96 hours

#117

Post by breppp »

Cyph0n wrote: post #114
breppp wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The regime was organically declining in popularity. Israel’s war simply rejuvenated the regime’s supporter base without any meaningful gains on the ground. That is a statement that might make sense two weeks ago, but now? Evidently the effect Israel war had was not enough to prevents riots, or arguably might have emboldened them

1. If you look closely, Western media is operating a coordinated campaign that is more interested than usual in what’s happening in Iran. 2. The scale of the protests is very likely overblown. 3. Iran’s purging of Mossad assets since the 12 day war has not yet wrapped up. The CIA is rumored to also have assets participating in these riots.

1. Far less interested than in Gaza, for example

2. Hard to tell yet, there are videos that at least claim to show hundreds of dead which indicate both mass shooting and mass demonstrations

3. The issue is that like in USSR, any political prisoner given enough torture admits spying. So you can't really tell which are and which aren't. I wouldn't put much trust on Iranian media on that matter, especially when they only point at external enemies when there have been repeating demonstrations for years and life has only turned progressively worse for the Iranian people

Re: Iran has now been offline for 96 hours

#118

Post by breppp »

joecool1029 wrote: post #104
breppp wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Example wrong claims: 1. Jolani was propped up by Turkey not Israel, their relations are still tense. E.g. Jolani has been massacring the Druze which are Israel's allies, while Israel-Turkey relations are only getting worse. Unsure where so many get the idea Israel is excited about an ISIS veterans regime on its border that regularly massacres civilians including on-brand mass rapes, kidnappings, beheadings, cutting…

> Unsure where so many get the idea Israel is excited about an ISIS veterans regime on its border that regularly massacres civilians including on-brand mass rapes, kidnappings, beheadings, cutting hearts out etc Perhaps because they openly provided support to them for years: https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/report-israel-treating-al-...

That has been a case of "the enemy of my enemy" as the Al Nusra Islamists had still considered Israel as infidels that need to be eventually be dealt with.

Israel more pressing Islamist threat, Hezbollah, was the focus back then and therefore these organizations were given medical help in turn for agreeing not to kill Druze and to stay away from the Israeli border.

It was quite evident Israel's position as it hasn't tried to fight for Al Nusra when Assad recaptured that area even though it could easily make the Syrian regime forces retreat.

Also, the repeated bombing of the current syrian government forces are probably not due to some outbursting friendship

Re: Iran has now been offline for 96 hours

#119

Post by Cyph0n »

breppp wrote: post #117
Cyph0n wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. If you look closely, Western media is operating a coordinated campaign that is more interested than usual in what’s happening in Iran. 2. The scale of the protests is very likely overblown. 3. Iran’s purging of Mossad assets since the 12 day war has not yet wrapped up. The CIA is rumored to also have assets participating in these riots.

1. Far less interested than in Gaza, for example 2. Hard to tell yet, there are videos that at least claim to show hundreds of dead which indicate both mass shooting and mass demonstrations 3. The issue is that like in USSR, any political prisoner given enough torture admits spying. So you can't really tell which are and which aren't. I wouldn't put much trust on Iranian media on that matter, especially when they onl…

1. Give me a call when the repression of local protests escalates into a 2 year long Western backed campaign of ethnic cleansing and genocide against a blockaded population.

2. Agree that it’s hard to tell for certain.

3. The truth is somewhere in between. My reading is that Mossad is definitely operating on the ground in some capacity.

Re: Iran has now been offline for 96 hours

#120

Post by red-iron-pine »

remarkEon wrote: post #31
csomar wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very unlikely. Unlike Syria or Venezuela, the Iranian regime has an ideological base and a very solid base of supporters. A civil war has more odds than that base of supporters accepting a new secular regime.

I’ve been looking for data on this. Has anyone quantified what the regime’s base of support actually is amongst the general population?

could almost guarantee it overlaps greatly with demographics

older conservative boomers vs. younger moderates. it wasn't old ladies launching riots about wearing headscarves...

e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youth_in_Iran

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