I'm sure that'll make people happier with their leaders
Iran has now been offline for 96 hours
131–140 of 194 posts
Re: Iran has now been offline for 96 hours
#132I have friends who wore going to Iran for business meeting. Friends are from former Yugoslavia state who still have connections to Iran. They export sparkplugs to Iran. Interesting thing is that they say they never seen such a beautiful country with even more beautiful people. Also they said they filled up two full car tanks for ~5€. Their conclusion is that people there live much better life(more fulfilling) then pe…
Maybe that's a good example that as a tourist/guest you only get a very biased perspective when visiting another country.
Re: Iran has now been offline for 96 hours
#133Western governments do not want democracy in Iran. They want the son of Shah back in Iran, the Shah whose father tortured and exploited Iranians, and that led to the revolution and the rise of the mullahs. The US and Israel want regime change so Israel can dominate the ME. Just like they replaced Assad in Syria by Jolani, a wanted Al Qaeda terrorist who does not oppose Israel in any way but slaughter kurds and alavit…
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…
>Jolani was propped up by Turkey not Israel
Probably accurate, but I think if Israel sincerely objected to Jolani's leadership in Syria, a state visit to the White House would not have happened.
Read into that what you will.
Re: Iran has now been offline for 96 hours
#134Earlier 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…
A year ago. Not much has happened in that area over the last year...
Re: Iran has now been offline for 96 hours
#135Western governments do not want democracy in Iran. They want the son of Shah back in Iran, the Shah whose father tortured and exploited Iranians, and that led to the revolution and the rise of the mullahs. The US and Israel want regime change so Israel can dominate the ME. Just like they replaced Assad in Syria by Jolani, a wanted Al Qaeda terrorist who does not oppose Israel in any way but slaughter kurds and alavit…
It's weird how for some, everything that happens is somehow Israel's fault.
This, for the most part, is self inflicted by the Iranian regime.
Re: Iran has now been offline for 96 hours
#136This looks like it might be the end for the current regime. There are still people getting information out, and they are tearing down and burning state buildings - around 3000 protesters killed since the crackdown began, but there appear to be tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people who have risen up against the ayatollah, with an unknown number of state forces and officials killed. Crazy start to the year.
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.
Any source for this?
Re: Iran has now been offline for 96 hours
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's being downvoted because it's mostly nonsense based on what I'm aware of. Please enlighten us with some of this easily verifiable information.
The historical part about the shah is straightforward and uncontroversial. Pick up a history book covering 20th century Iran. What part of the comment is disputable?
Let's step through these one by one:
> Western governments do not want democracy in Iran.
This is purely speculation, and is not generally true based on statements from Western governments. What I would say is that Western governments want stability in Iran, just like virtually every other nation. If the current leaders in Iran were not sponsoring terrorists across the world, weren't actively pursuing the most dangerous military weapon in existence, and hadn't run their country into the ground, I don't think Western governments would spend much time thinking about Iran or its form of government.
> They want the son of Shah back in Iran, the Shah whose father tortured and exploited Iranians, and that led to the revolution and the rise of the mullahs.
The second part of this is true (the Shah was a poor ruler), but the first does not appear to be true.
> The US and Israel want regime change so Israel can dominate the ME.
I suspect your definition of "dominate the ME" is not very mainstream if you accept this at face value. Iran (along with some other ME nations) has a stated goal of wiping Israel off the map, which Israel strongly disagrees with.
> Just like they replaced Assad in Syria by Jolani, a wanted Al Qaeda terrorist who does not oppose Israel in any way but slaughter kurds and alavites because they are moderate muslims.
How did Western governments replace Assad with Jolani? Do you want the leader of Syria to oppose Israel, or should they attempt to normalize relations with a neighbor? Have you considered that he realizes that he can't win that fight and is attempting to cling to the power he seized during their civil war?
> The revolts in Iran are backed by US/Israel.
Any evidence of this?
> They openly brag about it on every channel.
Any evidence of this?
> They don’t care about Iranian‘s freedoms.
Any evidence of this?
> They are the same who support every dictator in the region if and only if that dictator accepts Israel‘s dominance.
Any evidence of this? Again, Western governments are really looking for stability first, and will accept it if a dictator can provide it based on past behavior.
In short, these are a bunch of highly biased and polarizing statements of opinion, some of which might be backed by a shred of truth but then warped to fit a very specific viewpoint.
Re: Iran has now been offline for 96 hours
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not the disputed part. The part we're all having trouble with is "and therefore the US wants to install the son of the Shah."
This is speculation, but given how cozy he is with Israel it’s not “nonsense”. And the rest of the post is verifiable, despite it being described as “mostly nonsense”. Words are cheap and politicians often do much different than they promised. Remember when Trump said no new wars? Remember when he said we were done in Iran after dropping the bombs, and now intervention is looming?
Unsubstantiated speculation = nonsense
There is very little in that post that is verifiable. See above for what most people would call the rest of the content.
Re: Iran has now been offline for 96 hours
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 Li…
> There's also not much evidence that any major government in the world wants Iran toppled
I’m sorry what? Maybe this is an argument over terminology, but Israel absolutely wants Iran toppled in any colloquial definition of the word. This has been their stated goal since the 90s. And much of their activity in the Middle East since then is towards this goal.
> and especially Israel --- which has basically depantsed the IRGC --- don't actually have much to gain
Again I’m sorry what? Iran has been a major deterrent to their regional hegemony for decades. Remove US support and Israel is destroyed. They need these threats removed so they can end their reliance on US support.
Re: Iran has now been offline for 96 hours
#140Earlier 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 doubt this is true but would also note that high-profile online outlets --- Ryan Grim's Drop Site News, most notably --- have run pieces talking about how huge anti-government protests are in fact pro-government protests, when that has turned out to be flatly false. (I don't know where they get this stuff). The Iranian anti-regime movement is very well established and is not the product of foreign interventio…
Ryan Grim isn't exactly a stellar journalist.