Should the US become involved in helping protesters in Iran?

I would support targeted strikes on revolutionary guard - I sincerely hope they Iranian people succeed this time.

As an aside the silence from the left on this has been deafening.

I think you mean Iran not Iraq?

If Trump wades in militarily- and it’s not at all definite he will - I don’t think it will be with the idea of defusing the situation exactly. More like forcing the military and Iran leadership to give up thinking they can carry on bullying people into submission.

Send a bigger bully to scare off the smaller bully - maybe.

As an aside slightly ironic that Trumps Militia, ICE, have shot (and killed) a number of American protesters. As awful as the Iranian regime may be, my gut feeling is that trumps involvement is unlikely to help.

GeneralPeter

I respectfully disagree. I think it helps to understand that many of the awful regimes in the countries I listed were supported by western governments until it no longer suited us. I wonder if you are aware of how much we interfered before we lost control of the monsters we created and had to resort to bombs to facilitate "regime change".

Of all the countries in the world, the US is the last I'd want to wade in to Iraq. Trump is unpredictable and dangerous and has not the slightest notion of diplomacy or international relations.
How can a self-serving moron possibly defuse the situation?

@FOJN

We should know by now that nothing good happens to ordinary citizens when the US gets involved in the politics of other nations.

It’s not that simple.

Germany, France, Poland (etc), Japan, South Korea, Bosnia, Kosovo, Kuwait?

You have cherry-picked your list, but even the failure cases aren’t all clear-cut.

Iraq life expectancy is five years longer and GDP is 10x higher than under Saddam and a sizeable minority (especially older people, ie those who remember) see the invasion favourably, including most Kurds.

Syria is a weird one to pick: life under Assad was a hell of a lot worse than ‘not great’, the new regime was not US-installed (its roots are in Al Qaeda). And Assad’s butchery was actively supported by Iran (and Russia).

Intervention is morally and practically messy, and high risk.

But Iran’s regime is itself one of the biggest meddlers, actively funding terrorism and repression across the region.

If your argument against intervention is “it will make things worse”, you have a duty I think to recognise the many cases where it’s made things better, and ask instead: does Iran look more like the successes or the failures. I think that on several dimension it looks more like the successes.

(Still might not be a good idea, but your opposition seems to have started with the conclusion and then looked for confirming examples).

The current "Left" are a bunch of useless fuckwits. Let them scream, it is the all they do anyway. Who gives a shit.

Breaking the Islamic Regime is better for everyone no matter who does it.

I don’t know.

The left wing scream blue murder if the West gets involved, and they scream blue murder if the West doesn’t get involved. Mostly they seem to think we should leave other countries alone but suddenly change their mind when something like this actually happens.

I don’t think Israel should get involved. They already get enough flak for the war in Gaza. Iran leadership targets Israel aggressively so would be better for Netanyahu to adopt a defensive position, in my opinion. Because the Iranian “leaders” ( so called) have already threatened to attack Israel if they are attacked by the US.

The people of Iran have had enough of this government and those protestors really do need outside help - I don't think they care from where the help comes.

It might seem unpalatable but the Iranians I know would welcome intervention from Israel and the US. What the outcome of such intervention will be who knows, but it can't be worse than the last 47 years.

No. The US should stop attacking other countries.

No, the US should stay out of it. We should know by now that nothing good happens to ordinary citizens when the US gets involved in the politics of other nations.

oldtiredcyclist has given you a potted history of what happened the last time and look how that turned out. I would go so far as to say that if we hadn't removed Mosssadeq that Iran would not be as it is today.

The citizens of Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq and Syria have all suffered because we couldn't mind our own business. Things may not have been great for some of them before we interfered but they are worse now.

I think the US should stay out of it if at all possible. It's entirely possible the IRGC army will defect anyway. Imagine shooting your own people!

I think it’d make things worse. The U.S. shouldn’t really be playing policeman of the world anymore. They’ve lost any moral authority. I feel for the people. We’ve seen this time and again through history. You can only force people into compliance for so long. Eventually they will make moves towards freedom, there’s almost a sad inevitably to it.

I do think real change needs to come from within. I’d agree with a pp that the protestors need the military to join them, to start a cascade. That won’t happen with a foreign combatant on the ground.

Yes.

The current US administration doesn't "help" anyone, except themselves.

The last thing we need, is a despot like Trump getting involved in Iran, because he will do it for the same reasons as removing Maduro in Venezuela - oil, which would take us back to 1953, when the US and UK organised a coup in Iran and removed the democratically elected prime minister - Mossadeq. When the Shah went into exile in 1979, the US/UK hoped that a group of "friendly" mullahs would lead the country, until the Shah's son could take control. How did that work out?

Dream on … the US has a lot of allies including the UK.

Even if we weren’t scared of US retaliation (which any sensible country is) most of the world have no interest in bombing the US.

To do what, support the Iranian regime? Trump is nothing but a tin pot dictator himself. Perhaps the rest of the world should get together, bomb the US and remove Trump.

What will bombing selected military targets for people in the street ?

Iran has near a million troops, all indoctrinated that the USA is Satan himself. Start bombing them and they will double down on protecting the regime. What the protestors need is for some of the military to join them, to start a cascade. The change needs to be from within.

The US need to stay out of other countries.

Exactly. So what are the US going to Bomb ?

And of course, the real difficulty with Iran from a military point, is that it is very big, mountainous, and they have about 960k troops.

The US can't just chopper in a battalion of troops in to Tehran to help the protestors. Yes, the regime needs ousting, but it has to happen from inside IMO.