Are people still rejoicing about Iran?

How would you get the numbers? A free vote?

What would need to happen to get that

That is pretty much my point. I have no idea on numbers.

I do it would be a good idea for people wanting regime change to have some numbers before bombing a nation of 90 million people.

How do you know how many people in Iran actually follow the religion? How many would choose to do so if they had free choice?

Acknowledging the fact that people will sadly die is not the same as claiming that for a regime to fall a certain percentage of its civilian supporters would have to be killed.
People have also been dying under the regime, and not in exactly small numbers.

No it doesn’t, that survey I posted was flawed because it was primarily young people and in a country where apostasy laws are in effect. The numbers who would have said they weren’t muslim would have likely been even higher if people weren’t scared I think.

You didn’t comment on mosques shutting down because of non attendance. Quite a lot of mosques were also set on fire during protests because they are basiji centres. Everyone in the vatican is there voluntarily and won’t be executed or imprisoned for disavowing catholicism. I can’t remember the last time the pope had people gunned down for saying he shouldn’t be in charge. It is nothing like the vatican, it’s an extremely poor comparison.

The reason they have to enforce laws on hijabs etc so brutally is precisely because they are not wanted. There is no law mandating the hijab in any gulf country yet women often do wear the hijab (obviously theres an argument about societal pressure).

There is no choice, if people were freely choosing the regime they wouldnyneed to use suppression on their people.

There’ll be many who don’t want the theocracy. You can see the suppression of protestors and the Iranian footballers. They might want the theocracy gone.

Yes. The numbers are not known.

But remember this is a theocracy. It is ruled by religion. So I would reckon that would put the numbers of supporters pretty high.

That's why I compared Iran to the Vatican in a post above. Because it is not about a system on government. It is a religion. It's not really a case of regime change and keep your religion such as in Iraq. This is regime change = religion change. The religion is possibly more ingrained than it was in Afghanistan, and that is now a full theocracy now.

Of course I meant EAST of Suez!!

Iran has been weeks away from developing nuclear weapons for the past 20-odd years, or so we have been told. We were also told that Iran's nuclear weapon programme was "completely and totally obliterated" last year.

The US and Israel are trying to drag us into a regional war in which we have no geopolitical or economic interest and which only serves to destabilise the region, while drawing attention away from the much more serious threat of Russian incursions into Europe.

We were clearly told by the US in 1956 that nothing west of Suez was our concern. Not our circus, not our monkeys.

I think it's impossible to understand who genuinely is a "supporter" in such a regime, when the consequences of not supporting them are maiming, death etc

What is bewildering about it. For regime change to happen people will die. Either boots on ground or by bombing. And yes, there likely will be executions.

Germany had about 4.2 million dead to get that regime change. That's just Germany of course.

I can't think of any war where no people have died to get regime change. Iraq was somewhere between 500k to 110m.

I am just trying to figure out how many for this war.

I don’t see that supporters need to be killed. As the @Bringemout said people get paid to work for the state.

Are you talking about civilians or are you talking about the IRCG?

You make a big miscalculation by assuming that any percentage of the civilian population would "need to be killed" just for supporting the Iranian regime.

In the West we think people are entitled to think whatever they want/support whoever they want as long as they don't stray into illegal or antisocial activity.

I think for me, it’s the parallel with Russia, one of the reasons europe has not adequately confronted Russia is because of it’s nuclear arsenal. Irans current behaviour towards it’s neighbours who had zero to do with Israeli/american action against it proves how utterly unhinged they are. Regimes like this simply cannot have things like nukes. They are not only a threat to Israel they are a threat to their arab neighbours.

Yes. How many of the current Iranian government and supporters are there ?

And what % of them need to be killed ?

I would have thought this would be the basic starting point for any regime change. Do you agree ?

We didn’t have to kill everyone who was a member of the Nazi party to get regime change there. A lot of people basically work for horrible regimes for a paycheck not out of ideological commitment. Hell loads of people worked for isis because it was a paycheck.

War never has zero death toll. Sorry I’m finding this conversation slightly bewildering. Can you clarify if you mean civilian IRCG supporters need to be executed? I can’t think of any war where this needed to happen to effect regime change. If you can point me to an example of where this has been necessary in the last or exactly who would be executing millions of people that would perhaps help me understand what point you are trying to make.

I do hope Azerbaijan does not get thrown into it! But I suppose they will pressure them to keep quiet while they move any equipment either by water, land or air....
They already got hit at least one and I do not think it was by mistake. I think it was a clear threat to keep hush hush.

How many what? Supporters of the IRGC?

Well the number is not zero is it ?

I am trying to figure out :

a - how many are in government ?

b - what % of that number would need to be killed ?

I can kind of see why people are ready to say fine they can protest, be killed, the treatment of women not our problem (I don’t particularly agree) but can anyone say with some kind of certainty what Iran would do with greater weapons?

They sound fairly vengeful going by the guy this morning, I think they’d do anything, so what was that anything in a few years?

Correct, there's also a land bridge between Russia and Iran via Azerbaijan.

Russia has been manufacturing Shahed (Geran) drones in Russia since 2023 after initially importing them in 2022.

Both the Russians and Iranians have modified/improved the Drones after assessing their performance in the battlefield.

Quite, you just wouldn’t need this if your population was happy.

It was done as sanctions avoidance, parts were manufactured in different places, shipped separately and then assembled at destination from my understanding.

It’s about cost and expertise as well.

Can I clarify, you are proposing that to get regime change you would need to kill all civilian supporters of the government?