Are people still rejoicing about Iran?

Oh, I thought ME was! Thanks for informing me.
It is a bleak future, but I, sadly, think you are rather right.

Well, this of making weapons in Venezuela....
How and why would any of these countries risk to get their weapons from anywhere else?
I am not saying that is not true, because I have not intel on it, of course, but it makes zero sense strategically. Same as Europe buying US weapons makes no sense, if you think about it closely enough, with all the software that goes with it. If I were to organise the defence of countries with plenty of their own resources, I would make my very own weapons. And ensure my supply is robust and fool proof. Involving a country in another continent would not be my choice.

Russia is the world's largest exporter of fertiliser. So yes they will benefit greatly when sanctions are dropped by the US.

What I think will happen is that Trump will declare victory (whenever he finds an off ramp), the IRGC will be weakened but not fall, MAGA will divide and Trump may lose influence, Vance will sail through on a no wars ticket (again) and a newly emboldened and financially stronger Russia will overrun Ukraine and everything that comes after that.

There aren’t many countries as tightly controlled. All we can see is how they treat protestors and people who oppose the IRGC.

They say this is made up by the west (just listened to some spokesperson for them), so if their version has any legs why is protesting fatal and why did the footballers quietly protest, get asylum then overturn it?

https://www.iranintl.com/en/202312124517

This is obviously an anti regime paper but it points to mosque closures due to non attendance. So yeah on the whole I’m not sure that Iranians want to live in a theocracy.

Yes. I have been through that survey and it is way too flawed to be of use.

But as a matter of interest, if we say 50% of those that support the regime need to be killed, how many millions is that, going by that report ?

Likely!
Are they a big exporter? I have no clue how much they make.

Yes they may very well have to.

I think they were actually manufactured in Venezuela (also drugs hub for hezbollah and ITCG money laundering).

Thats a reasonable point, but it doesn’t actually help putin in anyway if the IRCG falls.

The US will drop sanctions on Russian fertilisers next.

Maybe, I have no idea what russia thinks.

The sanctions haven’t been lifted, they have been eased. No idea what the US will do but the EU is still buying russian gas, people complain about the US but the EU has been extremely weak.

That is relative, from my point of view. Yes, they bought the drones from Iran, but they are in a strong position to request the blue prints and manufacture them themselves. Plus Putin has a fresh input of money coming from the oil sanctions lift. Plus there is a direct route between Russia and Iran, via the Caspian Sea. He can ship weapons to Iran and make more money that way. He can get all the designs to Iranian weapons, if he does not already have them.

I remember someone on here trying to tell me that Iranian women all want to wear the hijab, the obvious point that you wouldn’t have to threaten to beat them to death for not wearing one if that was the case seemed to have bypassed them completely.

You don’t get 35k+ dead protesters if the people love their regime. Even during the 12 day war videos coming out of Iran were of people celebrating hits on IRCG sites and holding up signs requesting hits on things like the government news broadcaster (I believe Israel obliged).

Obviously this could be a minority and the diaspora are often people who have left because they can’t get on with the Iranian government so they may be more anti-regime than usual. But the initial videos coming out before the complete internet shutdown indicated that a lot of Iranians were pretty happy with strikes.

I just don’t think you require the level of repression practiced in Iran if people are happy living in a theocracy. The gulf countries are definitely authoritarian and religious in their bent yet you don’t have this level of brutality because people are generally ok with their governance.

Maybe Russia doesnt think the IRGC will fall.

Do you think the US will reintroduce sanctions on Russian oil?

Good luck shipping them in, the Israelis and Americans basically have air dominance and russia has its own problems. The fall of the IRCG is not to the benefit of Russia, they are authoritarian mates who provide mutual support to each other. Cutting off cheap oil to China is a good thing too.

I’ll just do a survey. How can anyone get this information do you think?

The places to look are the symptoms of repression. The protesters and what happened to them, the footballers and risking their lives, getting asylum and coercion to go back.

Information is obviously tightly controlled and outcomes for anyone opposing is fatal.

Hiw could anyone know. It's not like the people of Iran get to vote, even take a poll. Those that didn't want and protested were slaughtered in their thousands.

https://gamaan.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GAMAAN-Iran-Religion-Survey-2020-English.pdf

This is by no means a perfect survey, responders were more likely to be young. But it indicates that a lot of people may not actually be muslim at all.

I would also say I follow an Iranian hijabi on twitter who hates the regime. Being religious and hating the IRCG isn’t mutually exclusive. I remember seeing a fabulous video of an Iranian goth with her fully covered mum.

I agree. There will come a point when Iran has nuclear weapons there will be no dealing with them.

What then?

And the US has dropped sanctions - which is a boon for the Russian economy.

It's manufacturing its own drones now and can sell to Iran.

Russia has used something like 67’000 iranian manufactured shaheed drones against Ukraine. It along with China stand to lose out if the regime falls.

What % don't want a theocracy ?

Yup. I am plucking numbers out the air.

Where are the numbers to be found. That is the real issue.

We could take the government as a starting point. How many in the government. That would include civil servants. military, police. And as it is a theocracy we need to count in all the clerics too. National and local. I have no idea how the Mosques work. I expect they will all have different levels of cleric.

How many millions are we at ?

And I think once we get a number for that, then we can say half of them need to be killed. Maybe more because it is a theocracy. And religion is more important than life.

I am very concerned about Putin getting all this money. Plus the intelligence. At least our military resources are mainly around us and ready to face Putin, if he moves. Glad that Europe is not being distracted from their main threat.
Trump has not even been very critical of Putin assisting Iran. "We do it to them too. If they are helping, well is not helping much..."