Should the US become involved in helping protesters in Iran?

[Ihatetomatoes]

The situation is awful there now. Should the US become involved?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/articles/cm2jek15m8no.amp

@Westfacing It’s their country, let them figure it out for themselves. They’re perfectly capable of fixing their own problems. It has nothing to do with the US, and they pose no threat to the daily lives of average Americans. We need the focus of our leaders on our issues. The same goes for the UK. Food is practically unaffordable, energy prices are through the roof and Starmer’s approval ratings have tanked. We’ve got issues, serious issues. We need to stop getting distracted and figure our own stuff out.

Yes, this is exactly the point I'm trying to get across

The mullahs of Iran have been the most brutal regime in the world. They have also funded terrorist groups around the world.

November 2013 the last uprising 3000 people were killed.
In 2023, Iran executed at least 834 and the UN reported at least 975 executions in 2024.

Amnesty International reported Iran was responsible for 64% of all recorded executions worldwide in 2024.
It has many human rights abuses such as 4000-6000 have been murdered for being gay throughout the time of the regime.

If Trump hit military targets then it would divert resources from other areas, I’m in favour of limited military action.
If it fails there will be a brutal crackdown and thousands will be murdered so a push to get the revolution over the line would be humanitarian.

It's not, though. It's about Russia/China.

Every one of recent flashpoints has been a proxy for US/Russia, with both countries involved to a greater or lesser extent.

Ukraine, Israel/Palestine, Greenland, Venezuela, Iran - same same.

It's very hard - if possible at all - to discern how much the US needed to beef up defense in the face of Russian/Chinese power growing, and Western power weakening.

It’s also Russia’s key ally in the Middle East.

I have every sympathy for the very brave people of Iran, fwiw. Especially the women who have faced more and more restrictions in their freedom over the past years.

Yes Iran do fund Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis.

Should this be allowed to continue if even their own people (especially their own people) want regime change @Wintersgirl ?

That’s really insightful. I do hope your family and friends are ok. I saw a clip on the news with an interview from a man in Venezuela and they asked him if the US was solely interested in the oil. He replied that ‘Yes they were but did you think the Russians and Chinese were here for the receipts for (a national dish - can’t recall what it was called).

I’d support targeted strikes on Revolutionary Guard facilities. I do think the protestors and the people of Iran deserve much better.

This is all relevant to us. We live in a globalised economy and the balance of power worldwide affects all of us. It's just played out in Iran/Syria/Israel/wherever.

No, mostly because he’s so damn erratic he would make the situation worse and millions more could lose their lives.

The Iranian people need help, but I don’t think US is the saving grace.

You also don’t want to keep encouraging him to just go in and sort other countries out. Thats how we all go to war to protect Greenland’

Would also point out that when Israel bombed Iranian sites I saw a lot of Iranians in Iran cheering and clapping on x. Iranians have been asking the USA to intervene both diaspora and messages coming from starlink posted by Iranian outside of Iran.

They don't bomb where protesters are ...

They wouldn't need to, @Ihatetomatoes
There's nothing to stop the regime forcing a few protesters into what would be target areas, uploading images of "innocents murdered by the US" and then waiting for the predictable howls of outrage

As with Afghanistan and so many others, real change has to come from within, and I see no long term benefit from interfering

You do know that Israel once funded Hamas? To drive a wedge between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority - divide and rule. Every country in the world, even the UK, is prepared to cosy up to monsters, if it suits them at the time. The USA has propped up many vile dictatorships because it served its own base interests. Don’t look to them for moral leadership.

Not this again 🙄

I thought Trump was all about “America First” - this would be a great moment to focus on that.

I didn’t bring Hamas into the conversation. I’m just pointing out that every country in the world has at some time or another linked arms with dubious regimes and organisations for their own dubious ends. 🙄

It's not very relevant if Israel once funded Hamas - they have discovered to their cost that this was a mistake. My point is that no country should be funding Hamas or Hezbollah or the Houthis.

Do you agree that Iran should be stopped from their current practice of funding these terrorist groups?

You do have to be careful with Twitter as a source though. By using Starlink, it is going to be very one sided messaging. It's not as if the pro regime folk will be using Starlink to post their "death to America" chants to twitter. And of course, when Iranian TV show the "death to America" chants on state TV, that is propaganda. But there will be people chanting it for real.

And it's the same with Starlink. It's banned in the country I live. I doubt anyone is privately smuggling then in, not in numbers anyway. So the Starlink joy could equally be staged, although of course it happens.

The problem is really how to decide the numbers on each side.

It's an easy argument that this is putting the US first, by strengthening their power position in the world, specifically wrt Russia/China. Also by securing access to energy and resources. I'm not saying that I agree with that position, necessarily, but it is plausible.

Can anyone think of a country that the US have bombed into stability?

It would be marvellous if the Iranians overthrow such a brutal, oppressive regime but I do believe that western interference won't help - change truly does have to come from within. As an aside, if that were to happen what on earth will the lefties do - support the dismantling of an authoritarian state and champion the liberty of Iranian people or protest against colonialist powers sticking their oar in and meddling in middle eastern matters?

Famously, Germany and Japan. That brought stability to Western Europe for, broadly speaking, the whole of the 20th century.

Backstopped by Nato (which is, in essence, a threat that the US will bomb you) which has, largely successfully, deterred the USSR and Russia.

More recently, Kosovo and Bosnia, ending ethnic cleansing and leaving statues, streets and babies across the region named for Clinton and Blair. Granada and Panama are more controversial but are stable.

In Korea the US only really managed to maintain its power in the south of the peninsula. You are welcome to your own view on whether the north or south is more stable and which brand of stability you would prefer.

Plenty of failures of intervention too. But anyone unaware of WWII should first wonder if they are fully equipped yet to judge this complex question.

I am a leftie. And I would like to see the Iranian regime gone. I am also far from being in favour of Communist regimes.

Instead of saying leftie, why not call them Tankies. Because that's what they are.

The left is a massive umbrella, from full on Marxists to literarily the center.

I don’t think any country should be funding any terrorist groups. I think it’s very simplistic to suppose that the USA, who funded, for example, the right-wing Contras in Nicaragua and the anti-Soviet Mujahideen in Afghanistan (which morphed into al-Qaeda), can just step in anywhere in the world and make it all fine! It doesn’t work like that, as history should have taught us. They do not have the moral high ground and any action they take will be self-serving.

Vietnam is stable and surprisingly pro-US too. I don’t say the Vietnam War was a good thing. But it’s very clear that a few decades on, even after that appalling conflict, the Vietnamese people think well of the US but hate China.

I put it down to the extraordinary entrepreneurialism and self-sufficiency of the Vietnamese.