Are people still rejoicing about Iran?

[binnibonnieboo]

When Israel and the US took out Khamenei there was a thread on how great it was. Some of us expressed that it may not end well, given how forced regime change went previously in many countries. We were told to stop "leftsplaining" to Iranians. How do those people think it's going so far?

In the real world, it is Trump and Netanyahu who are leading this.
It is them who do not have a change of governing at the top of their list.

@MushMonsterI’m happy to answer but first I wonder if you’ll agree with some basics?

That it’ll be harder to deal with this if the IRGC are just left to develop weapons for the next five to ten years or so

and also that the people can’t get rid of the IRGC alone.

I agree with the first point as plausible that we end up with a worst, wilder regime in Iran.

I do not agree with the second, on the basis that an armed resistance including military commanders could. And Trump did not bother to check, talk or assist the formation of a proper opposition or military coup before he started bombing. And that is not the fault of the rest of the world.

So that is it.

We will have to wait to see what we are left with at the end of this.

This. Times a million...

I don't what utopian ideas you might have OP, but down here in the real world, the majority of us do not wish to die in a nuclear winter. Which is exactly what the mad bastard twelver Shia clerics currently occupying Iran want to inflict on us, all so they can realise their crack-pipe crazy plan to expunge Israel from the map, kill every Israeli, and fulfill their fundamentalist prophecy...

This post will end up a mish mash of thoughts rather than a logical argument, but here goes.

Iran is a theocracy. That to me is the big issue. It's not like Iraq or Syria which were single party states with a bit of religion. Nor is it like former communist states, again single party, where the change was just political. It's not even like a religious state moving to be secular. Nope, it's a full on theocracy.

With that in mind, then without accurate data on how religious the population is, it's impossible to say how change can happen. Because we can't say for sure what change, if any, is wanted.

And yes, I have seen that survey that is going about. But that survey is flawed, as the survey itself says. Surveys in single party states/ theocracies are very difficult to do. Single party states because such surveys are illegal, and theocracies have the added issue that it will be a "sin".

I reckon the closest country Iran can be compared to is the Vatican.

That would be my starting point as a thought experiment. How to change the Vatican. Does the Vatican want to change, what does it want to change to, is their support for change ?

Will break this post here. Apologies to any Iranians reading this who are angry at my post. No offense intended. And TBH, the voices of ordinary Iranians are missing, for obvious reasons.

This has already been explained. The war aims to weaken the Iranian regime.

Weakening the regime should theoretically help the people of Iran to overthrow it. No one is saying that would be easy & it may not happen on this occasion. That is in the hands of the Iranian people.

But weakening a religious extremist authoritarian regime that is fixated on killing thousands/millions of people around the world via their proxies - & killing thousands of their own civilians over a few days - that is a good thing.

What % of the 90 million people in Iran want to overthrow the theocratic government there ?

No one knows the percentage but I'm 100% sure you know that.

Is it normal for thousands of people to risk getting murdered by their government they feel so strongly that they must protest against them knowing the likely outcome?

Yes. I do not know. I have seen the survey that has been posted, but that is flawed.

I think we could take it another way. What % do you think is needed before regime change is forced ? Forced as in boots on the ground and lots of dead soldiers and civilians ?

Personally I would put it at 80%. Because I reckon you will be looking at losing half the regime. So if we put the regime at 20%, we are looking at 10% being killed. So we can say 9 million. That's before just the current government.

Would you agree with that number ?

I appreciate people putting their views but I don’t see it in the same way.

For these reasons, the people are incredibly oppressed and any resistance to the state which they don’t want is crushed brutally. This means you could have a theocratic state that is no where near representing the people.

You can see protests and the Iranian footballers showing this. It’s this that could be very deep and real for the majority.

It may be that even those controlling the population eg military are not highly theocratic but need to be paid. Break that and you get somewhere, eg Kharg Island and oil revenue.

So appreciate the take but perhaps it’s the opposite, it’s not those countries because the Persian people don’t want what they have for a state. Majority that is.

What survey are you talking about?

No because you are just plucking numbers out of the air as far as I can tell.

Well if Iranians are rejoicing - Putin is too.
Supporters of the war seem quite relaxed about how Russia financially benefits from reduced sanctions and selling weapons and information to Iran.

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..."

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.

What % don't want a theocracy ?

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.

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

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

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

What then?

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.

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.

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.

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.

Maybe Russia doesnt think the IRGC will fall.

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