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?

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.

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.

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.

The US will drop sanctions on Russian fertilisers next.

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.

Yes they may very well have to.

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

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 ?

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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?

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 ?

How many what? Supporters of the IRGC?

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.

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.

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 ?

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.

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.