Hey there, semi related to your comment above, I read your point that "Sad that my comment got flagged, this is a major problem with hacker news - censorship of comments that prevent people from hearing all perspectives" and agree completely. I've been flagged and shadowbanned for mentioning Iryna Zarutska and in general, anything that people would rather silence than address with words and reason. I'd love to talk more about this. It's sad because most of the people here regard themselves highly but this doesn't match the experience of "this opinion is counter mine therefore it must vanish and I can go on believing no one disagrees with me"
My wife is Iranian and I know many Iranian expats, and all my in-laws are in Iran.
This attack on the school comes up all the time as a talking point. And I will tell you exactly how most Iranians react: they find it weird that you’ll talk about this school, but you won’t talk about the thousands of protesters killed by the regime.
Yes. People die in war. It’s sad. But most Iranians will say “whether we go to war or not Iranians are being killed” and it’s better to fight for regime change than to just accept the status quo.
Imagine being against the American Revolution because some innocent civilians will get killed? Yes, people die in war, but if there’s a chance for something better than it’s definitely worth it!
Every Iranian I know thinks it’s worth it and they danced in the street when Khamenei was killed.
"This attack on the school comes up all the time as a talking point. And I will tell you exactly how most Iranians react: they find it weird that you’ll talk about this school, but you won’t talk about the thousands of protesters killed by the regime."
The US government is not in any way responsible for the murder of protesters in Iran. That is done entirely by the government in Iran.
The USA and Israel ARE responsible for the murder of the kids (and adults) in that school. If you are American or Israeli you can care about the murdered protesters, but it it not really your responsibility. The murdered kids are however.
I understand what you’re saying, but I think you’re missing the point of my comment.
People bring up the school as a way of discouraging American military bombing Iran. It’s a way of shaming Americans, as if we are bad, making us feel guilty for bombing. Right?
What I’m trying to say is that Iranians I’ve spoken to are happy that we are bombing the regime. From their perspective, they are already being killed. The regime is dangerous to them. Bombing the regime and possibly destroying the regime is worth the risk.
So don’t be so hard on yourself. Iranians want your help. People die in wars, there is always collateral damage, but sometimes war is just. Sometimes the ends do justify the means. That’s how the Iranians I’ve spoken to feel.
Trump and Hegseth have declared the regime has been changed, so hopefully either Iranians are already better off now, or the US military will... finish the job regardless of what their commanders say?
In a few weeks when Trump needs a new country to attack to keep "flooding the zone", he will leave Iran, maybe the same regime still there, with some extra hundreds or thousands of innocents killed. I truly hope it goes better than that, but why should I believe that anything good will accidentally be accomplished by the demonstrably selfish, dumb, lazy, lying people at the helm of the US? They barely pay lip service to helping Iranians, let alone appear competent enough to do it.
> Imagine being against the American Revolution because some innocent civilians will get killed?
What was so great about the American revolution anyway? It's not like it gave any average people the right to vote, and it arguably preserved slavery for an extra 30 years.
That doesn’t align with the perspective of actual Iranians I know.
There are news reports of Iranian expats and opponents within Iranian who are disappointed with the ceasefire. They wanted trump to go further and destroy the regime.
That aligns with conversations I’ve had with Iranians friends in the US and family members within Iran who want the regime destroyed so there is a chance of removing the Islamic theocracy that governs the country currently.
My general impression is many people want the regime destroyed, which seems clear from talking to people but also just all the protests. I haven't asked but I'm skeptical they are for things like attacking of every bridge, railroad, and power plant (which are important civilian infrastructure). The threat was specifically that their "whole civilization will die tonight"
I will tell you exactly what my Iranian wife said when I asked her about people congregating on the bridges after Trump said he’ll bomb them: she said (paraphrasing) “bomb them, they’re all regime supporters”.
The country is basically on the verge of civil war. The reason it’s not is because the anti-regime forces are disorganized with no clear leader, have no weapons, and rely on internet to organize.
With all due respect to you and your Iranian wife, just because someone has these views, does not mean that it represents the majority of the people of Iran. I am also Iranian and find support for war crimes, even if you disagree politically with the victims, to be horrendous.
That’s fair! I would love to hear your thoughts as an Iranian.
My only goal has been to surface conversations I’ve had with actual Iranians. I think that’s been missing from these Internet conversations, and I think it’s really helpful that people know what actual Iranians think.
Otherwise, you fall into the funny situation like what happened with Maduro, where Internet commentators were upset, while ordinary Venezuelans (and expats) were celebrating.
War crimes as a concept was invented by the current US hegemony to punish others, not to be bound by.
I think about it this way: would I have had any problem with the allies bombing Nazi rallies, even though they were mostly civilians? My answer is absolutely not. I feel the same way when I see pro-Islamic regime or pro-Hezbollah rallies. In fact, I think the limited repercussions for these extremist civilians - and their very tangible support for the regimes - is what keeps these movements alive and powerful. Cost to civilizations - military and civilian alike - is what ends wars.
"Corruption" is all but meaningless. It happens in every society and the only people that get prosecuted for them seem to be people outside the elite. /s
I don't think holding such views is helpful.
Besides, a few people have been prosecuted for war crimes while being on the winning side (or by their own side), some examples:
William Calley (US), convicted for his role in the 1968 My Lai massacre, in which American troops killed hundreds of unarmed South Vietnamese civilians.
Donald Payne (UK), for abuse and death of an Iraqi detainee.
Charles Graner (US), sentenced to 10 years in prison for the abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison.
However, we can agree those are very few and far between, compared to all crimes committed. But it's more useful to condemn them and advocate for more accountability than to claim it's useless anyways and normalize calls for more crimes.
> censorship [...] that prevent people from hearing all perspectives
A casual conversation is not to be held to the rigour of legal or legislative opinion. But perspectives, like other sorts of opinions, are not all equal in value.
Some opinions are just noise and there is no value in "hearing all the perspectives" from sources that have no interest in even trying to think things through.
The worst opinions are calls to violence -- that lead to actual violence in some cases -- from people who incur zero risk from their extremism.
Idle statements about bombarding civilians, flattening countries, committing war crimes, "sending countries back into the Stone Age where they belong", are examples of arm-chair blather from people of whom the best we can say is that they have never lived under bombardment nor served in a time of conflict in any capacity whatsoever.
I still think it’s valuable to hear Iranian voices during this conflict.
I’m definitely not saying you have to follow through on what they say!
But it’s valuable to see where people are emotionally. Because when I asked my wife and she essentially said “bomb the regime supporters” it says a lot about where anti-regime Iranians are emotionally.
It also helps people understand why anti-regime Iranians have been pro Trump during this conflict.
Keep in mind that my wife is from Tehran, and has a huge network of family in Tehran. This isn’t some abstract thing to her. And it’s consistent with the other expats I know who want continued pressure on the regime.
Yes, many Iranians want regime change, but that's not going to happen by bombing everything in the country, and Trump isn't willing to send troops. I'm not sure what your point is actually.
I was responding to a comment about bombing bridges.
I quoted an actual conversation i had with an Iranian where they said essentially “go ahead and bomb the bridges”. That got flagged for some reason.
I’m simply trying to surface conversations I’ve had with Iranians. So often these Internet conversations occur in a bubble.
My point? I guess there’s this idea that Iranians are disgusted with Trump’s comment today. That hasn’t been my experience at all. My wife is Iranian. I’m connected to a large Iranian expat community. They are very pro Trump because of the war. The initial reaction I saw was disappointment with the ceasefire. They want continued pressure on the regime, and they feel that a cease-fire works against that.
You often find expat communities have the exact opposite viewpoint as those that remain, part of the reason they are expats. See cuban expats, nicaraguan expats, not to say they are wrong but they are not a monolith representing all of a civilization. Presumably those standing around the bridges don’t want them bombed.
I’m just giving my personal experience as a data point.
All my in-laws are in Tehran: aunts, uncles, cousins. Everybody is anti-regime.
It’s hard for us to understand in the west. Speaking out against the regime is not possible.
These people who congregated on the bridges were phoned up by the regime as a marketing stunt. Perhaps they were family members or friends of the IRGC. Perhaps they were forced to go, because you can’t say no to the regime. They hang protesters.
I saw someone in another thread compare it to the USSR. Or maybe North Korea.
I’m not saying that there aren’t regime supporters, there definitely are. But you have to be very suspect whenever you see videos of “grassroots” supporters of the regime and remember that opposition voices are not allowed.
It's not because you've found an Iranian that wants their country destroyed that this is the right thing to do.
All military experts agree that bombing a country isn't going to trigger a regime change, and it hasn't so far after weeks of intense bombing. So the answer should be, keep bombing more things and target civilians?
Besides, the Iranian expat community is also a bubble, maybe not representative of the ones who are actually bombed.
Uh no, your wife said to bomb the civilians on the bridges, because they're regime supporters. Clearly advocating for a war crime, so who gives a shit that she's an Iranian expat? No wonder it was flagged.
You have to be very suspect of “grassroots” supporters of the regime in these videos.
Another thread compared it to the USSR. Or maybe North Korea.
Opposition voices are not allowed. Protesters are hanged.
When the regime tells you to go to the bridge for a marketing stunt, you go.
I’m absolutely not saying that I believe they should be bombed!
I’m just trying to share the perspective of actual Iranians. To you, my wife wants to bomb civilians. To my wife, these are just marketing stunts that are fully orchestrated by the regime.
I gotta say, that's really fucked up. Like, I'm Russian, I hate what Russia is doing, I think support for Putin in Russia is far higher than it has any right to be, but I'd never casually throw out a "bomb them all, they're all complicit." I think people with these sorts of opinions need therapy.
The other side (regime) publicly state “execute them all” and the response is “bomb them all”. To be clear, I’m not agreeing with the sentiments and agree that bombing the infrastructure is awful, just stating my observation of the state media vs opposition voices.
even Putin’s FSB with all its arbitrary arrests and torture in jail is very very far away from public lashing and hangings, from using actual children in real fighting (beyond kindergartens dressed as tanks which is disgusting but different than sending kids to demine fields or be used as human shields). The scale of torture and jailing is also different with Iran probably being closer to Stalin’s 1937.
My impression is that Iran is much closer to a civil war than Russia is. It’s very polarized.
You have to put yourself in the mindset of someone against the regime. They feel that their country was hijacked by an islamic theocracy.
This is a regime that forces little girls to cover their body. Dancing and singing in public is illegal. Protesters are hanged.
My wife was sent home from school as a kid because her headband didn’t properly cover her forehead. At the age of 30 my wife still has trouble wearing shorts because she is self-conscious about showing her legs.
This is the kind of mental trauma that women have to recover from after leaving Iran. And I’ve only skimmed the surface.
There is zero sympathy from the anti-regime side for those who support the theocracy.
> At the age of 30 my wife still has trouble wearing shorts because she is self-conscious about showing her legs.
Just as an extra data point: I (a man) still feel weird about going running with a tank-top, because nearly 3 decades ago at a gym in Turkey I was politely asked to cover my shoulders.
I'm sure she and other Iranians have endured far far worse; my only point is that "Is uncomfortable showing skin" isn't necessarily evidence of that, as it doesn't necessarily take much to trigger.
I get what you’re saying, but if you’ve ever met someone who has grown up in an extremely religious environment, then you know what I mean.
Inculcating into young girls (and boys to some degree) that their bodies are shameful, sex is shameful, hell is real and waiting for them if they disobey, causes lifelong mental trauma.
It’s not unique to Islam. I’m sure there are extreme versions of Christianity and Judaism that also make women feel ashamed of their bodies.
Sure but that response about the people is entirely ignoring the vastly larger issue of does she (or, more importantly, people actually in Iran) want every single power plant bombed because that is what the threat was (also all bridges and some railroads). This is talking about the country being without power and stable food or water infrastructure for the foreseeable future and a lot of normal people dying (not particularly regime supporters)
My impression is that people don’t take Trump‘s words literally. Trump often exaggerates and plays word games. If you take every statement from Trump literally you’re going to be constantly triggered.
But even so, I think the response you’ll get from most anti-regime Iranians is “go for it, if it may let us get our country back”.
Iranians who wants the regime overthrown are very conflicted right now. They see their country being destroyed, but they also hate the regime and want a revolution.
They literally feel that their country was hijacked by an Islamic theocracy. They want that destroyed, so they’re thankful that Trump is attacking it.
How far should Trump go? I just saw news reports that Iranian expats and anti-regime Iranians were disappointed with the cease-fire. That aligns with the initial reaction from my family and the Iranian expats that I know.
So it’s a complicated answer… Do Iranians want all their infrastructure destroyed? If it would guarantee the regime was defeated I think most would say yes.
I have never seen any diaspora have more contempt for their own people than Iranians. Thankfully more recent diaspora in the US are both more level-headed and diverse (coming not just from Tehran and a few other major cities but many other places and ethnic groups). I know an Azeri Iranian who was nothing but contempt for the regime (especially after thousands of protesters were murdered) but is horrified by what the US/Israel has been doing.
Diaspora communities are never representative of their home country. This is something I know from my own community, since selection bias leads to a very particular (and privileged) set of people with the means to emigrate, almost universally from a single ethnic group that is less than 11% of the total population. Perhaps you should consider whether the Iranians you know are representative of the Iranian population as a whole.
I would agree that there is some bias amongst expats, I think that’s a fair point.
I think saying diaspora “never represent” their home countries is an exaggeration.
All the Iranians in the US I know are first generation immigrants who have been here maybe 5-20 years. I’m not talking about second generation Iranians. They all still have family in Iran. And their views do not differ from their family.
My mother-in-law is the most anti-regime person I know, and she lives in Tehran. A bomb recently exploded nearby and broke all the windows in her house. But life goes on, Iranians are extremely resilient.
> All the Iranians in the US
Maybe thats the only demographic in the US? They are anti-regime and must clear interview at US consulate, can't exactly get into US if you are pro-regime?
Is your wife one of those crazy monarchists? I don't have any preference for the current theocratic dictarorship vs monarchical dictarorship. If they want to be en enslaved people I see no point what the change in figurehead does. I hate monarchies and see no reason to support her kind. I'd fully support any side that wants a proper democracy for iran.
Purely historically too of course the USA and Israel are rhe last people whose words I'd trust about wanting to bring "freedom" to a country. The only thing they are experts at are toppling democracies and installing dictators, including in Iran itself.
No, she’s not a monarchist, and she’s actually very uncomfortable with people referring to “prince” Reza Pahlavi.
I think she understands that every movement needs a leader, so she’s ok with Mr. Pahlavi leading that, i.e. a constitutional assembly. But beyond that she doesn’t recognize the monarchy
That's much better then. And I personally am just very wary of any entity claiming they will "just" be a king for a while and cede power given how dictatorial the last pahlavi was.
This is what a lot of diaspora are like when a country has had a western friendly puppet regime overthrown.
The people who left tend were often in a privileged position under the previous regime and the bitterness at having their privilege revoked often echoes through the generations.
They might feign concern for human rights when the regime they hate is violating them (i saw a lot of that when the alleged killing of tens of thousands of protestors) but it's the bitterness of lost privilege which truly drives them.
Ive seen it with Cubans, Venezuelans, Angolans, even the odd Russian.
I’m just giving my personal experience as a comparison.
I have not met a single Iranian expat who was in a privileged position. All the Iranian expats I know are in their 20s and 30s and were just very lucky to get a visa, many in the Obama years. I suppose there were some changes during Obama that allowed more Iranians to immigrate?
For my wife, her family is actually very anti-monarchist. Exactly because of the feeling that there were privileged and unprivileged class during the Shah monarchy.
My wife grew up middle/lower middle class in Tehran and did not have any privileges in life. She was lucky to get a visa to the US, worked 2 jobs + odd jobs all through college to afford it. Constantly scrounging and networking to survive.
That’s why I love first generation immigrants. I think they’re the hardest working, most resilient people you’ll ever meet.
Your wife doesnt live in iran im assuming? She wont risk her child being killed in preschool by a tomahawk, or having to live without electricity or transportation or drinking water because trump bombed it?
As someone from and in a thirdworld country, these expats can be even more arrogant and psychopathic than the imperialists they live under
My in-laws all live in Iran. My wife has many aunts, uncles, and cousins. I don’t even know how many people - it’s probably 20 to 30 people at least. All in Tehran.
My mother-in-law is the most anti-regime person I’ve met.
I have friends in the US that want the US government destroyed, there are people in the southern US that think the south won the civil war. Who cares?
Every government in all of human history has had its detractors and supporters, more detractors probably exist in expatriated communities, their existence does not really prove anything.
the no kings movement draws a line between no kings in the USA, and leaving other countries to pursue the same.
didn't Donald Trump campaign on no more foreign wars? doesn't America First mean not starting some forever war?
and if there is a good case for intervention: then make it! what are the objectives? Regime change? we killed most of their leadership, and they are still running the show. We killed Osama... and then fled Afghanistan decades later. why is there such a short memory in this case? these dudes HATE US: their recruiting propaganda gets more effective with every bomb we drop on them.
and if regime change is so important, than surely we will invade North Korea next right? and Russia? what about them? how about Venezuela? ohhh, yeah we left the regime in place, with no change for the people living under it.
perhaps was controlling oil the key objective? well... we stopped sanctioning the Iranian regime, and they are still in a position to stop traffic in Hormuz: the current terms they are asking gives them more control over the strait, rather than less?
so what the hell is our objective? can we just admit that we have no idea what we're doing, because we have no strategy?
Be an apologist for something that isn't truly riddled with internal inconsistency.
I’m not sure what your point is. Are you suggesting that anti-regime Iranians are a minority?
I’m not sure if we have good statistics on this. So everyone may have a different perspective.
All I can say is this: I’m married to an Iranian woman, and through her I’ve met many Iranian expats, and I’ve talked to her family members within Iran.
I think you’ll find that Iranian expats are pretty unanimously against the regime. That’s millions of Iranians. My in-laws who lives in Tehran are anti-regime, along with every single person on my wife’s side of the family: aunts, uncles, cousins. Everybody.
Thousands of protesters were killed opposing the regime. And that’s just the latest protest.
This is a regime that will kill women who don’t cover their hair correctly. Dancing and singing in the street is illegal.
Don’t be concerned on behalf of the regime. This is a just war supported by Iranians. You are on the right side of history to kill people who hang protestors and force little girls to cover every part of their body.
>That’s millions of Iranians. My in-laws who lives in Tehran are anti-regime, along with every single person on my wife’s side of the family: aunts, uncles, cousins. Everybody.
How do you square this with the absolutely massive pro-government rallies that we've seen all across Iran for the entire duration of the conflict? Millions of Iranians opposed to the regime, in a country of 90 million+, might still be a fringe minority.
If you asked some American expat their thoughts on MAGA, and they responded "China should bomb MAGA rallies so we can be free from the Republican party, my whole family in the US agrees".....that person would be considered a fringe lunatic, even if Trump's regime has record-low approval like it does now (and rightly deserves, I hope he is impeached and jailed).
In a country of 90 million, if the regime has 20% supporters, that’s 18 million supporters.
Tehran population is 9 million, 20% of that is 1.8 million.
So it’s easy to understand why you might see videos of hundreds or thousands of regime supporters in the streets. That doesn’t mean they’re the majority.
Maybe they should go be the boots on the ground for the next quagmire if it's so important to them? Commander in Chief Bonespurs and the Secretary of Booze can lead the charge straight up the Straight.
Or maybe they should just focus on being Americans in America and some day Iran will sort itself out without the US' "help".
why do we have a moral obligation to help? and why them? there are many places on Earth with a lot worse situation for citizens than Iranians, do we have a moral obligation to help everyone and prioritize?
again, why do we care? about this region in particular. and for whom
would it be “game-changing” other than Israel?
> we have to be pragmatic and choose our battles
this sounds very far removed from “we have a moral obligation”
bottom line, we should not give two shits about what is happening there and we even went voting for a candidate who told us he’ll be the one to make sure we don’t give two shits about it except of course he turned out to be worse than all previous ones combined :)
Surely you can steel man this yourself. Iran wants nukes. Iran has stated it would like to destroy the US and Israel. Israel is an outpost of Western democracy and our ally. Iran has missiles that can reach Europe. Iran is an ally of Russia and China. Iran wants to control the passageway for a big chunk of the world's oil. Cooperation between Israel and its neighbors would be a great asset to the world economy.
This is not comprehensive and maybe you can quibble with some of it, but it is not mysterious why we might care.
>Israel is an outpost of Western democracy and our ally.
The former is a meaningless characteristic when said democracy commits a genocide and runs an apartheid state (hard to deny with the recent capital punishment law exclusively for Palestinian prisoners). Hardly model behavior for anyone else in the region to emulate. The latter is meaningless since this ally only ever drags us into problems, almost all of which are of its own making.
> Cooperation between Israel and its neighbors would be a great asset to the world economy.
It's easier to cooperate with your neighbors when you stop squatting on their territory, or stop massacring them.
>but it is not mysterious why we might care.
I think "people who care" should volunteer to serve in the IDF, and leave the rest of America out of it. Kinda like the various low-friction pipelines for people to go fight/die for Ukraine without committing US Service Members to such a wasteful endeavor.
I'm well aware of the insane perspective of Iranian monarchists in America. Frankly it's not really their fault, American interventionists have pushed them into this brainrot.
But having an opinion doesn't make it a good opinion and there is no way to say "please get my grandmother's blood on your hands for my insane vision of Iran" sanely.
Thanks, I hadn’t seen that article before. Interesting read.
My take is that GAMAAN likely overstates the opposition, but all surveys on Iran are imperfect, not just GAMAAN.
I know Pew has done surveys in Iran, but didn’t directly ask if people support the regime.
I personally believe that the opposition group is larger than the regime supporters. I think there’s enough data to infer that.
But I’ll also admit that there’s probably a sizable percentage of ambivalent/non-revolutionary Iranians who would just be satisfied with a better economy.
I trust the people who are close to this more than what you hear on the news. My guess is 90%+ of the readers here know nothing of Iranians except what they read or hear on the news.
How many of you have been to Iran, have family members there, etc? I'm guessing very few.
And a significant portion of the opposition wish he was dead.
It’s not about “minority vs majority” it’s the very biased phrasing of “we should bomb Iran because people want regime change” Imagine if Iran was bombing USA because the majority of Americans want regime change.
I understand the desire to end that murderous regime. If I were Iranian, I'd want to see it ended too. But do they really think bombs will achieve that? More importantly, would more bombing actually bring the regime down?
Regimes rarely fall because civilians are reduced to searching for food and water. Destroying Iran's infrastructure would be more likely to produce desperation and disorder than revolt. It would hurt the weakest most, not those closest to the regime and best positioned to shield themselves from scarcity.
If outsiders want to help bring the regime down, supporting opposition forces would at least make more sense than bombing civilians into misery.
This is where not betraying the Kurds (several times) would have come in handy...
I don’t think civilians are being bombed into misery. My in-laws live in Tehran.
During the entire war, life goes on. The bakeries are open. They go about their life. My in-laws were driving back-and-forth across the city throughout the entire war. They recently bought a fridge.
They were seeing bombs and smoke from the city, sure. But it’s like living in uptown Manhattan, and seeing smoke come from the financial district. It doesn’t really affect your life, although it may be scary.
Only after a month of war did a bomb finally go off in their neighborhood. The shockwave
broke the windows in their house. But the Red Crescent was in the neighborhood to support.
I agree with you that arming the opposition is probably the best move. All I can say is that whatever we’ve been doing the last 40+ years has accomplished nothing. Anti-regime Iranians want action.
Is this iranians in iran or the diaspora? If its people in iran then theyre walking the walk which is admirable. If its the diaspora then theyre psychopaths for sacrificing innocents for government change in a country they dont live in
I have a serious problem with calling 100+ schoolgirls who - at best - got instantly dismembered by a bomb and didnt suffer (too much) and at worst were crushed to death or bled out from shrapnel wounds "evil"
I was referring to the US government verus the Iranian government. People think its good v evil but thay bombing and the double tapping shows it might be evil v evil
Obviously no one is calling the victims evil. You have to suspect thats a misinterpretation if thats what you get from a comment
> They wanted trump to go further and destroy the regime.
It would require a large scale ground operation which is off the table. A few more weeks of air strikes would not have destroyed the regime anyway but a few more weeks of asymmetric strikes (when Iran strikes its neighbors because it can do little about the US/Israel) would have destroyed gulf oil infrastructure inflicting lasting economic pain on the whole world.
That's what I hear, but it seems like pure desperation. The reality is, Israel calls the shots here, and they aren't interested in a regime change that would strengthen Iran in the long term. They weren't happy with Pahlavi either.
I’ve never seen an example when foreign news really reported what people think on the ground. Especially because people on the ground usually lie. For example in Hungary, the voters of the current “opposition” prime minister candidate would tell you that they vote for him because they want democracy. Yet, they haven’t cared about that for more than a decade. Even when the real reason: inflation was obvious that it would be enormous after the election in 2022, before the previous election. The same with the US, news across the pond doesn’t explain why people vote for Trump, I had to go to the US several times to figure that out.
They really don't know with Iran. It's illegal to protest the government there, and at the same time US and UK propaganda says everyone there wants to overthrow their govt.
Destroying infrastructure and making live hell for normal people does not remove the regime. When will people learn that air-wars don't magically change governments?
Also, the Iranians you likely hear, are not representative. I don't think most people who depend on energy and water don't want that infrastructure destroyed.
> There are news reports of Iranian expats and opponents within Iranian who are disappointed with the ceasefire. They wanted trump to go further and destroy the regime.
That's the diaspora's luxury. They don't have to endure the pain of the conflict or sanctions, and they always end up being the biggest hardliners for that reason.
Was one of them BBC, who quoted one Iranian resident as saying they were ok with the US nuking Iran, and then quietly removing that bit from the quotes with no note that the article was edited?
Those news reports must be so trustworthy (!). They drunk the kool aid and propaganda just like Iranians of the opposite idea. But the difference is your Iranian friends probably never lived in a day in Iran.
> There are news reports of Iranian expats and opponents within Iranian who are disappointed with the ceasefire. They wanted trump to go further and destroy the regime.
Iranians hoping that war and death will save them are chasing a gruesome mirage. The US has successfully liberated exactly one country by regime change since 1945: Panama in 1989. Every other intervention has either supported a rebellion (secession) instead of a revolution, or it has ended in failure (Afghanistan, Vietnam, Somalia) or a prolonged civil war (Iraq, Libya, Yemen). Anyone hoping for such a fate to befall their own country is morally compromised.
Looks like an interesting article, but it’s paywalled. Would love to read it. Do you have a different link or can you summarize it?
From my conversations with Iranians, they know regime change is a long shot. But what are they to do?
Anti-regime Iranians literally feel like that their country was hijacked by an Islamic theocracy. 40+ years of status quo has done nothing to change that.
So yes, they enjoy seeing the regime being bombed. Do they really expect a revolution? Maybe the tiniest sliver of hope in their heart believes in it. But that’s better than nothing.
Trita Parsi recently stated in an interview that he has data showing the support for regime change among the Iranian diaspora has significantly increased from 5% to around 30% but only a minority of them accept the 'at all costs' premise: https://youtu.be/dUyJubRB-ek?si=9wl8pc3sEgTrDlql
Calling Iranians who are against their current government “morally compromised” is real reprehensible for someone sitting in an armchair. Hoping foreign power can help overthrow the domestic lord is nothing new. That’s literally how the U.S. gained its independence with French military assistance.
And to your point, US interventions saved South Korea, Kuwait, Grenada, Bosnia, in addition to Panama. The legacy of Vietnam is complicated with the country rejecting communism, becoming capitalistic, and embracing the U.S. in recent years. This is in stark contrast to countries like North Korea. We don’t know how Iraq and Venezuela will turn out in the current timeline either.
Even more problematic though, is the fact that many of the US interventions happened in countries at the brink of free fall. These are failed states who are more likely to experience turmoils with or without the U.S.. Yes, civil wars can be worse than dictatorship. But that’s one of many possible outcomes. Avoiding all changes due to the fear of the worst potential outcome is weirdly privileged view. Kurds in Iraq can attest to this. Iraq has become much better for them nowadays because the Saddam era was pure hell. They were desperate and any alternative was thought to be better.
However, I don’t think intervention in Iran necessarily serves the US interest to begin with. So sure, I agree with you that the U.S. really shouldn’t waste more time in Iran.
>Calling Iranians who are against their current government “morally compromised” is real reprehensible for someone sitting in an armchair.
What I said was that anyone who wants their country to meet the fate of other countries the US has attempted to regime change is morally compromised. Simply hoping that the Islamic regime will go away is completely rational. Knowing that it will definitely fail and wanting to try it anyway is insanity.
And the diaspora fools cheering for more bombs and destruction are also in armchairs. They have no sympathy from me.
>Hoping foreign power can help overthrow the domestic lord is nothing new. That’s literally how the U.S. gained its independence with French military assistance.
Not regime change, a rebellion.
>And to your point, US interventions saved South Korea, Kuwait, Grenada, Bosnia, in addition to Panama.
South Korea was a response to invasion, Kuwait was a response to invasion, Grenada was a coup (response to a coup — edge case because the end state was much easier to define and also the country is minuscule), Bosnia was a rebellion. None of these are regime change.
>Kurds in Iraq can attest to this.
Also a rebellion. You might want to recheck the criteria.
>We don’t know how Iraq and Venezuela will turn out in the current timeline either.
23 years of civil war is too many. You can't just say "well eventually it worked out", that could justify anything. Other dictatorships have ended faster without violence. Venezuela was not a real regime change war because a deal was made with the VP before the invasion and also the Bolivarians are still in power.
> There are news reports of Iranian expats and opponents within Iranian who are disappointed with the ceasefire. They wanted trump to go further and destroy the regime.
Good question. From the conversations that I’ve had with Iranians, it’s unclear. The regime is too embedded. There’s no easy answer. Killing Mojtaba would be a good start.
Anti-regime Iranians are basically holding onto any sliver of hope that they can regain their country.
Of course, it’s all very unlikely, but I can’t help sympathizing with them. I think their cause is just. I think a non-theocratic Iran that could rejoin the global economy is a dream worth fighting for.
It was a great start. Iranians celebrated his death, which made me happy.
I think one idea is that if you can kill enough regime leaders, perhaps a moderate leader may emerge?
Or perhaps there may be a military coup? Which may be a lesser of two evils?
The Iranians I’ve spoken to don’t feel like it was counterproductive. They actually feel like Trump has done more than any other president to damage the regime.
What’s the alternative? More economic sanctions? The status quo of the last 40+ years has accomplished nothing.
Anti-regime Iranians want action. They want us to make a move. We killed a lot of regime leaders and destroyed their military capability. That’s something. Now we have to see how that chess move played out.
Don't know why this is downvoted, people must forget that the weeks leading up the war, Iran was pulling the plug on the internet and shooting regime protestors in the street.
It seems Trump and Israel expected an internal revolution once the bombing started, but it doesn't seem that manifested.
Your perspectives of Iranians seems to be too biased, given also that you have partner from Iran and confess that you "only" talk to their inlaws and friends.
The Iranian diaspora is more divided on the matter than you think [1], and given your background, you're probably in the bubble of the diaspora that wouldn't mind sending threatening messages to anyone not being completely aligned with anti regime stance.
It's like someone marrying a deep south confederate flag waving MAGA American, moving there, and judging from talking to their friends and their hate for everything not MAGA, conclude that every American is like this. Or same scenario but California and liberals.
I’ve never sent threatening messages to people, and would never do that, so I’m not sure what that’s in reference to?
I’ve responded to this idea of bias in other threads.
I’m open to the idea that I’m perhaps biased by my wife, her friends, and my in-laws.
I’ll admit that it may be a little hard for me to accept that given that I’ve been to so many Iranian celebrations, and met so many different people, and heard the same perspectives again and again. I feel that what I’ve conveyed on hacker news in my comments does reflect truly the conversations I’ve had.
Most importantly, my goal in making these comments is to surface what actual Iranians are thinking.
Many Iranians in the US are afraid to speak out because they have family in Iran, or they’re here in the US on a visa. They fear that if they speak up, they’ll never be able to go home and see their family again.
As a US citizen, who is connected with the Iranian community, I feel it’s my duty to surface these conversations I’ve had.
My apologies if it came off as I was accusing you or your wife for sending threatening messages. That wasn't the intent
It was (supposed to be) a reference to the content of the linked material:
>Individuals and opposition groups took it upon themselves to allege relationships between diaspora Iranians and the Islamic Republic and guided their followers to conduct purity tests that sought to target, silence, and excommunicate anyone with whom they disagreed, labeling them as apologists or agents of the Islamic Republic for having called for reform in years past (now deemed too soft on the Islamic Republic), or for being unwilling to name the then-nascent protest movement a “revolution” or, in more extreme cases, for being unwilling to support regime change by any means necessary.
And a comment about the fact that you and your close Iranian relatives and friends probably hold the anti regime views strongly, and so does many (especially the ones that had to flee the revolution, or the childrens of) of their friends. I'm not questioning that fact, but pointing out that it's quite obvious that your friends and relatives probably wouldn't hang around the Iranians with different views.
It's not the only group and in a political climate like the Iranian diaspora, individuals (or groups) with opposing views or nuanced views are often silenced relentlessly.
It's simply unavoidable dynamics: iranian diaspora strongly wanting regime change are also not the ones that have to carry the blunt of that cost (they're outside Iran already), but reap most of the benefits. They're also spreading that message on platforms in countries that have an incentive to push for that message (USA, Israel) so the discourse will be highly amplified around anti-regime rethoric. The fact that it's not their house that is being bombed, also means that there aren't really any counteracting weight put on any potential opposing discourse, the discourse will maintain or go more extreme in is anti-regime rethoric going even more "any means necessary" route.
The Iranians against the regime inside Iran, I would assume, have a more nuanced view now. They might be against the regime, but not to the point they're willing to sacrifice their children, neighbors, and society collapsing Libya or Syria style. So they're probably less "any means necessary" about regime change.
May be the expats are doing well financially and they have different perspective, what about the majority ones , especially the students who were opposing the regime during some death of a girl, has they converted. This is what I am interested in
I don’t personally know. But I don’t see why students who protested during the “woman, life, freedom” protest a couple years ago would be any less anti-regime now. If that’s what you’re asking.
That’s not what Iranians expect or are asking for. Every Iranian I’ve spoken to is thankful that Khamenei is now dead and there is at least a chance of change. They don’t expect Trump to fix their country for them. They want someone to help so their own government isn’t shooting them dead by the thousands in the streets.
Your casual usage of the word “genocide” doesn’t apply to Iran.
Iranians are dramatically in favor of removing the theocratic Islamic regime. Iranian expats the world over celebrated Khamenei’s death.
My Iranian mother-in-law living in Tehran has literally been saying “get the mullahs out” every time we’ve spoken for the last year. Millions of Iranians inside Iran are thankful that the US (and even Israel despite the complicated relationship) is attacking the regime.
This is a regime, after all, that killed thousands of its own people. That requires girls to fully cover themselves. That doesn’t allow singing or dancing in the street.
Achieved nothing? Go talk to a real Iranian, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Iranians the world over have felt hope for the first time in over 40 years that they may get their country back. And we absolutely should not stop trying to help them.
Yeah, I grew up in Iraq, under more ruthless dictator that fought Iran. You are naive if you thank Israel/US are here to free Iran.
A government won't last that long if there were to genuine supports. The fact you are outside of Iran and have some people there, doesn't make you more knowledgeable, it makes you westernized and you voted to leave with your own feet.
From my conversations, Iranians don’t really care if Israel/US are specifically there to “free Iran”. Iranians are pragmatic, they understand that US/Israel have their own motives.
As long as the regime is being destroyed, that’s a win. And that’s happening, big time. That’s why Iranians danced in the street when Khamenei was killed.
I’ll defer to every Iranian I know, the millions of Iranians expats, and millions of Iranians within Iran, who are all cheering us on and celebrating Khamenei’s death.
Every Iranian I know has the same sentiment right now. Feeling very conflicted in that 1) their country is being attacked, and 2) thankful that the oppressive regime is being destroyed. Cautiously optimistic about the future.
Iranians responding with excitement and hope as we bomb the regime.
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