Idk, I’ve never seen any left wing folks actively support the Iranian regime. I think the difference is what you noted, the US support for Israel vs. intervention in Iran.
I, and many I know, would love to see the Iranian regime fall, just not via US regime change which tends to make things worse.
Yeah I see anyone actively supporting the Iranian regime, just that they're apparently not interested in the cause of the people protesting and being massacred.
I think it's just an instinct to oppose anything the current administration supports. Same with Cuba and Venezuela.
But it consistently aligns them with some of the most suppressive regimes.
Venezuelans are glad Maduro is gone. Iranians want the US to do something. Lots of Cubans as well.
One big thing your missing is that there simply is no way imaginable that a regime change can happen without the US, it's simply impossible at this stage. I can certainly understand why many if not most Iranians want the US to intervene, it's simply the only way regime change is ever going to happen.w
I don’t necessarily contest that, but I also wouldn’t trust the current administration to be the ones to succeed in that undertaking in a way that promotes lasting peace in the country/region. And no, I wouldn’t trust Biden/Obama/Bush either.
Fair enough, and yes it might fail, but what i gather from all Iranians I've talked to (family), the consensus is that it can't get much worse than it is now, so they'd rather live with the consequences for even a small chance that things will be better.
I have lived through regime change in Eastern Europe in 1989.
A year before the change, one cannot imagine the regime change. And yet, it did happen. Bloodlessly (except Romania).
Any external meddling would have probably made it much bloodier.
You can be assured most Iranians do NOT want US to intervene. How many Americans want China/Russia to intervene to 'help' you get rid of Trump?
Get off your high horse and use a bit of empathy and common sense.
Empathy in this case apparently meaning allowing continued funding of terrorism across the ME and continued killing of any and all political opposition inside of Iran. So empathetic you are. Also, I'm totally sure your memories of what life was like when you were 5 are totally and completely accurate and captures the entirety of the geopolitical realities of the situation.
Empathy means understanding that nationalism is a powerful force and even people who are against their government would support their government against external aggressor.
Empathy means that you understand that what YOU consider terrorism might mean 'supporting self-determination of oppressed and occupied people' by somebody else. Is it so difficult to understand that ordinary Iranians do not see their government as international supporters of terrorism?
I was 19 in 1989. While I do not claim to understand geopolitical realities in their entirety, I was old enough to distinctly remember how surprising the fall of communism felt. Despite almost all people I knew being (low-level, passive) anti-communists, nobody saw it really coming until the last few months. In fact, in June 1989, I had a choice to make - either to go to a competition to West Germany, or go with friends hiking to Caucasus. The choice was obvious - go to West Germany, who knows when will be the next chance to see The West. On the other hand, I could go to Caucasus anytime.... we know how that turned out to be.
I'm sure there was tons of external meddling in most of eastern Europe before the many regime changes. It's very hard to draw any comparison between 80s eastern Europe and today's Iran. I don't think you really fathom how ingrained the regime really is. First of all Iran is huge and very rich in resources which makes the regime very rich and iran is technically self sufficient with food and energy. second, the regime has evolved and learned from the mistakes if other regimes making sure to have large foreign armies that don't give a shit about the Iranian people as long as the money keeps flowing, i could go on.
Also you seem to not grasp that the current regime are viewed as invaders forcing Islamic rule which I'm pretty sure is very very different from the scenarios your mentioning. And even in your scenario, if Trump really succeeds in destroying American democracy and takes everyone's guns away and closes the internet to the world and starts killing every and all opposition and terrorizes America for 40 years I'm pretty sure you'd like who ever the duck is capable of removing that to intervene. And it's not like I'm making it up, i happen to have many Iranians in my family, and many of them living in Iran still and i can assure you that the vast majority in the big cities want the US to kill off the regime. I'm sure there's some kind of rural population that loves sharia like the us has maga, but i don't think they are the majority any more.
Equating Trump to the systems in China/Russia is absurd. You have no concept of what losing free speech really means if you think that's an accurate comparison.
Not saying that what's happening with ICE is okay. But it's a very sheltered view to think that is at all equivalent to what happens in those countries if you actively protest against the govt.
For Iranians, USA is strong foreign country that is hostile to them.
For Americans, Russia/China are (relatively) strong foreign countries that (they think) are hostile to them.
As Americans would NOT like if Russia/China was influencing their internal matters (Russia gate ?), so would Iranians NOT like if USA was deciding who is going to govern over them.
First, they are a proud nation with long history. Second, they have a very good reason (many historical precedents) to believe USA will not act in the interests of Iranian people, but in their own (and Israel's) interests.
We know what losing free speech is like, we are living it with Trump. The Chinese and Russians don’t know what it’s like to lose free speech because they never had it.
It’s exactly because we compare against a just a corrupt government directly over a short period of time that our experience is fairly unique in the world.
That's because most left wing Americans don't support the Iranian regime.
People that ask "where are all the students on campus that were protesting Gaza" do so because taking action on injustice, in a way that demands accountability from their leaders, is an uncomfortable idea. For them, the purpose of taking action is largely to signal moral outrage, and making an aggrieved post on social media is the beginning and end of praxis on an issue. And if that is your mindset, why wouldn't you make an equal amount of posts about Iran as you would for Gaza? Since they are both Things That Are Morally Bad.
What they don't understand is that for people that e.g. protest in person, protesting isn't a quaint, feckless action merely meant to signal one's care about an issue to the right people. Rather, it is an action with a goal to effect specific change of behavior on a particular issue from a specific group of people (usually leaders in power that are beholden to the protesters). If you are American and protesting US military support for Israel based on the conflict in Gaza, there are practical, material, direct cause-and-effect reasons to make that argument towards your elected representatives; the same is simply not true for the Iran situation (which the majority of the US government is already aligned with bombing yet again).
It's just such a strange point of view to interpret lack of action on a particular issue as tacit support.
"Regime change" here refers to coup d'états. Meanwhile those were declared(!) wars. In response to existing wars dragging the US into them. Involving countries that were in very different places both politically and geographically.
A coup is... not even remotely the same thing. How many coups do you know of that helped the local population?
Well of course it’s not black or white, it’s nuanced as everything in life is.
But my larger point is that I don’t trust the current US administration to engage in regime change in a beneficial way as perhaps the US admin in 1945 did. You’re right that those examples and some others are good ones. But I believe the odds are that this situation would be one of the worse ones.
Do I support the Iranian regime? Hell no! I just also don’t think the US invading is a solution that would bring long term peace and prosperity.
"any western country would have already folded long ago"
How do you know that? Is it just your general assumption "Westerners weak, must fold, third-worlders stronk, they endure"?
Under what conditions would you say that sanctions are OK? Or are they never? In that case, there still might be white minority rule in Rhodesia or South Africa.
Why? Because you can’t guilt trip me into submission I need to be removed? And because I don’t buy media’s blatant abuse of the situation I lack empathy?
I’ve always heard (despite the incredibly fluid definition) that “vibe” coding specifically was much more on the “not reading/writing code” side of the spectrum vs. AI assisted code writing where you review and tweak it manually
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