The Iranian diaspora around the world is celebrating. Here's the scene in Berlin:
https://youtu.be/NSbx_0mtk80?si=MJ_Bfvx8gVd1P1mm
They've waited a very long time for this moment!
I have no doubt that they didn't like that the regime, which is why they left.
But this assassination is no guarantee of change for the better. Far from it.
It’s no guarantee, but it is a good opportunity. I’m half-Persian, and certainly not as closely connected as others, but it’s hard to see this as a bad thing. There’s a possibility I can go visit my family in Iran as a result of this. I haven’t had a good chance for that in like 4 years
Removal of the head of state is often a turning point. Either a regime becomes more extreme or the government collapses due to in-fighting as individuals attempt to gain control.
I would hold back on any hopes until we see how the current government handles things. Intervention from other countries does not always lead to positive outcomes.
Has there been a regime which has collapsed due to an external strike like this where it hasn't resulted in some decades long civil war nightmare?
I can't think of any time when bombing the shit out of a country and killing their leader has actually worked.
All I can think of is examples of blowback.
> I can't think of any time when bombing the shit out of a country and killing their leader has actually worked.
Japan? Although their leader wasn't killed, but same logic. The more civilized a country is the easier it is to reform them into a good state, and Iran is a pretty civilized and structured nation, the dictatorship is the main issue.
Most people in Iran want a democracy and are capable of running it, you just have to let them. That isn't the case in most of these dictatorships that lacks such structure, but it is there in Iran.
The Americans had to occupy and place both Japan and West Germany under their military rule afterwards to make it stick, that's not a comparison
The US did not have to occupy Japan and deal with rebels - the emperor surrendered unconditionally and the US fed the existing pro-democracy movement while rebuilding the country.
If you look at the US' history of interventions, the common thread is that nations with established pro-democracy movements tend to become stable democracies, and nations where democracy lacks popular support tend to turn into flimsy Republics that easily fall apart when American support is removed.
Occupation is so expensive that it's virtually unthinkable for even a medium-size country to be occupied. There are just too many civilians and too few soldiers.
I disagree. After the bombing, the Emperor himself broadcasted a surrender message [0] to the people of Japan. The occupation was also for more lighter than in Germany. Japan had full control of its administration and its government continued to operate. In that context whether we like or not, it very much worked.
0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirohito_surrender_broadcast
The American occupation of Japan may have been less punitive than Germany’s, but it was arguably more invasive: Japan’s postwar Constitution was largely drafted by Americans, with minimal Japanese input. By contrast, West Germany’s Basic Law was written by Germans themselves under Allied constraints.
Japanese army officers stormed the emperor's palace and placed him under house arrest in an attempt to prevent him from broadcasting that surrender message. This was after the second bomb, a whole lot of them still had fight left in them.
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Yeah, apparently I should have been explicit that I was talking about air strikes and not occupation.
We aren't going to occupy Iran.
Comparing this to defeated nations in WWII is also a massive stretch, I almost can't believe people seriously think that is a parallel situation.
There's a lot of propaganda out there to dissuade people from thinking that this looks a lot like Libya at best--and that is assuming that decapitation airstrikes can even make the regime fall (which I doubt).
Yes, this is an underrated point and why I’m holding out hope for a positive outcome. I’m convinced that, before the revolution, Iran was on the same trajectory as European monarchies that had become democracies. At that point, countries like Denmark had been democracies for less than 75 years.
And then France sent Khomeini back to Iran on a chartered Air France 747 & stifled that. France also built Dimona nuclear plant in Israel in 1963 and then tested multiple times nuclear weapons in Algeria from 1960-1966 in the Algerian Sahara & mountains & allowed Israel to observe these explosions.
From my understanding, it wasn't the bombing that motivated Japan to surrender even though this is commonly taught, it was the recent Soviet declaration of war and fear of invasion/occupation.
> Has there been a regime which has collapsed due to an external strike like this where it hasn't resulted in some decades long civil war nightmare?
People have already mentioned the post WW2 occupation of Germany and Japan.
There’s also the Roman occupation of Greece (and other Hellenistic territories), and even perhaps the Norman occupation of England. Not that either of these didn’t cause some strife and rebellion in both cases, but still there was a concerted effort to build up both territories.
> Has there been a regime which has collapsed due to an external strike like this where it hasn't resulted in some decades long civil war nightmare?
The US operation to depose the dictator of Panama in 1989 is one example.
The canonical example is WWii Germany. Denazification actually sort of worked. But it required a lot of effort, resources and special circumstances.
West Germany wasn't denazified. The process was started after the surrender, but quickly and quietly stopped.
The party was forbidden, the symbols were forbidden. They hung the main leaders, quite publicly. It became a huge taboo, the ideology effectively died (for decades). A strong democracy was established, older democratic parties took over.
Yes a bunch of previous nazis made it back into power and politics, but they didn't call themselves nazis or acted like nazis. But also, the country as a whole took a very different path after wwii.
A lot of symbolic actions were taken, but the majority (not "a bunch") of Nazis continued to hold positions of power in both the GDR and FRG.
Justice was never served for what the Nazis did. Both the US and the USSR scooped up Nazi scientists (Operation Paperclip), and with the advent of the Cold War, the West quickly decided that it cared more about contesting Europe with the Soviets than seeking justice.
Germany was also split in two for fifty years.
fourty
(1945 - 1949 it was split in 4 occupation zones)
If you ignore Berlin (which, I think, kept its four occupation zones) it were first four, three from January 1, 1947, and two from from August 1, 1948 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bizone)
thanks
they brought the Nazis to the US and now hydra has taken over.
>I can't think of any time when bombing the shit out of a country and killing their leader has actually worked.
This happened just weeks ago in Venezuela, though in that case the removal was by abduction and foreign trial. (The U.S. struck Venezuela and abducted its President at the time, bringing him to trial in the United States. I've just now asked ChatGPT for a research report on his current status, you can read it here[1].)
This led to immediate and definitive regime change, the U.S. now has an excellent relationship with the new President of Venezuela.
[1] https://chatgpt.com/share/69a424b4-de38-800c-8699-cb95d25090...
Naval blockade and the military capacity to simply siege you from afar. Tactically , why America didn’t do more of that is … well who knows. I mean, what if we literally parked our carrier group off of Iraq and sieged them until
A) Put in a government we like
B) Population behave or quality of life will be bad, you see, the simple life is difficult with cruise missiles coming at you
If that’s as effective as sending 250k ground troops (which … actually wasn’t effective), one could make the observation that Trump is a military genius.
Someone please talk sense to me because I cannot believe what I am saying.
Trump seems to have thought it through a bit. Recent post:
>...This is the single greatest chance for the Iranian people to take back their Country. We are hearing that many of their IRGC, Military, and other Security and Police Forces, no longer want to fight, and are looking for Immunity from us. As I said last night, “Now they can have Immunity, later they only get Death!” Hopefully, the IRGC and Police will peacefully merge with the Iranian Patriots, and work together as a unit to bring back the Country to the Greatness it deserves...
The merge peacefully or die thing may motivate them.
Uh huh, and if you are an Iranian Policeman are you more concerned that the funny orange man yelling on the tv/phone is going to get you, or the mob forming outside your window? They might see it in their personal self interest to stay lock step with the former regime as a better form of self preservation than just surrendering to the population they've been abusing. It's not like the U.S. can offer them any actual immunity lmao.
I'd probably think about which side is going to end up in power and try to get along with whoever that is. The US's demonstrated willingness to kill the leader will probably have an influence there.
“Which side”? What other side is there in Iran? You think there’s some shadow government that can realistically topple the mullahs from within? The only way the Shah comes back is with US boots on the ground, which would be a disaster for other reasons. Until that happens this is just reckless action that makes the regime even more radical than it already is.
I'm not sure - I'm not that up on all that but there's the
>coalition of liberal and nationalist political parties selected Reza Pahlavi to lead a transitional government until the realisation of democratic elections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_opposition#:~:text=On%...
thing. Maybe if enough Iranian people back that?
There are a lot of well educated people in iran who were unhappy. Iran killed more than 30,000 protesters last month, and there are who knows how many more left.
only time will tell. I give iran much better than average odds this is for the better. Though the average is really bad: bad results would not surprise me.
If you were part of regime - now is your chance to defect.
Certainly people within the Trump administration have thought a lot about this.
The evidence shows that generally, nobody in the Trump administration gives a lot of serious thought to anything...
And/or neighboring countries see their chance to start another front in the war.
Few of Iran's neighbours are in a position to do this.
Afghanistan? No. Lacks means, motive, or organisation.
Iraq? Probably not, despite past history of conflict, too much internal strife.
Turkmenistan? Very unlikely.
Pakistan? Has the capability perhaps, but little motive AFAIU.
Azerbaijan, Aremenia, Turkey? Again, unlikely.
The most likely beligerents would be Israel (already involved, but not seeking occupation in all likelihood), and Saudi Arabia. But both those also seem unlikely. Both benefit by a weakened and submissive Iran, but occupation would be an extraordinary undertaking and highly problematic.
Non-bordering countries might be considerations (India likely tops that list) but again the upsides seem slight given costs.
It's likely the regime will be denied use of heavy weaponry by the US and Israel. This means any actual popular revolt in some sense could be supported by massive air power.
The most likely situation is continuity. They just pick a new supreme leader. The second most likely situation is a civil war.
There is also a possibility of a Venezuela-style cooperation.
Adding Iranian oil back to the market will lower prices everywhere, including Russia. I'm not so sure the extra-heavy Venezuelan oil will be affected as much.
Anyone know?
India used to use Venezuelan crude before the 2019 sanctions [0][1]
India only shifted to using Russian oil in 2022 [2] after Venezuelan [3] and Iranian [4] oil sanctions were enacted, which was when both began increasing engagement with China.
It's a similar story for South Korea [5] and Japan [6].
This helps reduce prices for ONG, as India is shifting back to Venezuelan crude which gives slack which South Korea and Japan can take advantage of, as India, Japan, and South Korea represent 3 of the 5 largest oil consumers globally.
[0] - https://www.thehindu.com/business/Industry/ongc-awaits-instr...
[1] - https://www.thehindu.com/business/Industry/reliance-venezuel...
[2] - https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65553920
[3] - https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/india-and-venezuela-gro...
[4] - https://www.brookings.edu/articles/trump-tightens-sanctions-...
[5] - https://eastasiaforum.org/2019/09/13/south-korean-oil-refine...
[6] - https://mei.edu/ar/publication/japan-and-middle-east-navigat...
Reminder: extra heavy oil means that there is more processing required to get useful materials out of it, which in turn becomes higher operational cost. So, if Iranian oil entered the market, prices would go down making Venezuelan oil non competitive (I believe the break even price for Venezuelan oil was close to 80$). At this moment the numbers don't add up to make companies go back into Venezuela given the price, uncertainty and past expiriences.
It is too early to know what "Venezuela-style cooperation" looks like. It hasn't even been 6 months since the US kidnapped Maduro; the base case is that Venezuela's leadership does more or less what they were going to do anyway under US diplomatic pressure.
The US actually did something fairly similar in Iran; Trump had Soleimani blown up back in 2020. As we can see from the present situation, it failed to influence Iran in ways that the US thought were acceptable. It is rare for assassinations to have positive geopolitical ramifications.
Unlikely, large proportion of population is brainwashed for 40 years. They will elect a "moderate" supreme leader, then business as usual.
In Romania it took some 10 years to reach some degree of functional democracy after the fall of communism and the execution on Ceaușescu, who coincidentally, just returned from the crowning of Khamenei, while learning, dictator-to-dictator, how to suppress a revolution: 1006 killed, though most of them not by the initial "Revolutionary Guards" reprisal but in the semi-civil war that followed.
And that in a country/region without Islamic radicals trying to take over. So far, apart from Israel, no Middle East country has managed to function as a democracy. Turkey, the only Muslim majority who has the faintest chance of joining the European Union, only keeps stuff under control due to the army enforcing a secular state, which the liberal patsies in the West can't take, because authoritarianism is bad and diversity in accepting radical Islam creeping into our homeland is our strength.
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania and Kosovo won’t get into the EU?
Forgot they aren't already in EU.
Also I'm getting downvoted and don't really understand unless I fall back to experience from 30 years ago, after the Romanian revolution and fall of =~ 50 years of dictatorial regime (not that before that was much better, with small interruptions).
At that time (1990), when everything seemed possible and a quick path to democracy and all that it brings (in the imaginary of the poor, oppressed people that we were) along with it, this guy came along: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_Ra%C8%9Biu
He ran for president in the first free elections and made some 0.5% or something. I remember him for his words which go along the "it will take 20 years at least, for democracy to settle in Romania". He was right on. Now, 30 years after, we have a strong, frile democracy. Everyone can run for president but not everyone can win, even if they could: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn4x2epppego
All things considered, I live a much, much better life now than 30 years ago during the communist dictatorship. Perfect? Far from it and perfection is a moving target. But we're definitely a solid democracy, and also definitely, it's a miracle the first 5-10 years didn't erupt in a full scale civil war. And the despised "revolutionary guards" had some involvement in making sure it didn't happen, so as much as you hate them, you need them: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_clashes_of_T%C3%A2rgu_M...
Without doxxing yourself, why were you unable to visit? I have known Persian expats a few times in my life, and they were always able to visit without issue.
If they have said anything against the regime on social media, they would be wise not to visit. I personally know many Persian expats who meet family in Turkey and have been anxious about going back.
Not OP but most common reason I've heard is military age males with unresolved mandatory military service status.
Oh good point! I knew some young Turkish men a while back that could not visit Turkey for similar reasons.
Honestly I’m not sure I should say, sorry. Recent years have been worse than normal though, with lots of human rights violations, protests, protestors being tortured/killed, foreign nationals being held in prison/killed, etc.
I would defer the celebration until you can.
A friend of mine, EU member, hasn't been able to visit USA because he was cricizing us gov (under BIdden), still not allowed. Ban and censorship isn't specific to Iran, many western nations love it too.
There’s a difference between the ban where they don’t give you visa vs. censorship where they disappear you if you publicize your dissent. One must not conflate.
I hope that it works out for you and your family.
As another Iranian living the West, I wish he would have been captured alive and stood trial.
He should have answered for every single drop of blood on his hands.
My 21 year old cousin was captured during the Mahsa uprising, she was sent to Evin prison, tortured for months. After she was released, we brought her to Canada and she was hospitalized for over a year. She will never be able to live a normal life again.
Death was too merciful for Khamenei.
Well he’s been slain like the dog that he was, alongside some family members - same as the families of those who were slain and tortured on his theocratic watch. Perhaps this is good evidence that Allah is just, even if Allah’s justice has to be delivered by the hands of the Israelis.
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This comment likely confuses Khomeini and Khamenei, and is inaccurate either way.
My condolences. Your cousin sounds very brave.
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If Israel & the US prevail, Israel will treat Iran as the do their other neighbors, bombing them whenever they feel like it and murdering your relatives there. Take a look at Syria where they installed the head of Al-Qaeda/HTS. The IDF has carried out 600 attacks there since 2024 till present. They have attacked the following areas since 2023: Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, Syria & Yemen.
Nope, every action protects Israeli citizens from the Iran terrorist regime. Thanks to Trump Iran will soon be Israel's ally again. Jews & Persians have centuries of mutual respect, the islamists were just a temporary curse
It's less a revolution and more a matter of catching the tide of shifting world powers — and seizing a rare shot at building something other than the last failed experiment. New Iran, new experiment. You bet Iranians are euphoric right now. Some of the country's brightest intellectuals and political minds are sitting in Evin prison, and if all goes well, they're about to walk out and help shape what comes next. My dad is worried about the power vacuum, and he's right to be. His biggest concern is the border states and the narrative that ISIS is being funneled into the country to destroy any chance of organized transition. I desperately hope he's wrong. And I don't think he'll ever fully heal — few who lived through the first revolution will.
> It's less a revolution and more a matter of catching the tide of shifting world powers — and seizing a rare shot at building something other than the last failed experiment
The Arab spring wasn't that long ago, was it? We all saw how that turned out, but I suppose hope springs eternal.
> You bet Iranians are euphoric right now
I'm guessing the 50+ dead elementary school kids may put a damper on celebrations a bit.
The last thing they should do is to import the Shah's exiled family member and make him their figurehead again. Both him and the mullahs are bad news.
I think you are speaking about the last Shah's first son: Reza Pahlavi. You can read about his planned policy for Iran here: https://rezapahlavi.org/en
To quote:
One idea is to transition to a secular democracy with a figurehead Shah like a northern European (or Japanese) monarchy. Also, my personal opinion: I think it is fine if they want to incorporate aspects of Islamic religious culture into their government. After all, it is their country. Example: The national parliament and political parties might be required to secular (at least in name), but they may wish to continue to support religious institutions using tax payer money, including masjids (places of prayer) and Islamic monasteries.> For the transition from the Islamic Republic to a national, secular, and democratic governmentAn interesting point of comparison: (1) Malaysia isn't really secular (but they may claim it); (2) Singapore is fully secular; (3) Indonesia is secular (or "pan-religious"), but is still largely guided by Islamic relgious culture in their democractic systems.
What he says he's planning and what he will do are not necessarily the same thing. The former Shah's regime was really bad and paved the way for everything that happened afterwards. Between the SAVAK (which tortured and executed quite a few of those in opposition to the Shah regime) and excesses like Persepolis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2,500-year_celebration_of_the_... ) there was created an atmosphere in which the mullahs seemed like a viable alternative.
To return to a scion of the man who put that all in place would - in my opinion, of course - be a massive mistake.
Keep in mind that the Shah was a client of the United States and the United Kingdom and that his son isn't doing this out of the goodness of his heart but because he wants what he thinks is his birthright back (he's been pretty vocal about that since his late teens), and that he has been living off wealth stolen from the Iranian people and squirreled out of the country by his father.
Of course he would present this as a transition but just wait until his ass hits that pluche and see if it isn't going to take another revolution to dislodge him.
Yeah I'm not sure why people think that the Iranian government never considered any sort of continuity for what happens when their 86 year old ruler dies. It's not like they're ants that are all helpless without their sole supreme leader.
It's reported that Ayatollah Khamenei nominated multiple successors for his role and a number of other military roles, to guard against this policy.
- https://www.timesofisrael.com/khamenei-said-to-pick-three-po..."Last summer during the 12-day war with Israel, Khamenei had named three potential successors should he be killed. Reports earlier this month indicated that Khamenei had named four layers of succession for key government and military jobs, in an effort to ensure regime survival in the face of a US-Israeli attack."- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/feb/28/strategic-opti...
That makes sense because the US/Israel goal is currently likely to murder every person nominated as a successor immediately, too, and it's a completely predictable strategy.
it's quite common that autocratic states have periods of instability due to wars of succession. That's why many devolve into Monarchy like the Kim or Assad dynasties. That's why one of the possible successors was Khamenai's son
The fact a leader can be assassinated at any moment by the US probably changes the succession plan slightly... I imagine any potential successor is thinking hard about whether it's a job they actually want.
The problem is that you are not dealing with rational people here, you are dealing with extreme religous fanatics. They are either not afraid of dying and becoming martyrs, or they are afraid but dare not show it.
That's certainly how their own propaganda portrays them, however if you see the amount of corruption in that effective kleptostate, you'd understand they care much about life
This is "Our blessed homeland" type of mischaracterisation [1]. Their wanting to continue their state against and oversized enemy is irrational and religious fanaticism, our wanting to continue our state against an oversized for is noble and martyrsome.
I'm not saying either view is right, but reducing the Iranian government to irrational religious fanatics is intellectually uncurious and unempathetic.
[1] - https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/002/355/607/670
You are possibly misunderstanding me. Firstly, I am not saying anything against the Iranian people in general. As far as I understand things, the majority of Iranians are moderate and tolerant, and have a strong desire to have a more liberal approach to the world. The current Iranian government, however, is under the rule of insane fundamentalists (with the emphasis on mental) who think nothing of machine gunning down protesters in the street. Even the majority of Iranian people don't want to be ruled by them. This is fact, not "blessed homeland" mischaracterisation.
I'm British, and whilst I don't think my government is perfect (their stance on digital privacy is insane) they are not murdering people, and we can vote them out at the next election if we want to.
You talking about the Iranians or the Americans here?
It's not a given - e.g. AFAIK most turks in Germany support Erdogan
In both countries, the educated population likes the religious leader less than the uneducated population. In Germany, most Turkish immigrants are from rather basic backgrounds and most Iranian immigrants are from intellectual backgrounds. It makes a huge difference. In both countries of origin, the population is split much more evenly than what you see abroad. AFAIK, about 50% support the religious strongman in both countries.
I don't live in Germany (nor am I a German national), but I have special cultural interest in the history of Turks immigrating to Germany. I agree: On the whole, overwhelming Turks that immigrate/d to Germany are not highly educated. They come to work in manual labor jobs, not as engineers or medical doctors.
> AFAIK, about 50% support the religious strongman in both countries.
Do you have any credible source for this?
For Turkey, election results. For Iran, no hard numbers, just fuzzy memory about articles I've read. What is clear is that the regime has supporters and not just those who benefit directly / materially.
A lot of the Persian diaspora is actually descendents of people who left in the 80s. There are certainly people who left 20 years ago or less but they're mostly secular as well.
If somebody tells you that they are Persian (I have met a few), you know their opinion right away: they prefer to associate with millennia of Persian history, not the modern (religious) state of Iran.
Can you help me to understand your meaning of "secular" here? My counterpoint that will explain: Many Persian Jews left during/after the revolution and moved to Los Angeles. Many of those families are practicing Jews. I would not describe people like this as "secular"; I would call them "religious". Do I misunderstand your point?> they're mostly secular as wellNote that the quote referred to people who left more recently and thus lived most if not all of their lives after the Islamic revolution. Quite often they'll drink beer or have their pizzas with ham just fine, women would not wear a hijab, and so on.
They're not brain-damaged. They know that!
It’s a good start
That why they are going beyond that and going after the IRGC
It depends on how well the regime brainwashed its people over the last 50 years. The majority of Iranians haven't any experience of anything else - I think around 55% are under 40 years old.
There's a US born professor Marandi who said in an interview a few weeks ago that the regime had put in place succession plans, including for himself.
I'm hopeful but skeptical that they will change for the better.
Well, in any case, it is a guarantee that Iran will be less of a danger for other nations if the regime falls, and that people inside of the country will suffer - because either pro-Western or any other government is bound to be a lot weaker, and there will be a lot more violence and economic disruption, eventually economic degradation. It should avenge the emigrants, and provide sufficient punishment for those in Iran for enabling this regime in the first place.
Let's not have illusions about it. There is no way to build a sustainable democracy in a country that never had such leanings and is not culturally/religiously predisposed to it, and can't be physically coerced into it with boots on the ground. Achievable goals are punishment, and neutering.
Another Ayatollah is being ushered in. This is no news. Khameni is old and without the missile, he would be dead soon. This sttike is just bonus to galvanize support for Ayatollah. So in a way Trump prolong the regime. And consequence from this: every other middle east countries now starting their nuke program. Good luck.
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There would likely be millions of Americans celebrating the murder of their current president, should that happen. It doesn't mean it's reasonable, right, just, or civilized, nor would it indicate that it was a unanimously supported action.
But in the case of an actual dictator who murdered thousands of protestors it is reasonable, right, just, and civilized.
Shed no tears for the deaths of tyrants. They would happily see you and any other threat to their illegitimate power put six feet under.
I can feel OK about Khamenei dying and still worry about what it means that the US can just murder anyone in the world just because.
"Just because they're a brutal dictator who murdered thousands of people."
Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of other reasons to be skeptical of American military adventurism, but killing this one guy in particular really isn't one of them.
Yes our president has only needlessly murdered two innocent US citizens so far. As he has told us countless times, he would like to be a dictator.
>Yes our president has only needlessly murdered two innocent US citizens so far
Over a million people in the US died of COVID. It's impossible to know exactly how many of them would've lived if the pandemic started under a president with a saner response than recommending injecting disinfectant, but I'm willing to bet it's more than two.
Look at the number of covid deaths in countries other than the US and consider updating your news diet.
You do realize that the US had _one of the highest_ per capita Covid deaths amongst developed nations?
The correlation between mortality and body mass index is striking.
Maybe the President should have taken that into account when lying publicly about the impacts that he admitted in private conversation, or mocking and undermining expert advice?
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Fauci injected money into the economy? Who was the President at the time?
Excess death from Covid is a non-trivial topic. Sweden had a very different approach to covid response, and yet had a very average number of excess death. The post-covid investigation provider some clear insight of what was primary causes to excess deaths, and yet very little of those conclusions has became common knowledge.
The primary group that had excess death caused from covid was to people living in homes for elderly care, and the primary cause was a lack of initial process and gear by people who worked at those locations. They were not given enough time to keep up a higher standard of sanitation (often given less than 15 minutes between patients), and protective gear was lacking. They also heavily depended on mass transportation which was a primary location for the virus to spread. A better early response in that sector, including shutdown/restriction of mass transportation would had saved many elderly people from early death.
To note, this had nothing to do with masks, vaccines, or shutdown of schools, which is the main points usually brought up in popular discourse. Sweden would have had one of the lowest number of deaths, with the exact same use of masks/vaccines/shutdowns as it did, as long as the response in elderly care had been done better.
US has one of the unhealthiest populations amongst developed countries too, so maybe it’s not that surprising.
Parent is referring to the same president as the grandparent...
Trump has murdered 2 innocent U.S. citizens so far, and was president when COVID started. Trump's response to COVID was part of why he lost the 2020 election.
> Trump has murdered 2 innocent U.S. citizens so far
Are you referring to documented murders from the Epstein files, or to Melissa and Mark Hoffman?
Alex Pretti and Renee Good, both murdered on Trump's orders to shoot ICE protestors.
- [deleted]
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By your logic, Khamenei probably hasn't murdered anyone either, right? What a pitiful "argument".
While other Presidents would go as far as putting signs saying "the buck stops here" on the Resolute Desk, the current President's sign would say "the buck stops anywhere but here".
Let's also see what happens with New Mexico's investigation of the Zorro Ranch...
Self defense, my ass. Neither situation posed ANY credible threat to those agents, despite what ICE Barbie got up and said in front of a podium twenty minutes after the event.
to be fair, the prior respondent did seem to agree with the word 'murder' so perhaps we're all ultimately in agreement about what happened :|
if it's self-defence then more or less by definition it isn't murder.
Who said it was self defense? ICE, within minutes? Trump, within minutes?
Despite blatantly contradictory video?
I'm just pointing out that you are probably not in agreement with simianparrot. I don't think it does count as self-defense.
He also pushed the first vaccine, and fast-tracked it : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Warp_Speed
The amount of ahistorical histrionics on here is deeply worrying for such an educated population. Your political news needs to change. Shouldn't have to say this but to people like you it's a necessity: not a Trump voter or supporter, just correcting misinformation.
solid and well written response except no one who is even slightly to the right would ever admit that we actually lived under Trump's rule during the COVID. entire right is now anti-vaccines, anti-all but it was the right that locked up our children and kept them out of schools and forced the vaccines on the population (could not go to the fucking gym without the proof of vaccination). so politically we have short-term memory in this country, especially the right politically. this is why the right is celebrating now America bombing the shit out of everyone while in October of 2023 were pitching that we need to vote right "to stop the endless wars."
and murdered a bunch of Venezuelans, a bunch of non-citizens in the USA, collected from American companies and residents billions in tariffs... How about those Epstein files?
The death toll for the Venezuela raid is between 80 and 100, out of them only 10 were civilians. I feel bad for those 10 civilians but, for the rest, I feel no sympathy, as they were oppressors.
They killed nearly 100 Venezuelans at sea, accusing them of transporting drugs. To date, this regime has provided no evidence to corroborate those claims, in addition to the fact those were extra-judicial executions. We already knew that parts of their justificantions were false, especially the accusations against Venezuela of producing fentanyl. We also know that the US military committed war crimes at least once, when they blew up survivors of an initial bombing. Despite all these, Trump and his goon squad were seemingly quite pleased and joking about it. It's splendidly evident that they assign zero value to lives outside of their goon circle. That extends to every non-whites, political opponents and even women/girls who suffered sexual crimes.
There are zero reasons to assume this regime's victims, except for known tyrants like Maduro and Khameini, to be guilty at all. The regime has zero credibility when it comes to human rights. So those fishermen were most likely innocent victims and not drug smugglers.
In addition to all this, don't assume that this US attacks on Iran were because of his love and benevolence for the Iranian civilians. If it were so, he wouldn't have provoked the Iranian regime to crackdown on the protestors and kill around 30K of them. That farce was unnecessary for the liberation of Iran. Instead, he used them to create an excuse to carry out an attack that they had already planned.
So, as much as I understand the Iranians' joy in seeing the end of Khameini, I strongly suspect that this is just the beginning of another authoritarian regime over there, controlled remotely by the US regime this time, just as we see in Venezuela. Expect everything from human rights violations to mass scale plunder of their natural resources. All that we see now are just ploys to establish a worldwide neocolonial order under a very racist and xenophobic regime operating from the US. Let me remind you of the meme that this orange dictator posted that shows Canada, Venezuela and Greenland as part of the US territory. I don't see this end well for any civilians on this planet, including US citizens.
Doesn't change the fact that it was a war crime. But hey, "rules based order," right?
There's quite a difference between saying you would like to be a dictator and actually being one.
When you're in a position of power and doing dictator like things, not very much.
Most dictators are elected democratically, once. What makes them a dictator is them not relinquishing power. It's too late to protest after a dictator is officially a dictator. They know what will come and are usually prepared with an armed force loyal only to them.
When the sitting president of the United states repeatedly states he would like to have an illegal third term, that elections are fraudulent and must be under his control, continually takes actions testing the limits of what he can get away with in terms of authoritarian behaviour, and only backs down temporarily when he faces massive backlash, you can forgive people for being alarmed.
Trump would very much like to be, no denying that, but he isn't there yet.
Regardless, dictators deserve to be put into the ground no matter where they are.
He sure does act like a dictator, ruling by executive order. He sent the US military to operate on US soil, by executive order... so yes, he is very much a dictator right now.
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As an outside observer, I'd say it's by far not as bad as in Russia yet but they're heading towards a similar model. Due process has already been eroded, prosecution is more selective than ever, there are attempts to criminalize harmless minorities, a large government-controlled police force arrests anyone they want to (including journalists), government-critical press is bought, sued, and intimidated, Congress is held in contempt, court orders are ignored, and the FBI works directly on behalf of the president. That being said, they've still got a long way to go.
So they are not even comparable.
> there are attempts to criminalize harmless minorities
like what?
> So they are not even comparable.
What a bizarre comment when I just compared them.
>> there are attempts to criminalize harmless minorities
> like what?
Among other minorities, they're going very strongly against transgender people and support groups and try to criminalize them. They're obsessed with transgender people for some reason. For example, Executive Order 14168, Executive Order 14183, Executive Order 14187, Executive Order 14190, Executive Order 14201, and by offering cash bounties to the FBI for "...information leading to the identification and arrest of transgender activists promoting 'radical gender ideology'."[Wikipedia] Pam Bondi described such activists as "domestic terrorist groups."[ibid] There is also a large initiative by the Heritage Foundation to make the FBI classify transgender people in general as domestic terrorists and introduce a new classification they call "Transgender Ideology-Inspired Violence and Extremism" (TIVE).
Why they are so particularly violent against transgender people and so obsessed with that topic is a complex matter. I suppose their hatred for this tiny group is based on a mix of religious fanaticism, Elon Musk's direct influence on the US government, extremely insecure masculinity, the need of Fascism for inventing inner enemies (because it doesn't have any stringent ideology), and the fact that this group is so small and insignificant that they cannot possibly defend themselves - unlike the US gay community, who have a large lobby by now and include people like Peter Thiel.
> identification and arrest of transgender _activists_
This isn't chasing trans, it's looking for people who promote 'radical gender ideology'. It's not activists who support trans either. Emphasis on _radical_ and _ideology_.
"Turn over your state's voter information to the Federal Government for ... reasons, or we'll keep up the ICE raids in your cities that have already led to death and injuries" would be one simple example. Oppression... or extortion... or both.
Huh?
"We want to suppress voters under some false boogeyman of 'illegal voters'. You are refusing to give us data which we need to do this, so instead, we'll keep ICE in your cities who have been shown to have no issues with escalating violence, until you do."
I struggle to believe you cannot connect those dots.
In addition, why would ICE enforcement in a city go away because voter rolls are turned over? Is illegal immigration in Minnesota a problem worthy of active enforcement or not?
In other words, oppression of citizenry to advance the efforts of a government to suppress voting that it dislikes.
Is this about requiring ID to vote? Like in literally every country. In a country where reliance on cars is like 99.9%?
You can't be serious.
The current administration's "we need your voter rolls" has fuck-all to do with "requiring ID to vote".
> Like in literally every country
As a citizen of Great Britain, Australia and now the US, I'm well aware of this.
And it doesn't change the "you can vote without ID in blue states!" from being the absolute bullshit that it is, and again, has nothing to do with why DHS is demanding voter rolls from blue states.
Ask any minority. Lest you think it will be limited to minorities though, ask Alex Pretti, or even ask the NRA what they think about Trump saying that if he didn’t want to get shot, he shouldn’t have been carrying a gun.
Look around
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In cases where it's feasible to do life in prison, I'm fine with that too. But for dictators, that's typically not realistic (Maduro notwithstanding). Better to kill them rather than let them continue killing others.
I actually oppose the death penalty as a punishment for crimes, but for practical rather than principled reasons: I don't want innocent people (and there's always a chance of innocence) to be killed, and it's more expensive than life in prison anyway.
Part of the reason I, like you, make an exception for world leaders is that it can be cathartic for the people who suffered under them. Of course, it depends on the circumstances. I'm not talking about giving Jimmy Carter the chair for failing to bring down inflation.
My personal view is that most dictators deserve to be stuffed into a suitcase, loaded into a canon, and fired into the side of a climbing wall. I guess that makes me immoral.
That said, for anything aside from a despotic world leader, I'm also against the death penalty.
I'm opposed to the death penalty as well, but this has nothing to do with why I'd prefer despots be left to live in obscurity rather than die a relatively quick, painless, and public death.
Sentence them to live alone and anonymously in an uncomfortable cell in an unremarkable prison without visitation, communication, or news of the outside world.
Add to this list the two children and an adult unnecessary killed by measles in Texas and New Mexico in 2025 after the disinformation campaign aiming to save the government a few dollars.
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Yes, and if he actually becomes a dictator, I'd shed no tears for him being removed by force.
Doesn't have to go that far he can be removed by force now for all the illegal shit he's done
"if" he actually becomes a dictator?
When is that? When he declares himself the supreme dictator of the US? Or when he nukes another nation because of his racism?
Look around and compare with the Nazis. There is already the demonization and dehumanization of a large demographic group. There are concentration camps and extralegal police forces around already. Just like in Nazi extermination camps, the people who disappear into these ICE facilities are near impossible to trace again. There are already fatalities in there from inhumane living conditions, very bad food, lack of medical care and occasional premeditated murders. Even among the civilians, they see differently abled people as a burden, just as the Nazis did. Just as in Nazi Germany, there is an expansion of military power at the expense of the civilians and flouting of international laws. And just as in Nazi Germany, smart people who can see the writing on the wall are already on a mass exodus.
If you still believe that you're in a democracy, you forgot what happened on Jan 6, 2021. Their ego is too fragile to accept anything except their victory. There is zero chance that the despots will risk getting impeached, trialed and punished by the Congress and face the severe consequences of absolutely horrendous stuff they've committed so far. Even if the public opinion is overwhelmingly hostile towards them, they'll just claim election fraud. They have started efforts for that on multiple fronts with truly bizzare incidents being reported.
And let's talk about the BIG massive elephant in the oval office (besides the obvious one). Trump is NOT the main character, even though I'm sure that he doesn't know that. Look at what their mouthpieces are saying, their dubious billionaire friends are doing and their unelected psycho-minions are pulling off. This isn't just a dictatorship. This is a multi-generational authoritarian regime with clear succession plans. You're all distracted by just the beginning of a long chain of misery. And the beginning isn't even the worst. This is one thing where this regime is unlike the Nazis or the Fascists. Those regimes were controlled by the figure head who formed it - making them vulnerable to decapitation. This one is acting more like a secret society that puts someone in the front to act as their symbolic figure head. Removing the figure head isn't going to end the regime.
You're waiting for an imaginary signal when every alarm around you is screaming at you. The time for 'if' is long gone. That ship sailed a while ago.
When he stays in power after losing an election or similar.
He did sorta try to do this...but didn't go all the way through.
You did the "our blessed homeland" meme: https://xcancel.com/tomgauld/status/571994690289061888 / https://archive.vn/gAkNA
If Trump became an actual tyrant instead of a wannabe one, I'd shed no tears for him being "removed" either.
Well, there are other things you can look at. For one, Khamenei was dictator of a regime that abducts women and recently murdered 10s of thousands of protesters in the streets. I'd reckon most, including Iranians, would not judge the killing of such an individual immoral, unjust or uncivilized.
I don't know whether I'm "kidding" or not, but I might as well post what immediately came to mind as I read this:
Sandra Bland et al.
ICE detainments
The excess 20k (as far as absolute numbers go) road fatalities in the US versus Iran.
And the excess I-have-no-idea-how-many-k who died under Trump's bungled COVID response (and who are going to die from Biden's bungled rail strike response)(and who died under Obama's failed healthcare half-measure)(and who died under Bush's bungled Katrina response and because of his pre-9/11 mismanagement).
Yes, yes, per-capita and all that. I'm not really making a rational argument here, just appealing to the truthiness of noticing that America has its own way of killing its citizens.
I'm not here to defend GW Bush. He did many stupid things. But I don't recall a lot of criticism around his "pre-9/11 mismanagement". Can you offer some specifics? The hunt for Osama Bin Laden started (at least) with Clinton and continued with GW Bush. Unfortunately, neither was able to stop him before the 9/11 attacks.> because of his pre-9/11 mismanagementThere was a cottage industry in elaborating the theory that Bush and his administration were unnecessarily caught flat-footed or even knew the attacks were imminent.
Richard Clarke is a good place to start:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_A._Clarke
He seemed more interested in publicity and exaggerating his own bureaucratic importance than being objective—tendencies the political opposition and media were in no mood to criticize.
But YMMV.
Rail strike response casualties? Can you flesh that out a bit?
Everything that has and will happen due to poor working conditions after he broke the rail strike in 2022. The cause celebre was the East Palestine derailment, but conditions are still unconscionable, and it's hard to conceive of a situation where rail laborers are overworked and under-supported doesn't result in more, and worse, incidents like that one. And then, of course, there are the knock-on environmental and economic effects.
It's not the only objectionable thing Biden's administration is solely responsible for, just the one that came to mind.
They threw the justice and civility when they murdered people on the street. That ship has sailed and the party who's responsible for this escalation is the government.
It’s sad that I can’t be sure which government you are talking about right now, Iran or the USA.
I’m aware the scale of “murdered people on the street” is stark and so you are almost certainly talking about Iran but what ICE is doing (and the clear extrapolation) fits your comment IMHO.
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Not just Americans.
The entire continent of europe would be celebrating.
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You do know muslims arrived in Spain when they occupied it in the 8th century, right? It's not like they just arrived here recently. Most people in Spain today have muslim ancestry.
Overrun by muslims? Complete BS. I checked what he said, I don't see anything absurd, what are you talking about?
Wow, this comment is so bigoted and xenophobic, I don't even know where to begin. First of all, we're far from being "overrun by muslims".
And equating following Islamic faith with being supportive of Khomenei's regime is like saying all Christians support Trump's dictatorship.
Be better than this.
Perhaps, but there would be tens/hundreds of millions of people like me who didn't vote for Trump and don't like him, but would be absolutely enraged beyond perhaps anything in this country's history if another country blew up the White House and he was killed.
Well, I imagine there are a lot of people like that in Iran right now.
There are. There are also a lot who are celebrating in iran. In the us people who voted against trump accept he won and still believe his term will end as scheduled.
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Most Americans would. No fan of Trump but he is the duly elected president of the United States and has not done anything particularly egregious.
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Your worldview is not an appropriate substitute for objective reality :)
renee goode, alex pretti
Wait, Trump didn't kill any US citizen? Have we been watching the same news?
Exactly. This is just western media trying to project some morality to what was an internationally illegal act ... (and perhaps some in the media hoping against hope this publicity would please the dear, glorious leaders of Israel and the US to end the war).
International Law doesn't really exist.
This planet uses international law. [Accept all international laws] [Accept only necessary international laws] [Customize settings]Honestly, I am disappointed that your comment was downvoted. You raise a good, if uncomfortable, point. I too tire of the well-worn phrase: "XYZ is illegal under international law". To me, interntional law is only useful for medium-sized (population-wise) states and smaller. Once you are a nation with a large population, then you can afford a large military and do whatever you want. Sure, people won't always like what you do, but there is very little they can do to stop it. Look at all the crazy shit that US, China, and Russia has been up to in the last 10 years -- plenty of violations, but few teeth to stop it. Even Israel, which is a very small state, but backed by a global superpower, has done many terrible things in Gaza.
International law being thrown around a lot. Seems like everyone is an int’l law expert, even though it’s quite an exotic speciality.
So please go ahead and tell me, where does International Law prohibit a state that’s at war with another to assassinate its head of state?
Preventive war (attacking to neutralize a future, non-imminent threat) is considered illegal under modern international law. The UN Charter restricts the use of force to UN Security Council authorization or self-defense against an actual, imminent armed attack, making preventive actions, which target potential future dangers, unlawful.
It also allows any one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, including the US, to unilateraly veto any binding resolution that imposes sanctions for violating said law, with no established rules or even informal expectations that they recuse themselves when conflicts of interest arise.
Israel and Iran are involved in active hostilities for a long time now, direct or by proxies. Furthermore, US and Israel are making the case for a preemptive war with the advent of the Iranian nuclear program (whether you believe it or not, that’s beside the point), and those are legal.
US is not at war with Iran. Only the Congress has the right to declare war.
Ok, call it a "special military operation" if you want. A war by any other name would smell just as bad.
And what is Congress - or any other part of the US government - going to do about the pedophile not following rules? Stop him? How? Every potential check and balance has either been defanged or is controlled by his supporters.
Probably nothing. Also it’s not like the Democrats have much moral high ground to stand on here either (considering that Obama did more or less the same thing several times).
But congress can of course stop Trump from doing this and a whole bunch of other stuff. The problem is that it just chose not to and to give up much of its powers to the executive over the years (in practice if not legally) due to partisan reasons..
Why can't you be at war without officially declaring it? We have had lots of wars not declared by congress. Korean War, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Afghanistan, Iraq. This seems like a weird way to think.
Explicit authorization is still required even if there there is no explicit declaration of war.
The caveat being that the president only needs to get the approval of congress after 60 days.
And of course Obama established a precedent with his intervention in Libya which weakened this even more…
Being required legally doesn't change the actual fact of war. Sure it is breaking the law. I don't see how Libya is the one in the long list to set this precedent of illegally non-declared war.
International law == who has biggest guns
People celebrating inside Iran too https://x.com/visegrad24/status/2027840034150178952
That's very moving! I can't say many international developments have filled me with optimism the past couple years. I want so badly for this to pan out for Iranians.
> want so badly for this to pan out for Iranians
Badly? You seem a little obsessed. The few anti-regime Iranians (who live in Iran) I know do not want to get bombed into freedom & democracy. The Western hubris despite Iraq and Afghanistan is back in full force, I see.
I appreciate the time you took to reply to my comment, but life is too short to engage in this style of argument.
If you personally know Iranians (Persian, Azeri, Armenian, Kurds, Assyrian, Arab, Baloch, Tajik, Afghan etc) living in Iran or if you have connection with the land, that's fine. Otherwise, I find this kind of "obsession" a bit disturbing to the point of justifying actions of unhinged leaders in a very avoidable, unpopular, & potentially devastating war: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_savior
> life is too short
Imagine surviving in war zones.
No harm in wishing people well really.
Hell of a way to wish them well by jeopardising their financial, political, social, and religious well-being.
Neither of us were cheerleading the bombing. Just saying we hope things work out.
tim333, I do believe you when you say you weren't. May be I am projecting and was out of sorts. Apologies.
All I see is cameras panning around buildings, no humans in sight, and audio of cheering people. Not saying it's fake, but in the age of AI faking such a video is child's play.
Too low signal-to-noise ratio for me to acknowledge any of this. We'll see how it will pan out for the Iranian people in due time.
If I were in their shoes, I would be celebrating, too. But this is complicated. If they and their loved ones are already outside the country, they are not directly imperiled by the power vacuum. So the upside is maybe their homeland becomes hospitable again, but the downside is basically that it remains inhospitable.
I'm not saying that the diaspora doesn't care about the risks or have empathy for those that remain in Iran. I'm sure there are also many people who are deeply concerned. Just that being an emigre changes things.
The dispora means little though, the people in the country count as they live 365 days there without the convenient ability to comment from a distance and they are ones who would have to die for a turnover.
You mean the ones who cannot comment because their authoritarian theocratic regime blocked protest and the internet? I hope that changes for them
I think this is a good point, there is evidence (even with strict censorship controls in place) that people inside the country are celebrating https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/28/world/middleeast/iran-kha...
There are similar scenes in all Iranian cities. Literally the first morning video we could see Saturday morning before the internet shutdown, were ladies on their balcony jumping of joy that they had struck Khamenei's neighbourhood.
Aside from a few members of the IRGC, everybody who has been paying attention for the past 40 years is celebrating.
Taking out both Maduro and Khomeini over the course of a few months without a single American or Israeli casualty is peak.
There were allegedly 7 US personnel injured during the Maduro raid.
Decapitation airstrikes have been possible for decades. I suppose now we find out whether that was a good idea or not. Slightly surprised the Iran strike worked, if you remember the hunts for Saddam and Bin Laden.
> if you remember the hunts for Saddam and Bin Laden.
We didn't have Project Maven 25 years ago, and our leadership in the early 2000s were committed to boots-on-the-ground nation-building due to the afterglow of the NATO intervention in Yugoslavia.
Three very different operations.
Murdering heads of state and their families is cool as Judge, Jury, and Executioner if no soldiers are hurt in the process, is that where we are now?
That’s the privilege you get when you’re the hyperpower. And I say that as somebody who neither lives in the US nor voted for Trump.
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Do enjoy the moment while it lasts. Because the next ruler will be an American stooge. This isn't going anywhere, like the other "revolutions" in the middle east.
Henry Kissinger is looking up and smiling.
> Henry Kissinger is looking up and smiling.
He's dea... oooh.
> Because the next ruler will be an American stooge.
And if that's the case, do you think that American stooge shall do worse than Khamenei who ordered his islamist guards to slaughter 30 000+ unarmed iranian protesters in a matter of days?
What can be worse than religious extremist sending their fanatics into hospitals to finish the wounded?
I'm in the EU and I see cars with iranian flags honking. Someone posted a video or iranians celebrating: not bearded men and veiled women (which is a sign of religious extremism: there are many muslims that do not have the islamist beard and many muslim women who aren't veiled) but regular people, celebrating.
I don't doubt that many bearded men and veiled women are very sad today.
But I side with the free iranians in exile who are celebrating what may be the end of four decades of sharia law ruling their country.
> And if that's the case, do you think that American stooge shall do worse than Khamenei who ordered his islamist guards to slaughter 30 000+ unarmed iranian protesters in a matter of days?
American seemed to have been fine with 30k people disappearing in Argentina:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_War
While a smaller number, US seemed to have been fine with their then-friend Saddam Hussein gassing a whole bunch of Kurds:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_massacre
The US stooges and friends have done all sorts of bad (maybe even worse) things in the past.
> The US stooges and friends have done all sorts of bad (maybe even worse) things in the past.
What kind of all sorts of bad did they do in the past while they ruled a country? Have they ever usurped throne for 36 years?
> What kind of all sorts of bad did they do in the past while they ruled a country? Have they ever usurped throne for 36 years?
To take the second quest first, and focus on Iran since it's the topic du jour: you mean like how the shah usurped power from the legislature with US/UK help and ruled for 38 years?
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27état
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Reza_Pahlavi
And circling back to the first:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_the_Imperial_S...
Why do you think the 1979 Revolution happened in the first place? The people were tired of being repressed by an imperialist puppet:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_Revolution
(Hello irony.)
What about close to one million deaths in Iraq not to mention other countries?
So what, you'd take living under an American stooge's rule over a religious fanatic's any day.
This has nothing comparable with "other revolutions" in the middle east, it's quite the opposite in fact: a non-islamist population held under the tyranny of islamist leaders.
What's wrong about it? This is the goal - like in Syria: neuter the country by bringing in a pro-American government that will ensure country will stay weak and irrelevant, in exchange for letting it terrorise locals as they please.
Syria was an interesting one for me... Not in the typical american modus-operandi of destroying countries that are not american banana republics, but in actually supporting Al-Qaeda there...
US is full of people who've lost family members, friends, their own limbs, have PTSD and worse from when they fought Al-Qaeda... and now their own politicians are shaking hands and taking photos with them.
Then another shooting spree will happen and the media will be asking "what radicalized him?"..
At least a sane stooge.
Was Saddam a sane stooge?
The US (and before them the UK) meddling in middle eastern politics has always seemed like kicking a wasp nest.
Yes, like the last one was, right?
Like Saddam Hussein?
Not only outside the country, but also inside the country! Many many videos on social media showing how they celebrate.
It's interesting that they're all flying the flag of the Shah.
The son of a Shah that was deposed by mass protests by well-educated students and intellectuals during the Islamic Revolution, who are now in their 60s.
Time is a circle.
sometimes you just have to try Islamism before you decide you don't like it
It's moot anyways since the fundamentalist side of the coalition purged the leftwing intellectuals shortly after the latter had served the purpose of toppling the Shah.
Oh you should see the videos coming out of Iran from people celebrating.
I also just saw state tv threatening people once more. They're so scared.
I can hear them from my window. They're really happy. Lots of honking, revving engines and shouting near Zoo.
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Hopefully from this the conditions will materialize where they could, if so inclined, help build Iran up in the future..
Expatriates behaviors are often misleading and don't represent the general feeling inside the country.
I'm not saying that Iranian loved Khamenei, but maybe they are not that happy that he is dead because of other reasons. Instability for instance.
Not really, expats help shape the narrative and bring external help to make their views the reality.
In March 2020 l was glad about the oil price dropping to below $20, but very concerned about the state of the world.
They're all paid actors! CIA agents! Orange revolution!
What moment would that be? Begging for the Americans to bomb their former country?
Yes.
10 million Iranians live outside Iran. They want a normal country again.
Later today, I'm sure footage from LA, Toronto, London, Stockholm will be up.
It’s great, they can go back home now and get on with building a new state.
They're not going to have a normal country. The United States under Trump isn't interested in a democratic Iran. They want a dictator they can control.
I think you’re right that it would be a puppet state under trump. But in three years it will be a puppet state under somebody else! And maybe that somebody would relinquish the strings.
Haha.
Not disagreeing with you, but US-controlled dictators have better track record of not killing thousands of protesters or just random people in own populations.
Not perfect option, but still is an improvement even from your positiom.
US supported Pinochet or the US supported military dictatorship in brasil would like to disagree
Agree. See also military dictatorships in South Korea and Taiwan. Many terrible years and brutal killings by the gov't. Both gov'ts were strongly supported by the US.
Two great examples of countries where US pressure had effectively transformed from dictatorships to democracies
Wow, I did not expect this type of reply. I reject it. In South Korea, there was incredible civil violence between protesters and police. I'm talking about stolen automatic weapons by protesters, then used against the police after decades of unchecked violence by the police against protesters. In hindsight, it looks like a low grade civil war. It was brutally hard and violent for South Korean to gain their democracy. (When you listen to South Korean boomers talk about how much their treasure and defend their new-found democracy, it will bring tears to your eyes. They really lived the violence and found democracy.) Taiwan needed the last dictator to die. Once his son took over, he quickly devised a plan to transition to an authentic democracy. (They had rigged election for years.) Still, they had 40 years of the "White Terror" where secret police kidnapped and murdered thousands of protesters.
Related: Indonesia also had a very violent transition into democracy, but the old dictators didn't kill as many innocent people as Taiwan or South Korea.
As I understand, the US had very little influence during the democracy transition of these three nations. Regarding Taiwan, the US provided security gurantees against mainland China, but did not interfere with the gov't. South Korea, similar security guarantee against the "Kimdom". Again, did not interfere with the gov't. Indonesia: Provided no security guarantee and did not interfere with the gov't.
I can only see the US insistence on many bad foreign decisions in the name of democracy done in the Middle East by multiple administrations, that without much knowledge of the situation in East Asia, I venture to guess it is not a coincidence that US allies turned into democracies
I also am not sure about Indonesia as an example of a US ally, I don't think it is similar to the other two
Effectively both SK and Taiwan were completely dependent on US for defense, I doubt this had no bearing
At some point you have to decide: if my country is held back by a brutal dictatorial regime where civilians can't hope to topple it, is there anything else to do other than get external help?
This was never about Iranian people. This is all about war mongers, puppets and idiots who believe them.
Defend your thesis.
Venezuela.
Defend your thesis
Hmm I wonder what superpower got most of the oil from venezuela and iran. I think it starts with a C
Trump literally said it was about the oil on television?
Wild, right? He said it out loud. It reminds me of Chappelle's Show - Black Bush.
Those may be the motivations, but the outcome (so far) is still something Iranians are optimistic about
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Maybe speak to some Libyans. Or Iraqis. Or Syrians?
Libya is not a real country in a historical sense. It’s a bunch of tribes, Kadaffi was from one of the tribes that subjugated others. In Iraq it was a Sunni minority that rules over Shiite majority, and other minorities like the Kurds. In Syria one minority (alawiites) rules over others by force.
Also, these countries were not formed by themselves, but rather through deals with France and/or Britain.
Iran, while also diverse, has a thousands of years long history. Persians still see themselves as continuation of Persian peoples from the empire times, etc.
So, it is not very correct to compare it one to one.
Iraqis also see themselves as a continuation of Mesopotamian people, that was quite literally what Iraqi Baathist thought was centered around and used as the successful unification strategy. That's quite literally the justification the Baathists used to try 'reclaim' both Khuzestan and Kuwait. You quite literally couldn't be more wrong in how you categorize Baathist Iraq.
Iran has a much worse relationship with its minorities, where if you are of the wrong faith then you literally face state-sanctioned laws preventing you studying or working. In fact, things in Iraq became much worse for minorities after the overthrowal due to the adoption of Iranian cultural practices like Abrahamic elitism.
The cherry on top of all of this is that you probably don't realize that Persians in Iran only make up 60% of the country. You have Iranians who wholly reject Persian ancestry (Azeris, Armenians, Assyrians, Kurds...) but you don't even account for them, despite Iran having, what, three? entirely separate ethnic-based separatist insurgencies active across the country LOL
> That's quite literally the justification the Baathists used to try 'reclaim' both Khuzestan and Kuwait. You quite literally couldn't be more wrong in how you categorize Baathist Iraq.
Baathism is literally pan-arabism! Arabism as in Arab. Do you really think that making pan-arabism movement under the sauce of Babylonian legacy is going to work on Kurds and others? Of course not. Same applies to Syria that had their own flavor of pan-arabist party that kept Asad in power. Only recently, after the summer 2025 war with Israel Islamic Republic tried to connect itself to its Persian past, but of course it is too late for that.
> Iran has a much worse relationship with its minorities, where if you are of the wrong faith then you literally face state-sanctioned laws preventing you studying or working.
I am not sure how the practices of the Islamic Republic related to the current mood of the Iranians that oppose it.
> In fact, things in Iraq became much worse for minorities after the overthrowal due to the adoption of Iranian cultural practices like Abrahamic elitism.
You mean that Islamic Republic exported its own flawed ideology on the neighboring states through funding of various non-state actors? Wow.
> The cherry on top of all of this is that you probably don't realize that Persians in Iran only make up 60% of the country. You have Iranians who wholly reject Persian ancestry (Azeris, Armenians, Assyrians, Kurds...) but you don't even account for them, despite Iran having, what, three? entirely separate ethnic-based separatist insurgencies active across the country LOL
I think you conflate anti-regime insurgency vs. anti-persian one.
Is this a way to avoid thinking about the conundrum?
"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results"
Short term pain for long term gain.
Short term pain for long term more pain.
Which Arab countries are better after US intervention? The last place that had a dictator is now ruled by ISIS.
Iran is not an Arab country? Answering a more general question - all countries of former Yugoslavia are better after US intervention. Some Serbs would not agree, but it's on them
The absolute state of American public education...
No, Iran is not an Arab country! Arabic is a minority language in Iran, and Arabs are an ethnic minority there. Linguistically, culturally and even genetically, they aren't Arabs! Would you call Quebec an Anglo province?
In Iran the outcome is yet to be seen, but we have nearby Arab countries where we don't have to guess what happens. Great deflection.
It's not a deflection, it's an example of an intervention having a positive effect. I see no reason for Iran following Arabic rather than Balkan scenario - it's a totally different culture - much more modernised and much more secular
You want your story to be true so badly you ignore counter examples?
You should consider conformation bias.
What story? Iraq is ruled by ISIS and Syria is ruled by a dude who's goal was to institute Sharia or ISIS v2. Those were both countries in the region where US intervention toppled a dictator and now is how it is.
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What Arab countries?
How can you compare Arab countries to Iran?
Any country can be compared to any country and Arab countries are the geographically nearest ones to compare. It's miles more strange to compare it to the Balkans.
Trump isn't there to help. He wants the oil and he wants a puppet dictator. He doesn't care about the people.
Oh, please. If you think the majority of all Iranians are in favor of US-Israeli bombings of their home country, you're seriously smoking some potent propaganda.
Every Iranian friend of mine is celebrating this. They desperately wanted him gone.
Are you suggesting Iranians should have protested harder, maybe tried more to "bring change from within"?
I have ten times as many Iranian friends as you have. They are all against the bombings.
Most Iranians outside Iran fled from the current regimes terror, they are happy with this. My country took in a lot of Iranians when the current regime took over in the 70s and those are very happy about this. They are out on the street celebrating the attacks on Iranian leaders, not protesting against them.
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How do you know how many friends they have, to confidently state you have 10x?
I'm satirizing the dumb "all my friends think X"-argument. Honest intellectual debate requires that your claims are verifiable.
Did I say anything like that?
That's the implication of "At some point you have to decide: if my country ..." since "you" can't refer to anyone other than the Iranians. They have not "decided" to get bombed by Zionists.
That is not the implication. Learn some english and good manners
Well then, explain yourself. Who the fuck are the ones making the decision to get their home country bombed?
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At no point in life I would wish for my fellow citizens to get killed by a foreign power. I’m already in my mid-40s, I’ve spent a day or two out in the streets, protesting (granted, not against governments that the West labels as dictatorial), but at no point has that option crossed my mind. More on point, I would regard the people thinking like that as traitors, because that’s what they are by definition, wishing for your fellow citizens to get killed by a foreign Power so that your political views can prevail is the very definition of treason to one’s people and nation.
> your fellow citizens to get killed by a foreign Power so that your political views can prevail
What does the assassination of DICTATORS have to do with all of this? Dictatorship is less about citizenship and more about a form of slavery. Resisting the killing of a dictator in any way, regardless of who is trying to kill him or why, is treason to a nation.
People don't agree on what a dictator looks like.
As an American, I’m really starting to feel that way.
Really... In a thread about Iran... This is not comparable at all and so insulting for what they have endured since 1979.
Except midterm elections are literally this year. But other than that small detail, sure.
Easy to celebrate from a few thousand miles away.
I'm not saying the Ayatollah wasn't a vile criminal, but it's always innocents on the ground who face the brunt of war.
I hope the citizens of Iran can have a peaceful transition and chart a better path for their country, but every single one of America's previous forced regime changes in the region (and across the world) has shown otherwise.
I'm not sure that Iranians in Berlin holding signs written in English are necessarily widely representative, nor entirely organic. Here's a comparable scene of what's going on in Iran for mourners of Ali Khamenei: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/QQMGijEMJfc
I'm not saying this to be argumentative. I do not know what the "real" internal state of is in Iran in terms of support/opposition for their leadership, and I don't think there is anyway to find out this information. Our media will lie, and so will theirs. And people themselves will also lie, and not even necessarily intentionally. Imagine polling Americans (let alone expats long since removed from America) on what percent of Americans they think support Trump without knowledge of polls/votes to inform them.
As a result I think most of all media along these lines is much more likely to mislead rather than inform.
Are they cheering killing of dozens of school children as well?
No, obviously.
Actually, they will probably assume the IRGC killed them to blame the West. I don't believe that, but the Iranians can't stand the regime.
When numbers hit tens of thousands maybe they will.
They have already, were you asleep?
Nobody is happy about killing civilians. But Khamenei did more than that every day he was alive. Personally I feel there is some amount of immediate civilian casualty that is worth putting a stop to continuous suffering.
It's easy to excuse the collateral damage of people you will never meet, just remember that this reasoning has unleashed hell on Earth for countless innocent people, many kids, and it makes you sound like a ghoul.
Hope to hell that you or anyone you care about isn't on the receiving end of such sentiments.
It's not "easy" but it remains true. We can play the moral-decision game and I'll ask you whether killing one child is justified to save 5,000,000. If you answer "yes" then from that point it's just about agreeing on numbers.
How many schools need to be blown up with children inside for you to say "Hey, maybe this didn't have to happen this way"
What is the alternative you propose? Just to give a hypothetical-but-realistic example, let’s presume that khamenei’s continued existence results in 100 civilian deaths per day. Under that assumption, what one-time cost would you accept to end his life?
Whether or not one would accept deaths of civilians to get rid of Khamenei, I don't think anyone should accept a school full of children being blown up for no obvious reason. If there was somehow a reason why Khameni could not have killed without attacking that school, then those reasons should be plainly spelled out and evidence presented. As things stand with the limited information we have now, it just looks like a war crime with no strategic upside.
I remember that the alternative has also unleashed hell on Earth for countless innocent people.
At some point, you have to take the path that offers at least some hope for the future. To turn into something that has lost all hope - there is no fixing that.
How does blowing up schools offer hope for the future?
Theres pictures online confirming that it was an Iranian misfire that killed the school.
Will you now redirect your outrage over innocent children to the incumbent Iranian government?
Will you continue entering threads to signal your outrage to the world?
Will you keep quiet, double down or practice the morals you claim to have?
While this is a minor point; whether or not it was an Iranian misfire doesn't move the moral responsibility away from the invaders. Unless the IRGC took advantage of the chaos to purposefully hit the school (seems unlikely) then the entire situation was teed up by the external aggression and can still pretty reasonably be blamed on them.
Of course it does.
If you try to shield your armed forces using children, and then accidentally kill them because you used them as a shield, you can't blame someone else.
... I'm just going of Wikipedia here but it seems to have been a standard small city [0]. Attempting to educate Iranians in Iranian cities isn't really trying to shield armed forces. Is the expectation here that Iran should send their students out into the wilderness to make it more politically convenient for US/Israeli to launch unannounced strikes on them?
Apart from the fact that Iran is a bad place to be right now it actually looks like a pleasant city to visit. Sounds like they have lots of fruit, warm weather and have some interesting history vis a vis the Mongols. Very middle eastern.
Instead of looking at the entire city, just look at the google maps data for proximity of their armed forces to their school.
Look, maybe it was a school specifically for the children of army personnel, but that's a long shot. From the geolocation data, the school was right at their missile launch site.
They had choices.
Locate the school or the launch site elsewhere, for one.
Evacuate the school before they tried to launch munitions, for another.
This is on them.
Why does that seem unlikely? It makes people argue that the price is not worth it. After killing thousands of protesters you think they would shy away from killing some dozens of kids?
Weird that you're so delighted to shift the blame for the tragedy of children being blown up in school, even more so that you're relying on unsubstantiated claims to do it.
Since you know more than the rest of the world about this, please update Wikipedia with a reliable source for your claim as has already been requested by admins here[1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:2026_Minab_school_airstri...
> Weird that you're so delighted to shift the blame for the tragedy of children being blown up in school, even more so that you're relying on unsubstantiated claims to do it.
Where in my message does it seem that I am delighted?
No doubt the truth will eventually come out, what I have seen is that the school was sited unusually close to an Iran launch site.
You can judge me all you want for "being delighted", whatever the hell that means, but I'm not advocating that schools be used as shields for rocket launchers, am I?
I'm advocating the exact opposite.
Damn you really got up on your high horse because you read some spicy tweets lol
You said
> you're so delighted
Then you said
> lol
Okay, I get it - for you this is a laughing matter; your goal is something other than discussion.
But I gotta know - you are talking about a regime that had no problem gunning down thousands of innocent citizens in the streets just a month ago, why are you so sure that they won't use other innocents as shields for their soldiers?
Where is this confidence coming from?
I've been hearing the school strike was an Iranian misfire, actually.
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berlin is spooktown. everything you see is staged
People should never treat the diaspora as representative of any population other than the diaspora.
This issue comes up with Cuba a lot. A lot of Cuban-Americans hate Castro. Why? Because they were the upper-middle class to wealthy under Batista.
This history becomes almost comically distorted. Senator Ted Cruz said that he hates communists because his father was tortured by... Batista [1].
So let me give you an example of the Iranian/Persian diaspora. In 2024 in particular we had a lot of protests against Israel's genocide in Gaza and American support for it. Many were on college campuses. One was on UCLA.
In April 2024, masked counterprotesters attacked the protesters and the police stood idly by and let it happen. The police later then used this violence as a reason to crack down on the protesters. So who were these counter-protesters? Persian diaspora [2].
Anyone celebrating this knows nothing about history and honestly nothing about Iran.
First, Khamenei isn't a singular autocrat like Basheer al-Asaad or Saddam Hussein. No decapitation strike is going to result in regime change. Did you notice the Iranian response change after Khamenei's death? No. Because there isn't one. The religious governmental institutions still exist. A temporary successor was appointed. The IRGC continues as is. Iran is a functioning state that will continue without its Supreme Leader.
Second, let's just say that the Iranian government does fall apart. That's going to be incredibly bad for Iranians as you'll either get a fail-state like Libya, Syria or Somalia (which is what Israel wants) or you'll simply get an American puppet.
Do you know who the American puppet in Syria is? Ahmed al-Sharaa, formerly an al-Qaeda leader. Do you think that's going to end well? Saddam Hussein was an American puppet. Until he wasn't. The former Shah. Augusto Pinochet. That's who you get when the US installs a puppet regime.
Maybe you think Iran will get a functioning democracy. They had one until the US overthrew it in 1953.
Do you really think the US cares about Iranians? Like at all? What exactly is being celebrated here?
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/I2AdbLDVb0Q
[2]: https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/16/us/ucla-student-protests-coun...
"That's going to be incredibly bad for Iranians as you'll either get a fail-state like Libya, Syria or Somalia (which is what Israel wants) or you'll simply get an American puppet."
Iran is one of the oldest continuing political units in the world, clocking over 2500 years as an organized state.
I think you seriously underestimate the capabilities and know-how of the Iranians by expecting them to behave the same way as pre-state tribal polities like Somalia.
Did you miss the part where I said that Iran is not going to fall apart like some seem to think?
Why do you make comparisons to Libya or Somalia then, if you don't believe that this is going to happen. The defining characteristic of failed states is that central control crumbles and various local warlords step into the void.
Actually I do this a lot, I cite specific examples a, b to indicate a much more general category C that I have in mind. It's the 21st century and plausible that new types of failure-states unlike those seen historically will happen. So it's not necessarily a contradiction the other commenter had.
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Would create a market for aged accounts (or give a shot in the arm to the existing market). I think the problem is reach - if a site has reach, it's going to attract gamification. The more trustworthy the site is considered (for example, by having a many-hoops sign-up process), the bigger a target for gamification it will be.
(And this is why we can't have nice thighs.)
Agreed, it's a propaganda bot. But with Khamenei dead and Iran terrorist gov down we might have less of those paid actors here and everywhere on internet because their source of income will be gone
"Iran terrorist gov" so unserious. Yesterday's terrorist is today's US appointed leader. See: Syria. From US bounty to US approved. You can just as easily see Israel as the terrorist government attacking Iran unprovoked. They have been claiming Iran has been 2 weeks away from a nuke for decades.
I'm not picking a side, just saying people often create throw-away accounts for political discussions. But yeah an account can be anything. One never knows the underlying agenda people truly have.
My evil agenda is to encourage people to watch every season of Futurama.
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You're welcome. I found the link on Youtube. It looked legitimate to me.
Wikipedia:
No, I'm not a part of 'Unit 8200', though I'm flattered to be mistaken for one."Unit 8200 is probably the foremost technical intelligence agency in the world and stands on a par with the NSA in everything except scale."