Experts warned in advance that a US-Iran war would actually radicalize the regime, break the protest movement and allow the regime to re-establish greater control over Iranian society.
And offcourse to everyone’s complete and astonishing surprise, the experts turned out to be right.
Its not just Trump either. Western media were reprehensibly ignorant of Iranian politics. Most popular media outlets ended up giving a centre stage to monarchist demagogues. You couldn’t even turn on the tv without seeing interviews with ‘Iranians’ calling on the US to bomb Iran, calling Netanyahu a great patron and calling the Europeans cowards for not stepping in.
The thing is, none of these people actually presented the popular opinions of Iranians, despite claiming they did. Most of them had never even set foot in Iran. And those that had included those who’s families held positions in the regime of the Shah and thus fled the country over 40 years ago.
It’s like asking former Ba’athists what they think should be done in Iraq and them answering: the US should bomb the country and appoint the Husseins to help lead the ‘transition to democracy’.
No NGO operations, nothing except handing the Kurds and some protesters weapons. The Kurds just took the weapons and refused to fight lol. The Americans knew the protesters would be slaughtered after that. They knew all of this shit would fail. They don’t care because they succeeded in their top priority: close the Straight of Hormuz.
The wealthy aristocracy that really runs the west, the “billionaire/Epstein class”, if you will…They don’t care about how this affects the average citizen at all. They are insulated from economic hardship. They are only concerned with maintaining global “full spectrum dominance”, and stopping the flow of resources to China in order to stop the rise of the multipolar world.
Oh it is way worse than that. China is literally propping up the entire Western world right now. China is complicit and guilty. Surely you must realize there is an unspoken alliance between Russia, the US, and China.
China occupies a unique position economically of course, holding so much in U.S. treasuries (which they have reduced significantly). They’re also directly challenging western hegemony in so many ways; setting up new economic trade routes and alliances, new banking and currency exchange systems to bypass the ability of the U.S. to impose trade sanctions. To the extent that there is an “unspoken alliance”, it is a tenuous one.
They ARE western hegemony. What economic system did they develop after the end of communism and who helped them?
Besides it isn’t even about nations anymore. You really need to update your thinking. Not that what you point out isn’t true. It definitely is true, but there is something else going on now that is beyond nations.
China may participate in the capitalist market system, but it maintains a centrally planned economy and all the banks and major financial institutions are state owned. It’s impossible to be a complete Marxist economy in a global capitalist system. I also disagree in that China is clearly demonstrating a unified nation building project for many years now. Of course there is corruption and malfeasance, but overall the government has created massive gains for the average citizen. On the other hand, the Chinese are very good about hiding the landscape of their factional powers. Presumably those factions remain within the confines of the CCCP, and not with some oligarchs, as demonstrated in the case of Jack Ma. The extent to which a cabal of techno feudalists have taken root in China is unclear.
China is leading the way in Techno Feudlism honestly. Which is to say their country has many fascist elements much like the US and a wealthy class using technology to surveil people. China has pumped out more billionaires than the US for the third straight year in a row and shows no signs of slowing down. The wealth gap in China is exploding to levels never heard before in history as seen in comparing their rural farmers to their new elite billionaire class.
What I find fascinating is how the US is leaning so hard towards neoauthoritarianism as China and most of Asia has. It really feels like if the current administration pulls off their plans that the US will be a one party state just like China. Of course there are many (including myself) that would argue that in many ways they already are.
It was, but now it’s even more so. Even the Iranian ruling class has internal divisions, and America’s naked aggression has empowered the more aggressive faction (I wonder why). Also you say “Islamic takeover” but, like, what religion do you think most Iranians followed before 1979?
Yeah that’s true, but “Islamic takeover” is quite a bit broader than that. If I was reading too much into it then my bad, but there’s this idea on the internet that Iran was wholesome and secular before the Ayatollah showed up with their evil Islam (not to defend the Iranian regime obviously).
If outlets were to be believed, major cities like Tehran featured a cosmopolitan atmosphere with active café culture, Western fashion, and mixed-gender socialization.
Women gained the right to vote in 1963, pursued higher education in large numbers, and worked in professional fields like law, medicine, and government without any mandatory dress codes.
In contrast to the current situation IMO you can call that wholesome and secular.
It’s important to bear in mind that those pictures show well-off urban people, who were by no means the majority.
During the first half of the 20th Century, even up to the 70s maybe, there was a growing sentiment amongst well-educated people throughout the Islamic world that secular societies like those of Europe and the US would be the way forward for their own countries.
Egypt for instance made great progress towards a more modern society under President Nasser. Before the 2 world wars, Turkey famously had Ataturk. These leaders framed religion as a personal matter while positioning the secular state as the vehicle for modernization, anti-imperialism, and economic progress.
Things were not all sunshine and rainbows of course, and there was terrible inequality and governments tended to be authoritarian. Rather than working tirelessly to foster more fair and open societies, the US and European govts were quite happy to exploit the nascent regimes for economic gain (typically access to oil) and political advantage (over the USSR).
Shitty behavior by US and European govts went a long way to destroying any good reputation and moral standing they may have had in the Middle East. Examples include, but are not limited to, the CIA coup that installed the Shah in the 50s and the 1956 Suez Crisis, where Britain and France held secret meetings with Israel and devised a plot where Israel would attack Egypt across the Sinai Peninsula, giving Britain and France a pretext to intervene militarily as “neutral peacemakers” to secure the canal zone.
It’s so sad that people act like there’s two diametrically opposed options - an illegitimate CIA puppet government robbing the country blind, or Sharia law under muslim extremist rule - when in reality one gave rise to the other.
The Iranian people are free under neither, no matter how pretty the propaganda pictures are. We have to dare to imagine a world without autocrats.
If outlets were to be believed, major cities like Tehran featured a cosmopolitan atmosphere with active café culture, Western fashion, and mixed-gender socialization.
And how much if at all did that change in the meantime? With a source please.
Women gained the right to vote in 1963, pursued higher education in large numbers, and worked in professional fields like law, medicine, and government without any mandatory dress codes.
Still do on all counts, dress code aside, though I have to question how important the right to vote is under either brutal dictatorship. For instance here’s how the women’s tertiary education graph looks like, noting that the Shah was overthrown in 1979. This is Iran, not Afghanistan. Also in general “modernity” under the Shah only penetrated into the upper class of society; ironically the vast majority of women saw more improvement in hallmarks of women’s rights (education and such) under the Ayatollahs.
Because this is something that changed after the Shah. The other things didn’t, that’s my point.
Instead, its global database relies on states self-reporting their national figures.
And do we have reason to doubt Iran’s figures? They have no reason to fake them, and in any case the decline from 2014 isn’t something you’d find in doctored data. Besides, again this isn’t Afghanistan; the Iranian regime has no problem with women’s education.
Women’s education is quite literally the only improvement in terms of women’s rights.
Women are forbidden from divorcing their husbands without cause, their testimony is worth less in court, married women have to leave their job if the husband deems this necessary, they can only have one husband (men can have 4 wives and up to 95 additional temporary wives), premarital sex has more grave consequences for women than for men etc.
Most egregiously, if a woman is murdered, it’s up to their next male living relative, if the murderer gets prosecuted. And if they decide on a blood money settlement, women are worth half as much as man.
Women are legally considered second class citizens in Iran. No amount of education fixes this.
Experts warned in advance that a US-Iran war would actually radicalize the regime, break the protest movement and allow the regime to re-establish greater control over Iranian society.
And offcourse to everyone’s complete and astonishing surprise, the experts turned out to be right.
Its not just Trump either. Western media were reprehensibly ignorant of Iranian politics. Most popular media outlets ended up giving a centre stage to monarchist demagogues. You couldn’t even turn on the tv without seeing interviews with ‘Iranians’ calling on the US to bomb Iran, calling Netanyahu a great patron and calling the Europeans cowards for not stepping in.
The thing is, none of these people actually presented the popular opinions of Iranians, despite claiming they did. Most of them had never even set foot in Iran. And those that had included those who’s families held positions in the regime of the Shah and thus fled the country over 40 years ago.
It’s like asking former Ba’athists what they think should be done in Iraq and them answering: the US should bomb the country and appoint the Husseins to help lead the ‘transition to democracy’.
What a joke…
No NGO operations, nothing except handing the Kurds and some protesters weapons. The Kurds just took the weapons and refused to fight lol. The Americans knew the protesters would be slaughtered after that. They knew all of this shit would fail. They don’t care because they succeeded in their top priority: close the Straight of Hormuz.
The wealthy aristocracy that really runs the west, the “billionaire/Epstein class”, if you will…They don’t care about how this affects the average citizen at all. They are insulated from economic hardship. They are only concerned with maintaining global “full spectrum dominance”, and stopping the flow of resources to China in order to stop the rise of the multipolar world.
Keep an eye on Indonesia/Straight of Malacca.
Oh lol, you are so naive. China is in on it.
I assume you aren’t referring to China sending weapons to Iran
Oh it is way worse than that. China is literally propping up the entire Western world right now. China is complicit and guilty. Surely you must realize there is an unspoken alliance between Russia, the US, and China.
China occupies a unique position economically of course, holding so much in U.S. treasuries (which they have reduced significantly). They’re also directly challenging western hegemony in so many ways; setting up new economic trade routes and alliances, new banking and currency exchange systems to bypass the ability of the U.S. to impose trade sanctions. To the extent that there is an “unspoken alliance”, it is a tenuous one.
They ARE western hegemony. What economic system did they develop after the end of communism and who helped them?
Besides it isn’t even about nations anymore. You really need to update your thinking. Not that what you point out isn’t true. It definitely is true, but there is something else going on now that is beyond nations.
China may participate in the capitalist market system, but it maintains a centrally planned economy and all the banks and major financial institutions are state owned. It’s impossible to be a complete Marxist economy in a global capitalist system. I also disagree in that China is clearly demonstrating a unified nation building project for many years now. Of course there is corruption and malfeasance, but overall the government has created massive gains for the average citizen. On the other hand, the Chinese are very good about hiding the landscape of their factional powers. Presumably those factions remain within the confines of the CCCP, and not with some oligarchs, as demonstrated in the case of Jack Ma. The extent to which a cabal of techno feudalists have taken root in China is unclear.
China is leading the way in Techno Feudlism honestly. Which is to say their country has many fascist elements much like the US and a wealthy class using technology to surveil people. China has pumped out more billionaires than the US for the third straight year in a row and shows no signs of slowing down. The wealth gap in China is exploding to levels never heard before in history as seen in comparing their rural farmers to their new elite billionaire class.
What I find fascinating is how the US is leaning so hard towards neoauthoritarianism as China and most of Asia has. It really feels like if the current administration pulls off their plans that the US will be a one party state just like China. Of course there are many (including myself) that would argue that in many ways they already are.
As if it wasn’t radical before, since islamic takeover decades ago.
It was, but now it’s even more so. Even the Iranian ruling class has internal divisions, and America’s naked aggression has empowered the more aggressive faction (I wonder why). Also you say “Islamic takeover” but, like, what religion do you think most Iranians followed before 1979?
It wasn’t theocracy before the takeover I’m thinking about.
Yeah that’s true, but “Islamic takeover” is quite a bit broader than that. If I was reading too much into it then my bad, but there’s this idea on the internet that Iran was wholesome and secular before the Ayatollah showed up with their evil Islam (not to defend the Iranian regime obviously).
If outlets were to be believed, major cities like Tehran featured a cosmopolitan atmosphere with active café culture, Western fashion, and mixed-gender socialization.
Women gained the right to vote in 1963, pursued higher education in large numbers, and worked in professional fields like law, medicine, and government without any mandatory dress codes.
In contrast to the current situation IMO you can call that wholesome and secular.
It’s important to bear in mind that those pictures show well-off urban people, who were by no means the majority.
During the first half of the 20th Century, even up to the 70s maybe, there was a growing sentiment amongst well-educated people throughout the Islamic world that secular societies like those of Europe and the US would be the way forward for their own countries.
Egypt for instance made great progress towards a more modern society under President Nasser. Before the 2 world wars, Turkey famously had Ataturk. These leaders framed religion as a personal matter while positioning the secular state as the vehicle for modernization, anti-imperialism, and economic progress.
Things were not all sunshine and rainbows of course, and there was terrible inequality and governments tended to be authoritarian. Rather than working tirelessly to foster more fair and open societies, the US and European govts were quite happy to exploit the nascent regimes for economic gain (typically access to oil) and political advantage (over the USSR).
Shitty behavior by US and European govts went a long way to destroying any good reputation and moral standing they may have had in the Middle East. Examples include, but are not limited to, the CIA coup that installed the Shah in the 50s and the 1956 Suez Crisis, where Britain and France held secret meetings with Israel and devised a plot where Israel would attack Egypt across the Sinai Peninsula, giving Britain and France a pretext to intervene militarily as “neutral peacemakers” to secure the canal zone.
It’s so sad that people act like there’s two diametrically opposed options - an illegitimate CIA puppet government robbing the country blind, or Sharia law under muslim extremist rule - when in reality one gave rise to the other.
The Iranian people are free under neither, no matter how pretty the propaganda pictures are. We have to dare to imagine a world without autocrats.
So after islamic revolution iranians (especially women) lost nothing?
And how much if at all did that change in the meantime? With a source please.
Still do on all counts, dress code aside, though I have to question how important the right to vote is under either brutal dictatorship. For instance here’s how the women’s tertiary education graph looks like, noting that the Shah was overthrown in 1979. This is Iran, not Afghanistan. Also in general “modernity” under the Shah only penetrated into the upper class of society; ironically the vast majority of women saw more improvement in hallmarks of women’s rights (education and such) under the Ayatollahs.
Why aside?
And about education it’s worth noting, that the UNESCO Institute for Statistics does not deploy it’s own researchers to count students. Instead, its global database relies on states self-reporting their national figures.
https://uis.unesco.org/sites/default/files/medias/fichiers/2025/08/WG_EMIS_2_Dynamic-Templates.pdf
Because this is something that changed after the Shah. The other things didn’t, that’s my point.
And do we have reason to doubt Iran’s figures? They have no reason to fake them, and in any case the decline from 2014 isn’t something you’d find in doctored data. Besides, again this isn’t Afghanistan; the Iranian regime has no problem with women’s education.
Women’s education is quite literally the only improvement in terms of women’s rights.
Women are forbidden from divorcing their husbands without cause, their testimony is worth less in court, married women have to leave their job if the husband deems this necessary, they can only have one husband (men can have 4 wives and up to 95 additional temporary wives), premarital sex has more grave consequences for women than for men etc. Most egregiously, if a woman is murdered, it’s up to their next male living relative, if the murderer gets prosecuted. And if they decide on a blood money settlement, women are worth half as much as man.
Women are legally considered second class citizens in Iran. No amount of education fixes this.