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Iranian here. Most Iranians use Telegram or Whatsapp, both of which are blocked right now and can only be used using VPNs (they have been blocked for years, though whatsapp was unblocked a few months ago, but it is blocked again after the Israel attack). I don't think many Iranians believe, or care about what the regime says, though there is a small minority of regime supporters that might, but they probably were not using whatsapp to begin with.

Though I must say, the regime itself seems to really believe this, for example there was some news that high-ranking officials are now banned from using electronic devices that connect to the internet like mobile phones.

1 comments

Do you think it’s likely the regime will fall?

I have no idea but I sure hope so.

Will this result in bloody civil war like in Iraq and minimal dysfunctional central government after?

I’m another Iranian but I’m not actively living in Iran.

I agree with others here that regime really needs to go but I of course share your fear of what could happen to Iran once the central government is weakened. Currently there are multiple tiers of special forces keeepinf various groups in check, however once this is gone, things could get ugly.

I worry about my family living there, we have been having a hard time time reaching there since the attacks started and there is no way of telling what is going to happen next.

You may know more about this than I do, but what happened in Iraq was that the first military governor held together the same people who were under Saddam in a semi-stable arrangement, but was replaced with someone else that had instructions from Washington to conduct "De-Ba'athification," for some reason. This lead quickly to the collapse of the state due to the persecution of everyone who had any authority, and the replacement of Iraqi systems with military administration at all levels down to the villages as far as it could be maintained, which created the ten year war.

I do not think it would be to the benefit of people who live in Iran, even if they were Christian, to live through the bombings and mass destruction of the proposed war in exchange for life under US territorial administration, which has not been very good historically.

i don't get that. Saddam Hussain was a genocidal, fascist lunatic. The world is certainly a better place with him gone. Even if America didn't handle the subsequent occupation too well, i would argue (and you are free to disagree) that Iraq was still better off.

But an American occupation isn't even on the table. Nobody is interested in that. The most anyone wants at the moment is for the US to drop a MOAB on fordo and mop up the rest of Irans military from the air.

opinion like this can only come from someone who have lived a life of privilege, thousands mils away from systematic violence or hunger someone in a war torn country constantly have to face.

For an average individual going about their day, lack of political freedom is a 100x better option than lack of food or security that Iraq (or Libya or Afghanistan) went through.

> Saddam Hussain was a genocidal, fascist lunatic.

Yes.

> The world is certainly a better place with him gone. Even if America didn't handle the subsequent occupation too well, i would argue (and you are free to disagree) that Iraq was still better off.

That is mad talk. Things have been much worse, so much worse for almost everyone in and around Iraq since that war.

ISIS for one thing, was a direct result of the perfidious actions of foreigners in Iraq.

So much chaos was created, there is no way the invasion of Iraq improved the world

I would expect that the end of the current Iranian regime brings about a heavily military-influenced fake democracy that structurally resembles the current government of Pakistan.

The clerics are a paper tiger. Their domestic support base has been almost fully eroded. The Islamic Revolution had proclaimed the hijab as a cause célèbre; today, Iranians generally ignore it when the government isn't looking, after decades of protest and suppression.

But the Iranian military controls a vast amount of the country's economy (by comparison to normal countries) and retains popular support as an opponent of the West. It won't go quietly, and Israel lacks the resources and the United States lacks the will to dismantle it, which anyway would be a Herculean undertaking and cost millions of innocent lives. Military dictatorships are usually pragmatic on social issues, economically protectionist, and politically repressive — making the hypothetical new Iran look more like China's ideal ally than America's.

The most likely vector of regime change is a military coup that produces a government which sues for peace. They may agree to dismantle the nuclear program, but there will be a sense of "for now", and they will cultivate alliances with an eye to protection from the West. We may then see real nuclear weapons in Iran, but with red flags and yellow stars on them, instead of the imaginary nuclear weapons that were invented to keep Bibi out of prison.

Iran played a role in Iraq https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_involvement_in_the_Ira...

That bloody civil requires resources from somewhere, so a bi geopolitical power with interests in that chaos is necessary

What’s the alternative? Live under the delusional islamic theocratic dictatorship forever? If you think the islamic republic can be replaced through peaceful protests you have another thing coming, they have already killed thousands of protestors and they have no problem killing because they actually believe they are doing god’s work and the protestors are infidels that deserve to die.

I take my chances for a probable dysfunctional government rather than a definitely dysfunctional one.

If ayatollah gets nuke regime becomes forever like in North Korea. And Israel may suffer first because nuke strike is the only chance for Iran right now. Hope they don't have it and ayatollah goes to Moscow.

The thing about nukes is that they're completely useless at defending against an internal revolution

Not completely. You're more likely to get external help to prop up your regime iff you have nukes and the external forces think it's better for your regime to stay in power than have a revolutionary force control the nukes. (Of course, if the external forces would rather the revolutionary force, then it's not so helpful)

I didn't know we were short of examples of what happens when regime-change operations are conducted or when governments get toppled.

You don't need to guess as to what happens; there are examples.

Best of luck to you, sir. Thank you for sharing your perspective.

>"I take my chances for a probable dysfunctional government rather than a definitely dysfunctional one."

I hear tickets to Libya are cheap lately. You can visit and compare.

I’m hopeful for the Iranian people, thanks for your perspective.

That's sadly the goal

I suppose you're a city dweller. Do people in more rural areas share this sentiment?

the diaspora seems to overwhelmingly do so, at least.

The diaspora is a very self-filtered subset though. Say, the Russian diaspora overwhelmingly opposes the Russia's aggression in Ukraine, while the population within Russia is mostly indifferent enough, and often supports it. (Note that all the Russian troops in Ukraine are not taken by military draft, but went to war voluntarily, for a generous fee, or in exchange for release from prison.)

The Syrian diaspora overwhelmingly opposed Assad while its population seemed to support the regime... until it fell in 2024.

I wouldn't put any weight on how much the population of a autocratic country pretend to support its regime.

Did they release the conscripts from 2023? Or are you assuming they've all died by now?

It's true that new soldiers are not conscripts, but I'd assume there's still some survivors from the earlier mobilisation and as far as I know once you're in, you're in, until death, incapacity or the war ending.

as this is not war, conscripts aren't supposed to be sent to battle (there were a few cases when it did happen).

but what happens, it's that conscripts are convinced/forced to sign contracts to serve in army, and in this they are sent to face ukrainian drones.

those that were mobilized, iirc not released.

No this contradicts other stories about them committing crimes after returning from military service.

https://archive.ph/KwGgv

in discussion next door (got flagged) people are claiming that Iran is peace seeking nation that has amazing relationship with it's neighbors and that it amazingly geopolitically positioned and that USA should team up with current Iranian regime and dump Israel.

What's your take on it ?

everyone says they want it to fall but then you look at what happened to Libya or Syria where one is in a civil war and the other is now run by an Israel/US backed former ISIS mercenary and then you think maybe that's not the right process for a regime change.