Comment by dpe82
8 hours ago
That assumes the regime cares more about the economic prosperity of their people than about staying in power. So far they seem to care more about power. North Korea provides a model for how terrible the situation can get for every day people in that sort of arrangement.
The regime does not even care about the capital having water in the next month. They are basically doing pre-emptive starvation culling at this point.
You can only let that go so far, because at the end of the day you need to pay the military to keep you in power.
In the long run we're all dead. In the meantime, NK is still standing.
The rules are rather different when your economy is mostly oil - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrostate
North Korea is effectively an island. Iran has many neighbors and long borders. They have no choice but to be at least semi integrated into the world and strong enough to defend themselves.
Some level of eonomic prosperity is necessary to keep the government's key supporters (e.g. the ruling class and the army) satisfied.
Their economic prosperity is more linked to Oil than Internet.
Plus, the elites economic prosperity is also linked to their not being protests and for the toppling of govt to not occur and they might be willing to offset some losses to keep the average population in check
Which sucks for the average iranian but we saw how their protests were cracked down with 20-30 THOUSAND people killed and Iran hiding bodies etc.
I have heard that all shops are either shut down or running at the most minimum capacity. Economic prosperity just isn't a question now in Iran.
Yeah, foreign intervention is probably the best option at this point. If the elites are willing to murder tends of thousands of innocent people, then I see no moral issues with foreign intervention to get rid of IRGC and current government using any means necessary.
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