Comment by jmyeet
9 hours ago
Excuse the pedantry but it's probably more accurate to describe Iran as a military dicatorship more than a theocracy. Yes, there's a Supreme Leader but the day-to-day government is really run by the IRGC. Not that one is necessarily better than the other, mind you. It's a bit like describing the UK as a monarchy (yes the British monarch is more of a figurehead than the Ayatollah is).
But look at all our self-proclaimed enemeies (eg Cuba, North Korea, Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Iran) and all of that end of becoming a varying degree of autocratic. None of these countries ends up wanting to be a US puppet. I can't think of a single example where foreign inteference (or war) has had the citizenry welcome foreign powers as liberators or otherwise increased freedoms or conditions in a country for those citizens.
You might be tempted to say apartheid South Africa but there's a key difference. South Africa wasn't an enemy. It was an ally. Sanctions don't work on enemies. They only work on allies.
However unpoular the IRGC or the Supreme Leader are in Iran, the US and Israel are less popular. We should never forget that the Ayatollah is a direct product of US inteference as we couped their democratically elected government to install a brutal regime under the Shah. Look up the history of SAVAK some time.
> I can't think of a single example where foreign inteference [sic] (or war) has had the citizenry welcome foreign powers as liberators or otherwise increased freedoms or conditions in a country for those citizens.
That's one of the lines people spew as if it is a tautology without actually thinking about its accuracy. Germany, France, Japan, South Korea, need more examples?
Iranians right now also tend to disagree with you too...
This claim only works if you stick very closely to the western post WW2 narrative that is neither accurate nor robust enough to withstand a few hours of research.
I should've said post-1945. That was imprecise. My bad. Economic sanctions are largely a post-1945 tool. Sure there are examples like stopping oil exports to Imperial Japan but sanctions as an economic regime where a large part of the world isolates you economically didn't really happen until the Cold War as the US remade the economic order post-1945. Since then we have a 100% failure rate for economic sanctions of enemies.
But let's discuss your examples.
Germany was obliterated, levelled. They supported their own war effort basically until the day the war ended. Deaths in the camps happened basically up until liberation. In some cases it was a few days before as the SS fled the Allies. I'm not sure total military defeat counts as being welcomed.
Japan? They were prepared to fight to the death. It's debated why Japan ultimately surrendered. The popular version is because of the atomic bombs. A likely more accurate reason is because the USSR entered the war. When exactly did they welcome us?
France was occupied by Germany so yes, they welcomed those who liberated them from their foreign occupiers. How does that relate to Iran?
South Korea depends on what you're referring to. First there was the Japanese occupation that ended with Japan's surrender in 1945. Again, like France, we removed their occupiers. But then we installed a military dicatatorship and started a war because communism. It's also worth noting that North Korea was wealtheir than South Korea until the 1970s. It took decades of military occupation (in the south) and economic sanctions to reverse that. Oh and South Korea is now facing total population collapse within 2-3 generations so there's that too.
Changing the goalposts much? From no one was ever happy not even once to limiting to an arbitrary date in the calendar. I can't take your rant seriously. Of course there have been wars whose results improve the conditions of the population. There is no denying that.
> France... How does that relate to Iran?
Iran is also occupied by Mullah-IRGC-Palestine axis that have no overlap with the values 85%+ of the population. Iran pays Hezbollah members ~$1800/month when their own citizens are in poverty below $100. Their country is objectively occupied and resources are being raided by a foreign group and literally kills anyone that complains.
You also mentioned this in your original post which prima facie shows your knowledge of the Persian people is precisely zero:
> However unpoular [sic] the IRGC or the Supreme Leader are in Iran, the US and Israel are less popular.
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One detail about the USSR joining against Japan, they sent mechanized divisions that had survived the eastern front in europe to Manchuria against the most prestigious units of the Japanese army which had mostly been suppressing farmers. The Russians swept across the entire region in weeks. So that's going to turn some heads in high command.
It's always amusing when some people throw SK in a debates like this. Clearly shows they don't even know nor Park nor what came after him.
> I can't think of a single example where foreign inteference (or war) has had the citizenry welcome foreign powers as liberators or otherwise increased freedoms or conditions in a country for those citizens.
Panama
An argument can be made that in a global trade system everyone is, to a degree, an ally, since we all depend on each other economically.
A counter-argument could be that sanctions, when overused[0], weaken that very point by reducing this interdependence.
[0] This is not an opinion on whether or not they are currently overused.
>However unpoular the IRGC or the Supreme Leader are in Iran, the US and Israel are less popular.
That's just wishful thinking on your part. Every iranian i speak to curses their regime and praise trump and netanyahu. Their level of support for the people bombing their country is incredible.
Another shining example of how the diaspora is a representative sample from whence they came (not).
We've seen this with the Cuban diaspora, who were heavily anti-Castro. I mean let's just consider for a second who would flee a regime? Batista loyalists, mostly. So is it any surprise? This myth-making has become almost comical. Ted Cruz, for example, hates communism because Batista tortured his father [1].
The Persian diaspora is really no different. It's incredibly reactionary [2][3]. They were implicated in the attack on pro-Palestinian protesters at UCLA, for example.
The US and Israel are deeply popular in Iran. These are the same people who killed almost 200 school girls by double tapping a school. Is that really a surprise?
[1]: https://x.com/KavehAbbasian/status/1935738249995022846
[2]: https://newlinesmag.com/reportage/the-dilemmas-of-americas-i...
[3]: https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/irans-north-a...
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