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Inside Iran’s protests: ‘Either we overthrow the regime, or we are destroyed. We have nothing left to lose.’
(www.independent.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2026
402 points (97.4% liked)
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Iranian people are opposing the current government and Israel and US are benefiting from that, it doesn't mean the Iranese will doesn't exist or that they're somehow subjugated or acting in orders by Israel and US. Suggesting that is frankly a bit offensive towards those protesting.
If you're looking for some pure revolution where there aren't any outside forces supporting the revolutionaries or benefiting from their actions, I don't think such revolution has happened in modern times.
Nah u dont get it. We have to patronize Iranians, because their government is anti-West. So they have to stay and suffer under this regime.
That seems to be the mindset. Pretty wild "enemy of my enemy is my friend" type of stuff to see self-described socialists and communists rooting for a conservative theocracy.
That's not the point at all. The Iranian people obviously have grievances. They have obviously protested before.
The point I am making is that it's literally not possible for the Iranian masses to defend themselves against Israel and the US if they undermine their government's security forces. The will of the people will be subjugated and instead of the Iranian people deciding how to run their country, the US will be deciding, just like last time when the US coup'ed Iran and determined how they would run the country.
The argument is not and has never been that each protestor is delusional and doesn't have real grievance and is instead brainwashed and controlled by Israel. The argument is that attempting to overthrow the Iranian government does NOT lead to national self determination but will lead to national subjugation by the US.
I'd say let Iranian people decide if they want to go for it or not, instead of supporting a brutal theocracy because you feel like it's for the "greater good". If Iranians want to go for it, I support it.
Again, we're not talking about supporting the greater good here. We're talking about Iranian people being subjugated by the the US and Israel. You can't just say "well let's see what the people choose" when Mossad is literally on the streets killing people. You're not understanding the situation.
The government is fighting against foreign intervention and an attempt at rerunning the color revolution playbook of the CIA and NED. The government will fight back. You don't get to ask the government to lie down and die in the face of foreign adversaries, it has a responsibility to stop that from happening.
The Iranian people are very clear that they do not want the US or Israel to intervene. They came out and protestrd Israel in huge numbers during the attacks against Iran.
Additionally, the news media is walking back their reports of mass killings. Last week it was 12,000. This week it's 1,200 with 5,000 being in investigated. Coroners reports are coming back with hundreds of victims dying of stabbing wounds, which indicates they weren't murdered by state police forces firing into crowds but rather were murdered by the crowds themselves.
You're dismissing the people's actual will and their own measure of the situation because of your own beliefs. And you're making the protesters out to be some foreign actors or foreign invasion.
Quite handy for the government to dismiss the protests like that. Every single time there's an attempted popular uprising it's just foreign actors and whatnot, not actual popular will.
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-881733
This has nothing to do with the government dismissing the protests. Mossad is literally stating they are on the ground. Remember that they were also on the ground with a persistent presence during the attempted decapitation attacks last year. It's not like the Iranian government is just making shit up about active Israeli attacks.
And it's not like their making shit up about US CIA interference either. The major "human rights organizations" that have been in the news talking about the situation are almost all funded by the NED, a known CIA carve out that has openly taken credit for color revolutions in other countries.
https://www.mintpressnews.com/revealed-the-cia-backed-think-tanks-fueling-the-iran-protests/290638/
There things are well documented, have been well documented for decades, and we have evidence for them from as little as 6 months ago.
You can't just keep acting like there's no such thing as history and no such thing as context. This is not an offseason sporting match between two teams in a closed stadium. Iran is under active siege, in a "frozen" active conflict with Israel, and has been relentlessly attacked for years on end. And when color revolution is a weapon in the arsenal of empire, you're being willfully blind and signing up millions of Iranians for total subjugation by occupying forces.
Nobody is denying that Israel and US are involved. Like said, there's always going to be foreign involvement. What you are claiming is that the protesters are being controlled by them. And that's the line the government is also using while trying to suppress the protests, making the protesters out to be some puppets.
I never claimed the protesters are being controlled by them. Go ahead and read everything I have written in the topic. That's not my claim, it's never been my claim, and I am not arguing from that position. I do not believe the protesters are being controlled by them.
The government is speaking in Farsi, not in English. The government is saying that Israeli forces are on the ground making the protests worse. Turning them violent. Killing police officers and burning buildings. They are not saying that all of the protestors are being controlled by foreign agents.
You are absorbing the propaganda of the regime change ghouls.
If you don't think they are puppets and doing the bidding of someone else, do you support the protesters who want to overthrow the government (assuming that there's enough popular will for that to happen), do you dismiss them because Israel and USA have an interested in seeing the government fall too or do you dismiss them on the grounds that you don't think they should do it?
Wa waah.
I acknowledge that the protestors want their government to meet their needs. I do not support overthrowing the government at this time because regardless of the people's will, the government will be replaced with a US puppet and that will not allow the Iranian's will to be expressed.
So you are against the people's will because you think you know better than the people protesting. And you feel they should suffer under a government they don't want because of that. That's quite something all right.
You're such an idealist. You have no idea what the people's will is. Each person has their own will and collectively the people of Iran have contradictory wills. There are people in Iran counter protesting the protestors. There is no single unified will.
Equally, these sorts of demonstrations being distorted through propaganda and covert ops is a known weapon. Color revolutions are a known phenomenon and the actors who drive them are known, and their mechanisms are known. The CIA used NED for decades to do exactly this sort of thing in many countries.
So no, your formulation is a strawman and a deliberately misleading bad faith interpretation of the situation and the position I am presenting
You just said how you don't support it regardless of the people's will. Even if the people did want it, you'd be against them. Right here:
"I'm against people's will because I don't think them expressing their will will allow the people's will to be expressed. That's why I'm speaking against the people's will". It's funny.
Again. You have established as fact something that is not fact. I am saying that regardless of their will, their will is not going to win the day but instead either USA's will or the current Iranian government's will is going to win the day. The people will either defeat their government and create the conditions for the USA to subvert the will of the people or the people will not defeat their government. Those are the two options available based on the facts on the ground.
I cannot speak against the will of the Iranian people because no one knows the will of the Iranian people right now. There are different factions on the ground protesting and counter protesting and there are foreign governments distorting all of the information about who is protesting, how many are protesting, what their demands are, what they want, and what they're doing.
You are stating as fact that the will of the Iranian people is regime change when it is clear that there is not one single will of the Iranian people.
And while you claim to want to support the will of the Iranian people, you have no problem with supporting actions that will absolutely subvert the will of the Iranian people by subjugating them to foreign governments.
It's not funny. It's sick and it's sad.
I'm just quoting you. You said that even in the situation where their will was to overthrow the government you wouldn't support them.
You said that you are literally against their will happening...
No. I said IF it was their will I would still be against it because it would be contradictory, but YOU are the one claiming to know definitively what their will is and that therefore I am against it. I do not claim to know the minds of all Iranians like you do. The limited evidence I have access to is that the popular will is divided among several factions and understanding the factions at this distance is almost impossible given the direct and indirect foreign interference at all levels.
My statement is an assessment of the state of the game. IF it were the will of a super majority if Iranians to overthrow their government, THEN I would not support it because my assessment of the state of the game is that IF the government is overthrown THEN the USA will subvert the will of the Iranian people. It is structurally contradictory.
I think the Iranian people understand this. I hope they do. You clearly don't
I don't think there's been any confusion about that. You wouldn't and don't support the people's will.
Why are you dismissing the will of millions of Iranians who don't want regime change? Why are you such a chauvinist that you think you speak for all Iranians?
I mean I was talking about the same hypothetical as you were. You wouldn't support the will of the people in a situation where it was to take down the theocracy and I would. I wouldn't be speaking for anyone, just supporting their own will in that situation.
Great, so in a hypothetical, you can feel morally superior to me. I'm OK with that.
It's a position you yourself took, not sure why you are upset with me
Because you're arguing a counterfactual to signal virtues instead of actually engaging in the analysis of the real world.
What if the Iranian people don't agree with your view of the "real world" and what they should do, according to you?
Stop trying to reduce to this personal ethic. "The Iranian people" are not a monolith. Some of them agree with this view of the world, others don't. They will manage it themselves.
You gotta stop imagining that everything is about moral correctness. The reason it matters what Yanks think about what other people should do isn't because it's a moral question but a practical one - Yanks will take their personal beliefs and then put 250k tons of depleted uranium bombs behind it.
When I say I don't support undermining Iranian national security, I am not saying that I would bomb civilians the way the US does when it says it doesn't support something. I don't think a foreign military should intervene to impose its view on the world.
But I for damn sure would engage in dialog and discourse about the topic and support my position with reasoning, history, and evidence.
Luckily I don't have to because there are millions of Iranians already having that discussion with a much better grip on the situation than I have.
My role in this discourse here is to argue with Western liberals and disabuse them of their bullshit moral superiorty driven by the empire's propaganda machine so they stop supporting the empire's agenda.
It seems you've just chosen a position with very little actual care for what the Iranian people want themself. Even going as far as you'd oppose them in their will if it doesn't align with what you think is best for them.
And it seems like you're incapable of actually having a conversation about this topic.
I don't think there's been much conversation tbh. You've just reiterated the same position again and again, even though we both understood what you said.