Image is of Ansarallah military spokesman Yahya Saree delivering a statement/speech.
The ceasefire appears to be at least temporarily over, with an exchange of fire between (what appears to be) predominantly Iran and the entity, though as always I expect we'll find increasing evidence of direct US involvement.
The chain of events was as follows, in spoilers below for those who haven't been keeping up:
chain of events summary
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A while ago, Iran warned the occupation entity that if they strike Beirut (with particular emphasis on its southern suburbs, which is an area where Hezbollah officials/structures are concentrated as I understand it) then they will directly strike the north of Occupied Palestine, turning the area into a military zone, and encouraged settlers to leave to avoid civilian casualties.
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This warning was grudging accepted by the entity, who ordinarily has a policy called the Daniyeh Doctrine, in which they murder civilians en masse by bombing apartment buildings and houses in enemy cities in order to pressure the military forces they are battling to give into conditions they ordinarily would not be obliged to accept, because the Zionist ground campaigns are usually fairly ineffective at achieving goals on medium to long timescales. While removing their ability to bomb Beirut didn't halt the Daniyeh Doctrine entirely (they could and did hit other places), their distinct inability to strike the capital when they ordinarily could do that freely was a big source of discontentment in both the civilian population and the military.
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As Hezbollah increasingly attrited the Zionist offensive forces, the attractiveness of bombing Beirut in retaliation increased regardless of the consequences, and of course the Zionists do still want to do anything they can to attack and weaken Iran directly and are much worse at hiding this than even the US. This resentment culminated on June 7th, where the Zionists conducted an airstrike on Beirut on a Hezbollah HQ.
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Iran immediately said that this constituted a break in the ceasefire, and Khamenei put Iran back on a full war footing. Within 6 hours of the strike on Beirut, Iranian missiles were flying towards the northern occupied territories, in what they regarded as merely a warning shot. Western media was obviously fairly dismissive of this; 182% interception rates and all that jazz, but we have several videos of missiles hitting targets.
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Trump publicly warned the Zionists to not respond, which many sensible people immediately diagnosed as kayfabe, and Iran obviously remained on guard against a counterattack. This came a few hours later from Zionist drones and stand-off strikes from aircraft likely in Iraqi airspace, just like in the initial phase of the war months ago. These hit sites in western and central Iran, including a petrochemical facility, but also with some interceptions.
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Iran then responded to this counterattack with a yet bigger warning shot into the occupied territories. Ansarallah also joined in with strikes on the Zionists, and they additionally announced that the Red Sea is now closed to all vessels linked directly to the entity. Certain accounts have said that the Bab el Mandab is now actually under full blockade, but this is not clearly substantiated as of me writing this at about 2pm BST, June 8th. There's been a lot of "considering closing" and "threatening to close" and "moving to close" the Red Sea over the ceasefire period that hasn't materialized, so I don't want to get out over my skis.
Worth noting that according to Yves over at Naked Capitalism (a fairly reliable and left-leaning, but not communist, website), we're now about a month or so away from reaching "tank bottom". This is largely because commercial demand destruction has not sufficiently occurred due to oil price market manipulations keeping it low, and also because there have been basically no government policies in the US like widespread work-from-home orders. So, soon the shortages will be of the literal oil molecules not being available and not just the price signal. So there's an increasing anxiety in the US to get this conflict over before the economy really starts to crash in the latter half of the year, one way or another. As a deal seems only increasingly unlikely given US stubborness and inability to accept battlefield realities, a return to military strikes as we've seen appears the only way forward, despite almost catastrophic munitions shortages.
Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the RedAtlas!
The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on the Zionists' destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Protests happening in Iran against the proposed "memorandum of understanding."
I would like to point out two important things.
She wrote:
For those still reading: The Islamic Republic of Iran is a democracy and the revolution is ongoing. Its time to retire this orientalist myth of "authoritarian dictatorship" that infects the international subconscious and discourse on Iran
I would like every single person who reads this to get this into your head: There are many revolutionary women in Iran. And the revolutionary women in Iran are overwhelmingly Pious Believing Muslims.
These women are playing a major role in shaping the past present and future of the Islamic Republic and therefore the region (and the planet.)
And that hijab, and especially Chador, are inseparable from the anti-imperialist orientation of the Islamic Revolution.
Those left/liberals who continue to espouse their Islamophobic tendencies against "Iranian theocracy" and against hijab are positioning themselves in the camp of zionism. End of story.
People triage if this or that global south country is a dictatorship or not, while the populace in those places can actual affect policies. In the west the governments are basically untouchable and just do whatever they like, only falling from internal factions.
from https://redsails.org/china-has-billionaires/
It is almost as if they are practicing "scientific socialism" or something.
Related but I always wonder how much power Kim Jong Un actually has and how much is just the aura. Theres no doubt in my mind that the working people have comprehensive method of representation and voice in their government but I never learned much what it is.
Anyways, it should be understood by everyone that governments which stand opposed to imperialism only stay in power because they maintain popular mandate. While governments aligned with imperialism do not need to because they can rely on the support of international capital.
Kim Jong Un is more closer to a representative like the german president than someone with the authoritarian all might iron grip over the nation.
Also yeah, especially since the west is looking over every little crack to squeeze in destabilizing forces.
I won't soon forget the image of the brave women of Iran standing firm in the square and continuing to chant while being actively bombed. I think that's when we all knew that the spirit of Iran would not be broken
And the pathetic attempts to make these women look weak with AI videos (a post I made earlier).
This one?
https://xcancel.com/MiddleEastEye/status/2033312026559152253
That link was broken for me.
I think there might have been a few instances but one that was especially vivid there was like an announcer guy with a microphone and the interesting thing to me was he seemed to get scared at first but then the courage of the crowd made him keep going
Yeah I think the announcer guy youre talking about is Hussein Taheri. I saw this video as well. Tried looking but couldn't find it.
I think this might be what you’re thinking of
https://m.youtube.com/shorts/y6S5DdRHdso
Fire video, I havent seen this one before. Not Taheri either.
Thank you comrade
Oh yes exactly that's the one
Hexbear really isn't a Marxist website huh, lol
Hexbear's roots are still indelibly within the soil of western Marxist thought, which has, more often than not, drifted into all directions of reformist, utopian and ultra-left, without ever actually producing anything, which means that we have absolutely no idea what it feels like to be in a successful, radical, revolutionary moment.
You're saying that as if Iran has some kind of significant Marxist movement at all. It is a successful revolution, but not a communist or even leftist one.
I don't really want kick off a big argument; any anti-US and anti-Israel movement should be supported and Iran is the best example of that in the world right now. Essentially all of the anti-Islamic sentiment from the west is racist and it isn't productive to add to that. It's just that seeing explicitly pro-religion takes on Hexbear is a pretty blunt reminder that this website isn't even pretending to be communist.
You say Iran 'should be supported' because it's anti-US and anti-zionist. Then go on imply it's somehow embarrassing for communists to cheer for a Muslim revolution.
Either you recognize that the Islamic Revolution is the most successful ongoing anti-imperialist project in the region, or you retreat to the sidelines waiting for a revolution fantasy rather than real-existing revolutions today...a very convenient mindset that allows for sitting back and waiting for the second coming of the soviet union.
The 'pro-religion takes' aren't a deviation from dialectical materialism, but a reminder that the global south doesn't need your permission to resist, and that Muslim Iranian women in chador have done more to weaken the zionist entity than most of the planet, including western leftists, ever will.
You admit I support Iran in the first sentence of your reply and then spend the rest of it acting as if I don't. I have been nothing but supportive of Iran in the six years I've been posting on this website. But pretending that Iran's success is reliant on Islam, that Iran can only resist because it is Islamic, should be deeply embarrassing to hear from a communist. It is insulting to these women to claim that their anti-imperialism is inexorably tied to their Chador.
Nothing on this website has any significant bearing on the real world. I'd just like to imagine that the people I'm chatting with are more than just anti-American Reddit refugees.
Islam is an observable, defining characteristic of the Iranian Revolution and its strength. I'm not embarrassed to be a Muslim hijabi communist, and I'm not embarrassed to read history and news from the IRI as it actually exists.
You must have never spoken to a real basiji woman in your life. Every one I've ever met loves her hijab. You clearly know very little about the Islamic Revolution and the role of Shia Islam.
Six years of "support" yet here we are having this conversation where you are appointing yourself secular defender of Iranian women because I posted about how the revolutionaries are primarily hijabis.
Convenient to declare that none of this matters. Convenient.
Surely nobody here could be an actual refugee from yankee child-killing. No, everyone is a white 'reddit refugee.'
Thank you Parzivus for your six years of support. Have an ally cookie.
I'm just gonna stop replying, you're arguing with some made up version of me in your head that keeps saying shit I never said
No. You said:
The implication is that myself and others here like Jabril (who has responded to you with significant patience) are not real communists, but instead "anti-American Reddit refugees."
I find this term insensitive (at best). I presume it would only be used by/to whites who have no experience with being physically displaced by empire.
I feel that this reflects your larger insensitivity to the experiences and material conditions of West Asian peoples that is present in this interaction.
This is why I replied with sarcasm.
Even if you dont reply I will leave this reply here so that no one can come back and say thay I victimized you in this thread.
Alhamdulillah
They had and have maintained an Islamic revolution that wasn't communist and it was the successful route of their liberation from monarchy and colonial influence. What else was their success in these endeavors reliant on? Why is it insulting to look at the material conditions of the people and see the correlation? A bunch of proud and devout religious people overcame adversity through their faith.
A large part of the Black liberation movement came out of Christianity that was forced on Black people via their subjugation by Europeans, should they be embarrassed of that or is it just the circumstances they found themselves in while still attempting to better their circumstances?
I don't understand why a communist should be embarrassed of having a clear and accurate analysis of any given situation. Islam is obviously an intrinsic part of Iran, which is why the leadership hasn't become like most of the nations around them and succumbed to Israel and US influence.
Syria is run by self proclaimed Muslims but they obviously don't actually prioritize their religion because they are actually pawns of Israel and the US. Saudia Arabia is run by self proclaimed Muslims but they worship money, not Allah, so they are not beholden to the demands of Islam. If Iranian leadership acted like this, there would be a second Islamic revolution in Iran that would put devour Muslims in charge again, because that is the priority of the masses as devout Muslims themselves.
They didn't overcome anything through faith, they made actual efforts and sacrifices against imperialism. The success of a revolution does not require belief in religion.
Christianity has been a consistently reactionary force in America for its entire history. Nearly all the racists and homophobes in the US call themselves Christian. Some civil rights leaders being Christian does not mean Christianity was a positive force in black liberation.
What is this nonsense? American allies don't count as Muslim but Iran does? Iranians would overthrow an unjust Islamic government but Saudis and Syrians apparently cannot? Does religion just not exist when it isn't anti-imperialist?
Religion is subject to dialectics, right? So, the religious superstructure is produced from the material base even as the religious superstructure reproduces the material base. In Iran the religious superstructure is formed from sovereignty, whereas the religious superstructure in US allies is formed from imperialism: revolutionary nationalist Islam vs compradore Islam.
The religion, itself, did not make Iranians resistant to imperialism. Resistance to imperialism made religion in Iran anti-imperialist.
Christianity can have a similar superstructure in the right material circumstances. See: liberation theology, Black churches.
It was an Islamic revolution, of course that was a primary factor in motivating Muslims to participate. Why are you so intent on trying to subtract the core motivating principles of people from their decisions? If it was an atheist, socialist revolution it wouldn't have worked because the Muslim masses would have rejected it.
I'm not arguing that it was a positive force in Black liberation, I am arguing that it was present and highly influential and can't be subtracted from reality because it existed without regard for your own opinions on it. Understanding that it did indeed play a significant role because of the historical and cultural context that Black liberation happened in is just part of having a meaningful analysis. We can not pretend that the philosophical and ideological conviction of the masses doesn't play an important part in their mass movement. Islam is obviously a part of the Iranian historical and cultural context and cannot be removed from an analysis just because you are an atheist.
This is why you should probably study Islamic history even from a secular lens before speaking about things you don't know about. People claiming to be Muslims but actively and openly defying the Quran are not the same as people who claim to be Muslims and are clearly trying to abide by the principles of their religion. Wahhabism is a deviation of Islam which is not Islamic and exists purely as mechanism of power and not as an attempt to surrender to the will of Allah. I'm pointing out the material differences in how the historical and cultural conditions play out and how Iran (and Yemen and other Shia groups) are qualitatively and materially different than other self proclaimed Muslims who are fundamentally rejecting the principles of their religion despite maintaining the cultural aesthetics of Islam.
Catholics in Latin America used a Catholic lens to overthrow their oppressors who were also Catholic. Catholic Irish and Italians and French people didn't do that, even though some of them were proposing that, they couldn't convince the masses to do so because of the difference conditions the European Catholics were in versus the colonized Catholics.
To have an accurate material analysis means studying and investigating these differences and trying to understand what makes them different. Instead of hand waiving all Muslims into a monolith and being surprised when someone points out there are very different circumstances within Islam, you could investigate what you are talking about before trying to speak on it.
I don't agree with this. Plenty of religious countries have had successful secular revolutions and active communist parties.
It is extremely ironic to claim that I'm treating Islam as a monolith while claiming that Islam in (insert American aligned country) isn't really Islam, despite them describing themselves as such, and that the "true" Muslims are indeed one big anti-imperialist bloc. Religion is very obviously clouding your view of material reality and I don't care to keep arguing past that.
Yemen has communists in government right now. I'm not claiming that a religious nation can't have a secular revolutionary movement, I'm saying the conditions of the Islamic revolution in Iran were different and that's why it was a religious movement. US backed repression of secular and Muslim leftists in the region has forced Islam to be the only choice for mass organizing. It is still a religious movement and the religion plays a large part. If Iran was majority Sunni instead of Shia, or majority Jewish instead of Muslim, or majority Zoroastrian even, the conditions would have been different and things would have gone differently. Their response to the monarchy and colonial forces would have been different, and perhaps not revolutionary at all but instead collaborative with their oppressors.
The Shia resistance movement exists, and why? What makes it materially different than the other things around it? Why is it that Shia martyrs are the largest group dying to fight imperialism in the region? There are so many ethnic groups and religions in the region, but somehow all these otherwise unrelated people who share the same religious philosophy all decide to resist imperialists at all costs. Most of not all of them could have chosen a path of servitude to imperialism and said they would rather die.
Are there not material differences between Mormons, Catholics and Protestants, despite all claiming to be Christian? Couldn't we compare the demands of their philosophies to the actions of their followers and have an analysis of which groups are most accurately following the tenets of their religions? I have religious Jewish comrades who would say that most Zionist Jews are not practicing the religion correctly and are in fact going against it.
There are obviously material factors at play, which of course includes ideological and philosophical influences, but you clearly aren't interested in understanding them. Still, they exist in reality and if you don't attempt to understand them you don't really have any knowledge on the subject to begin speaking from.
Your atheism is obviously clouding your view of material reality and forcing you to lose access to the basic understanding that hundreds of millions of people believing the same thing and organizing around it's philosophical and theoretical principles allows them to do more to defy capitalism than you are without ever calling themselves socialists in the first place.
A bunch of Muslims who don't give a shit about communism are still out organizing everyone here when it comes to the fight against capitalism and imperialism, and instead of trying to have an accurate understanding of the complexities of this reality (the Sunni/Shia split being one of hundreds of different variables one would need to look at to start forming an analysis) you are hand waiving it all away and flat out refusing to contend with it because you are more committed to atheism than you are to dialectical materialism.
Look at China's new democracy movement as the precursor to their socialist movement and understand that the motion of history isn't a straight line. The material conditions dictate what form the movement takes, and the question is "is there a more progressive force that could reasonably be in charge right now?" If all the opposition with any organic mass support are less progressive than the current ruling party, than there are no current alternatives in the real, material world. Unfortunately the Marxists were more or less destroyed before the Islamic revolution, and have continued to be repressed after the revolution due to a lot of historical and cultural conditions which make them more or less non existent in the eyes of the masses. As you said, Iran should be supported anyway because of the position they are in, so what's the harm in pointing out the islamophobic and misogynistic narratives levied against Iran are not only baseless but missing out on the reality that Iran in its current form is democratic, revolutionary, and anti-imperialist even if it isn't explicitly socialist?
Militant atheism is something that current AES left behind decades ago. That's how you get Vietnamese state media celebrating Lord Buddha's birthday.
If religion is good enough for the Communist Party of Vietnam, then religion is good enough for the news mega.
State atheism was good enough for Lenin, Stalin, and Mao, among many other revolutionaries, and it's good enough for me. That said, every communist party will have different priorities depending on the material conditions of their country, and I think Vietnam (and China) have many more pressing issues than Buddhism to deal with currently.
Those other revolutionaries and parties are long dead. The rest of the socialist world moved on. This isn't to say that they're not secular or that they won't drop the hammer on any religious org that refuses to toe the socialist line like what the CPC did to Falun Gong. AES handles religion by vetting clergy and quietly removing those who are counterrevolutionary. People are free to worship within a curated box. This is much wiser than militant atheism, and I suspect this policy of being publicly reconciliatory towards religion while privately controlling it from within came from the failures of militant atheism.
Also what were the religious norms in those places at the time versus Iran? Islam is very different than Russian Orthodox and Chinese animism and Confucianism. The way that those institutions controlled people in support of the ruling class is very different than how Islam functioned and continues to function. Crushing the religious institutions who heavily influenced the state was a requirement in the USSR and China for their revolutions at the time but that doesn't mean this is applicable everywhere. In some places the religious forces are not the state forces, and are in fact the more progressive forces.
They can even transform, if you look at Catholic influence in Latin America you can see that it is the original colonial philosophy but later becomes a vehicle for anti-colonial liberation, despite the Catholic leadership likely wishing otherwise. The masses took what they needed from the religion and made it their own tool for liberation.
No, it is to recognize that the primary contradiction right now is one of imperialism. If a nation doesn't have any sovereignty at all, then historically no Marxist movement can ever be developed, it will be strangled in the cradle. We are that fucked right now, as the international proletariat. That does not mean that Iran did not experience a national revolutionary moment and movement within two generations. Their relationship to the state is incredibly different than those of us who are living (literally) 250 years away from our state's revolutionary moment.
Religion is the opiate of the masses, and right now Iran is high as fucking balls. Maybe in the future that won't be true, but with everything left mostly in retreat across the globe, it is unsurprising that this is the way it is.
That said, there is nothing actionable that I can do here, right now. If you are in a more actionable position, go right ahead. But I cannot be a party of one. That is not scientific socialism.
And who knows? Iran could still 'sell out'. I mean, if the USSR were still here, they would be 100% encouraging the Iranians to settle (or they would be paying one set of the government while the Chinese pay another faction and they would fighting, at least they are supporting the same faction), if their history in the Middle East and Africa is any indication.
People so broken by the perceived failure of Secular communism they're back to converting to the faith of whatever army has the current initiative.
It's not worth engaging with I've found, best to just bracket it and move on. I appreciate our religious comrades' analysis from another point of view, but there are those who are religious first and Marxist whenever that happens to align, and their engagement with the news mega is varying parts proselytizing and information exchange. They of course can't read this critique because they blocked me for making one (1) joke a little too queer for their delicate sensitivities, but it is what it is. I accept the good with the bad instead of frothing in moral outrage. The other side is not so tolerant or open.
The replies to this post are just erasure of the accomplishments of secular AES. People critique the failures and regressive policies of the USSR and China, why should Iran be any different? It's like half the people here just forgot what critical support is.
I haven't seen anyone saying you can't critique Iran, the OP of this thread is just refuting common imperialist narratives about Iran and showing that the material reality within Iran is different from how it is commonly portrayed
'Jabril the Reasonable' back at it again
More like Jabril the Liberal, am I right?
People here constantly shit on the reformists fucking up like what's going on with the ceasefire negotiations right down to the original comment of this stupid struggle session of women chanting "Death to Araghchi." The "Iran sucks because Islam" falls flat in this case because the reformists are more secular sympathetic while the principlists are more religious.
It turns out, for various reasons, the people who are least swayed by the words and actions of the reformists come from the more religious sectors of Iranian society. And this isn't even getting to how the Iranian diaspora is more secular than Iranians living in Iran, and the less said about the unhinged diaspora, the better.
That's why this whole "critique" of Iran being too religious is so obnoxious. Actually existing criticism of actually existing Iran is that reformists are too liberal and compromising with the West, especially the news of what's going on with the ceasefire negotiations. They are going to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Not sure what religion has to do with the inadequacies of the reformists.
Thank you for making this clear.
What do you mean?
Of course not. The tag line even says that everyone except me is a liberal. Can you not clearly see that?
Just a reminder, that when talking about religion, it's important to distinguish between three things:
As Marxist we:
Religious institutions can fulfill various roles, hegemonic and counter-hegemonic:
Leaning on Lenin, there are situations, where supporting pro-capitalist, patriarchal, hegemonic religious institutions might be a legitimate intermediate strategy: in colonized or semi-colonized nations, where national liberation has to come before communist liberation and in the case of a united front with national burgoise-democratic capitalist forces to break the grip of imperialism and international capital.
The Iranian Islamic revolution, while strongly anti-imperialist and (in a narrow, capitalist way) democratic, is also clearly burgoise, capitalist, liberal, idealist and patriarchal. Critical support is still necessary in the current historical moment and on the anti-imperialist front, but not for it's class character.
It's also disrespectful to make snide remarks like this. Especially how you explained how you really feel in the replies after stating you didn't want to start a "big argument." This site has issues but I hope you dont think you are above them after ending a written reply with "huh, lol"
I don't see how the OP established a causal link between Islam as the sole cause of revolutionary fervor. Understanding that the revolutionaries in Iran are also Muslim is important and so is refuting islamophobic tropes that water down the Iranian state to a simple theocracy (which looking at the conflict between reform and the IRGC it clearly isnt) in need of an atheist makeover.
I didn't really want to start an argument but I don't care for so-called communists extolling the virtues of religion either. Evidently my snide remark was accurate or the OP wouldn't have dozens of upvotes.
No one on Hexbear is claiming that Iranian revolutionaries aren't Muslim. People here are generally quite pro-Islam, either because they are Muslim or to distance themselves from the aggressively anti-Islamic posture of America and Israel, which is understandable. But when the Saudis right across the strait are staunch American allies, it's hard for me to see the religion as inherently tied to anti-imperialism.
I hope you don't mind me responding so much, I'm trying to not come off in a way that could be seen as negative.
To the quote above, this is why you should take some time to study the differences in Islam. Islam was founded as a force to liberate oppressed people, it is intrinsic to the religion and a demand by Allah that Muslims defend the oppressed and punish the oppressors, even giving our lives to do so. The Saudis are culturally Muslim but they follow a bastardized version which goes against the Quran, just like the groups they created like ISIS and Al Qaeda. They are co opting Islamic cultural aesthetics but not really committed to Islamic philosophical tenets.