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This part of the letter is cooking. Let us remember that Americans don't know what it's like to have respected leaders because they only have fake heroes like Spider-man and Spongebob.
I suppose I can't expect the IRGC to be historical materialists
A materialist explanation for why the US has an inferior military, despite being more expensive, is that the US military is driven by profit for the capitalist class. The excess cost is stolen by the capitalists.
Here is a section of the letter which is more about historical materialism. It talks about how the US extracts resources from underdeveloped countries, which leads people from those countries to migrate to the US, and then the US uses violence against those migrants.
That is the best articulation of the immigration problem I've seen. Most Americans have no idea how destabilization has caused immigration. It's really sad. People need to be more informed about this specifically.
While they certainly believe that God wanted them to win and arranged that they would, I believe that "superior material capabilities" here refers to military infrastructure, weaponry, etc. and they are correct that there are many other factors to the outcome of a war that are compatible with historical materialism and, minimally, part of what is being referred to.
Take for example the social circumstances of the Iranian people being broadly united in an existential struggle against an invader while domestically in the US the war is unpopular and morale is so shit that there are widespread stories of sabotage not on "real" political identical grounds but just because people rightly see the war as them risking their health and lives over literally nothing except maybe a promotion. These are critical to a Marxist account and I don't believe they fit entirely in "material capabilities" in the sense being used here (even if, taking the words in the phrase literally, you could call them that).
Well does the US' continent sized country with x5 Iran's population, and control over the global financial system mean it is going to win this war?
No. Because in addition to materialism, there is dialectics.
Iran's missile and drone programs and the underground missile cities seem more relevant material factors (not to mention geography and the strait) to me than population and a financial system which was already weaponized against them for decades. however I still agree with your overall point
Materialism doesn't just mean stuff you have weighed by mass, a materialistic, deterministic account of the world is totally compatible with what has happened (also there are crassly materialist factors that are also important, like Iran having highly favorable geography for defending from invasion).
hegel sitting happily upright in tehran
I mean it was a religious revolution not a socialist one.
A big portion of the letter is about Islam. I'm choosing to not copy/paste that part because it doesn't interest me. If people want to read the religious parts of the letter, it's linked in the OP.
Neither, but they sure managed to quench the f*ck out of the socialists who thought they were going to have a say in it
No, but we can appreciate the idea that God has done several divine interventions on behalf of jews but apparently decided Israel wasn't worthy and caused them to lose.
I don't agree with the religious sentiment. The #1 beef Americans have with Iranian culture is treatment of women based on religion. That part might not go over well with secular Americans who believe in nothing other than "don't be a dick."
As opposed to how they treat their women in Amerika?
Women are not being beaten for their choice of clothing in America. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crn45ed1kqqgo
If I'm missing something here, please let me know.
Zealots are complaining of atrocities caused by there being too many zealots. Unfortunately, America is getting worse and more people are dying because there are too many zealots and racists. Pots call the kettle black. If Iran and the US had no zealots, none of this crap would happen.