Iran deserves its own thread

Surely Iran deserves a grammatically correct topic title, @ShivaX?

Yep. Fixed.

Tough crowd!
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So as I’m reading and trying to understand, it seems like the 2009 uprising was largely the product of the upper middle class, and largely confined (as mentioned up thread) to larger cities.

This current uprising appears to be the lower social/financial class, and is more widespread across the country and far less centralized.

Both of those may be reasons that maybe this uprising has some staying power. The ramifications from a social perspective are easy to grasp: they’ve got less to lose than the base of the green uprisers in 2009.

With that said, though, Rouhani and the government forces seem to be slow playing this with the kind of patience that makes it seem like this could simmer down soon.

There are probably more of them as well.

But, OTOH, how much expectation/desire was there in Libya and Syria for Western help in overthrowing their dictatorships? Should we have stayed out instead of “helping”?

Yeah, it’s a situation where you can’t really win.

I mean they’re literally selling slaves in Libya and we helped out there. We did nothing in Syria and… that is also a shitshow.

So, it doesn’t really seem to matter what we do at the end of the day if we don’t follow it up and we can’t really afford to try to control the entire region with troops forever.

I wasn’t advocating for intervention in Iran; rather pointing out that the desire to effect change there is not typically driven by “resentment”; a claim I found frankly bizarre.

Intervention is always hobbled by our utter failure to really define what we want as a result. The way we define success often predetermines the failure of intervention. Intervention can work if you intervene as leverage for an existing line of political action, and are willing to let the locals drive the bus. It rarely does if you insist on defining the agenda for them.

When the US in particular intervenes, it tends to get the worst of both worlds. We define a goal based on our own beliefs and desires, whether it fits the situation or not, but then shy away from truly ramming it down their throats in true imperial fashion. We end up with no real accomplishments all too often.

I’m in the same boat. I’d throw Turkey in here as well, because I’ve been there when things were nearly the opposite of where they are now and have been very saddened to watch fundamentalism take over there. One thing is for sure, once it is in place within leadership, changing it takes more than just marches and protests, and that is the very unfortunate thing here in regards to Iran. I wish them the best possible outcome, but I’m pessimistic.

To quote Ventura, fundamentalism there is dug in like an Alabama tick.

Intervention, by the US or otherwise (I’m a Brit), has been virtually wholly problematic throughout history imperial or not. From the famines in India, the Sykes- Picot agreement, supporting Osama-Bin Laden in Afghanistan, Noriega it’s come back to bite. Of course there’s been massive successes as well …like Cuba, Iraq, Syria, oh.

Maybe trying to intervene is something we should be stopping. Maybe carrot rather than stick and supporting those governments we are aligned with would be a better strategy.

Which is pretty much my point. The only thing worse than imperial meddling with a purpose is imperial meddling without much of one.

I’m hearing a disturbing lack of neoconservative values in this thread. Report to your local public schools for re-education.

You forgot Vietnam. We won big there. /s

And again, this seems to have withered and died on the vine. As noted, this latest protest came from those in the lower strata of income/class structure in Iran. And while that means they had less to lose, it also means they had less to offer Iran’s middle class (who were central to the 2009 protests that the lower classes sat out).

In the meantime, it appears that the Iranian government and security forces have become more adept at dealing with mass protest.

Undoubtedly true. Also to be considered, though, is how we are defining “mass,” and whether there really is a widespread opposition movement opposed to the government per se, as opposed to specific policies or outcomes. I mean, it’s possible that many Iranians are as pissed with their government as many of us are with ours, but like us, they find a huge difference between marching in opposition to the government, and marching to overthrow the government.

Eventually Iran will reach a breaking point. Assuming we don’t start bombing them for some reason and unite them against us.

Yes, that was the whole point of the Iran deal. The idea that, given enough time, the regime would collapse.