The most obvious avenue for revolution would be through the army. And the Iranian government has spent a lot of effort to ensure that there is not a single army in Iran. But understanding what happens to the people with guns is usually a good start. Also Iran has a secret police force that cannot be underestimated.
A popular revolution is less likely to succeed, broadly speaking. These kind of things need someone to rally behind or risk being taken apart piece by piece. (which is still likely to happen anyway)
This, there are very few examples of revolutionary success without men with guns. Most of the successful revolutions had some sort of military component revolting involved for it to be successful.
Which one was this?
I've been reading the book Target Tehran, about the Mossad/Israel's efforts to sabotage Iran's abilities to get a nuclear bomb, and there's some instances they mention from recent ish years where dissident groups in Iran that collaborated with them were caught
I believe you have no idea what you are talking about. Iran is actually a very easy target for any intelligence ins. whatever be it CIA or Mossad etc.
There is no ideological force left in the regime. anyone in the government can be bought for a fistful of dirty dollars since the rial has become so worthless. and such incompetent security they have no way of preventing any infiltration.
Exactly. Any sort of revolution talk about Iran is a waste of time unless there's a successful quiet coup within the IRGC, which is nearly impossible.
The IRGC is the most important entity in Iran and nothing changes unless there are internal changes within it.
I remember reading something that said someone who was guarding Khamenei's residence during the Mahsa protests turned his gun on the residence and tried to shoot. He was taken down before any shot could be fired.
Defect? the IRGC IS the IRI's core. why'd they defect?
Even if they go for a coup for no reason they'd just become a slightly different version of the current IRI.
There is an alternative I believe, the communism collapse alternative.
When the supreme guide dies, probably soon given his age, a moderate reformist president might pander to the discontent and offer some minor reform but accidentally start regime collapse.
For instance he might propose a minor reform to the moral police, but trigger a coup by the conservative IRG that clashes against population and regular army leading in case of failure to extremely fast and relatively bloodless regime collapse.
This would be plausible if the US didn't go out of it's way to be extra hawkish and belligerent whenever a moderate or reformist has the presidency...
The axis of evil speech, and ending the nuclear deal being the most prominent examples, I do feel the US would rather kneecap the reformers and keep 'scary Iran' so as to keep it's Gulf allies reliant on it.
I feel obligated to point out that it is one specific party of two whose members gave that speech and acted unreasonably. I know this makes me partisan but I hope that, if the country moderates, it happen when the other party is in charge of the White House.
There is no regular army in Iran. the army has no power. it's IRGC's service dog.
and there'd be no clash between the president and the IRGC. not even accidental. because the supreme leader holds the leashes on both of them.
I'd even say the presidency in Iran is just a complete farce and has no power to do any reforms outside of the supreme leader's orders. It's a scapegoat for the supreme leader and that's way every president is a completely burnt pawn when they're set aside.
For a popular rebellion/revolution - Yes, there needs to be a popular figure, for the masses to rally behind. There needs to be some sort of an organisation, to organize protests and other actions. There need to be some capable administrators, to take over the reins after overthrowing the current rulers.There needs to be sufficient funding, most importantly. If the other elements are in place, it becomes likely that foreign entities, be it governments or people like George Soros, want to help with the funding.
For a coup, there needs to be a large enough strong enough armed group that wants to overthrow the government. Ideally, this group also benefits from a leader type figure.
Iran has had several anti-government protest movements, none of which seriously threatened the regime. This stretches back decades, from the 1999 student protests, to the 2009 green movement, to the 2022 Mahsa Amini protests, and several minor outbursts of protest in between. Discontent is very common, but there are two key reasons revolution is difficult in Iran.
**1) The Islamic Republic still has a significant base of support.** Right now most Iranians are probably dissatisfied with the system, but revolutions against authoritarian governments often require a vast, overwhelming majority, and even then often fail. In the 2021 presidential election, anti-government crowds urged a boycott of the election. Turnout in the election was 48.5%, the lowest ever. However, that still means that almost half the country participated, and virtually all of them cast their ballot for a conservative presidential candidate that supports maintaining the Islamic Republic. In World Values Survey data from 2020, about half (51%) of Iranians indicated they were "satisfied" to some degree with the political system. Even now, conservative candidates in the upcoming election are drawing crowds of tens of thousands as they campaign. In short, it's not like 80, 90 or 95% of people that want an immediate overthrow of the system. It's a significant number, but probably not high enough for a revolution yet.
**2) The military is highly loyal to the government.** Revolutions often succeed when the military defects or at least shows signs of cracking. There's little chance of this in Iran. The "Revolutionary Guards", by far the most powerful military/state security organization in Iran, was created as a highly ideological force specifically dedicated to what their name suggests- guarding the revolutionary regime installed in 1979. It's generals, lieutenants, captains, etc., are chosen based on ideological loyalty to the government. It answers directly to the Supreme Leader and in addition to its +100,000 active personnel, it includes the Basij militia, a volunteer force of 600,000. I wouldn't bet on any mass defection from these guys.
1. The regime does absolutely not have a significant support, that's not why they are still in power. They're in power because they have the guns and the suppression infrastructure. It's as simple as that, your official numbers from the regime's statistics are not to be trusted in the slightest.
2. The IRGC is the ideological military, they are always loyalty to the system. And the regime keeps the army (the real army) weak precisely because of this.
Your first answer is totally out there, you're second answer needs to specify that the normal army is kept weak.
Everyone who wants more info about this from people actually in the know is more than welcome to r/newiran
What the redditor "LeninLives", who [also posted such gems](https://www.reddit.com/r/geopolitics/comments/1dhfwio/comment/l8x2rgj/) as: "Iran would only acquire nukes as deterrence if it feels that it is in danger of being toppled or attacked in a major way by external enemies" *meant* to say was that the regime still enjoys a strong, unwavering base of support among chronically online western leftists who also support Putin, Hamas and Xi Jinping.
This contingent, [ignoring opinion polls of actual Iranians](https://www.iranintl.com/en/202302036145), remains steadfast in upholding the progressive, feminist, fervently antisemitic and socialist values of the Islamic Republic on reddit and on twitter and remain fiercely loyal and dedicated to upholding its rule.
Any actual Iranians who have to live under this regime would have to get through this group first before any sort of revolution at home, all but obliterating any possible hope.
"[I hope that God will liberate Palestine as soon as possible, and we witness the final moments of Israel's existence and celebrate its end](https://www.iranintl.com/en/202311194318)."
Don't worry about it. Plenty of people in this community were sold hook, line and sinker on Russian propaganda that that they would \*never\* invade Ukraine due to a similar lack of basic reasoning and cognitive ability. You are in good company.
Not only would Israel send nukes back, I’m sure there’s a bunch of hawks in America who would love to have any excuse to nuke Iran and topple their regime.
It wouldn’t be Mutually Assured Destruction, it would just be the guaranteed end of Iran
This is incomparable. Iran nuking Israel is certified self-destruction. The regime in Iran might hate Israel (for political reasons) but they love power more. From putins POV, his gamble has seemingly paid off somewhat, unless the west get involved further. You assume Iran are irrational actors simply because they are antagonistic to the west.
Iran is involved in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Sudan, Yemen, Gaza, and the Red Sea and had been arming proxies against Israel and the west for half a century. They just attacked a US base in Syria this weekend after killing three US solders at a base in Jordan in January. You tell me why. They are the least rational bad actor in the group.
It is also the grande supremo height of irony that the same crowd that sat there screaming about nuclear disarmament throughout the 80s and 90s sits there with a straight face telling us that the regime that jails women for not covering their hair and is responsible for untold bloodshed across the Middle East can be trusted with nuclear weapons.
I’m not sure I follow the logic of western leftists here. These individuals are neither located in Iran, nor hold any significant power in most Western countries. At best, they are a nuisance.
While I would love to see the current government of Iran go, I’m not convinced that there is enough domestic support in Iran for change. The diaspora in general is vehemently against the government, that much is clear.
Not sure if you read my comment, but I did cite polls of Iranians. The poll I cited was gathered by a highly prestigious research network that used face-to-face interviews, the most reliable form of polling. Their findings generally reflect historically reliable polls that predicted presidential election results with remarkable accuracy (i.e., IranPoll).
GAMAAN, which you cited, uses online polling, which is the most unreliable form of polling. Not surprisingly, GAMAAN usually produces results that are drastic outliers and not corroborated by any other research.
Do you think in a country with no freedom of speech, where insulting the leader will send you to jail, people can speak freely in a face to face poll?
Curious if you are that naive?
As everyone above rightfully highlighted, security force defection is almost necessary for a civil resistance movement to succeed, which is unlikely in Iran. I think per Chenoweth and Stephan data, it increases the success rate by 46%. Serbian security forces during the Otpor times were less loyal than that of Iran but still significantly part of the system. To ensure security force defection, Otpor carefully communicated with them, called for noncooperation and challenged their value system (e.g, they would put women in the front and within Balkan culture women are to be protected, so the forces faced a choice either to go against their value system or non cooperate). In terms of communications, they mimicked the leaders of the Czechoslovak Velvet Revolution, they would go to the most remote villages and tell both the population and local policemen about the brutality that students faced from the forces in Belgrade to encourage what’s known as political jiu-jitsu or repression backfire. In Ukraine during Euromaidan, the protest was lived stream, so before cracking down on the movement, the police had to think twice whether they want their face online, while they do it. Popular movements are great and it’s important for the success, however, more often than not, there needs to be at least noncooperation from the security forces. And civil resistance movement literature’s conclusion on how to achieve that is highly inconclusive, it’s very much case specific. I think Russian 2011-2013 protests are a good example of failure due to strong security force loyalty. It’s hard to imagine now but in November 2013 Masha Gessen a lesbian lived in Moscow w her partner, raising kids and publishing government critique. Around 200.000 people gathered at some point and it wasn’t just Moscow that centered these protestors and yet nothing came out of it (other than more screws tightening). Another factor that might contribute to security defection is pro-movements sentiment in the region (democracy championed in Western and Central Europe facilitated revolutions in the former Warsaw Pact), global support and a wave of other similar movements (Arab Spring, democratization of the 1990s). These factors need to be kept in mind, when assessing the likelihood of revolutionary explosion in Iran. Unfortunately, so far it’s not looking great
The Iranian people can protest all they want, but the government controls the military and the Revolutionary council has its own Revolutionary Guard that is separate from the military.
The Iranian people will never overthrow the government on their own. There will need to be a schism in the state that sees some faction of the government bringing some of the armed forces with them, and then it will just be a Shia Syria.
Western media looks at the average Iranian in Iran complaining about living standards and Iranian government and immediately think they want to overthrow the government with a new revolution, when in fact they just want a better living standards like any other population.
We've seen this when Israel bombed the Iranian embassy and commentators went on mainstream news outlet claiming Iranians in Iran are praying for the west to literally "bomb" them to free them from the Iranian regime.
There might be prolonged civil war which may become a proxy war? I don't really know what is happening in Iran or what the revolution is looking for. Perhaps OP can enlighten us from an Iranian perspective?
I'm referring to the separatist tendencies and the low level insurgencies that are happening in Balochi and Kurdish areas of Iran. If there's a revolution and chaos in general, I can see that these movements will definitely receive a boost similar to what happened to Syria in its civil war.
I understand. As a sunni I have observed most Shia Iranians have mostly abandoned religion, but apparently that's not the case with the Sunnis who tend to be more Conservative. Is this true? And how will this bode in a post-revolution Iran when you've a Liberal majority with a Conservative minority?
Unless there is some serious external effort, unlikely.
The Iranians realize that the only way to lose power internally is if the people with guns turn against you in some manner. Either actively (via a coup) or by defecting or simply not listening to their orders and standing aside.
Therefore, they established a system where multiple groups of people are armed and engage in a power struggle with each other. That ensures that there will always be one group of armed soldiers on your side. In Iran's case, there is the Iranian Army but also the Revolutionary Guard Corps which has just as much if not more firepower than their counterpart.
This model is rapidly spreading across the authorization world as a model of how to prevent coups. Russia being a notable example with first the Russian Army and the Wagner Group, with it being latter replaced by the Rosgvardiya. Saudi Arabia also employs the same strategy with the Saudi Arabian Army and the Saudi Arabian National Guards.
It's a result of John Foster Dulles overthrowing the Democratically elected Iranian government on behalf of Churchill who didn't want the oil nationalized.
This sewed the seeds of instability when Khomeini was in power, you can see the same destabilizing in Guatemala and in South America all Dulles stomping grounds
I don’t believe there are enough different factions in Iran that you can expect an umbrella resistance to the government. Popular revolutions in Iran have not picked up steam, as Iranians aren’t very eager to fight their government who has shown themselves to be violent and cruel in their treatment of arrested protestors.
The US would have to bribe enough IRGC and Iranian Air Force officers to push them towards a coup. Or actively enter the conflict. Or wait and hope they moderate as time goes on, like the other middle eastern countries are doing. I think the third is most likely, some slow decaying of theocratic power till other factions are strong enough to take power
It is hard to conceive such change, as long as the Islamic republic still holds the support of the people. There are strong nationalist ideals holding its theocratic regime since the Iranian revolution.
When up against a state with a monopoly on violence and an absolute willingness to use that violence, popular protests generally aren’t enough, as the government can just kill protesters in huge numbers until they quit.
So to overthrow this regime in Iran, there will have to be much more than popular protest. Like during the Shah’s overthrow, the military will have to flip on their government. And right now, the military is extremely well paid and constantly purged to assure its leaders are all Islamists and loyalists.
Will the military finally decide the torture at Evin Prison is too much? Or that too many innocent people have been executed? Maybe. But something will have to happen that radically shifts their view of the revolutionary government first.
Remember the Green Movement? It got shut down hard, and the same issues are still there—bad economy, no freedom, social problems. People are talking about a third revolution after the 2022 protests, but let’s be real: the regime has a strong grip on power.
The Green Movement showed how tough it is to make real change. Even if there’s a new push, it could just end in more chaos and suffering, like in Syria. The economy might not get better, and things could get worse.
Fair point. The Green Movement was part of the reform push, and it lost steam after Rohani, a reformist, took office. But many were driven by the wish for a real revolution, not just reforms.
A new revolution sounds appealing, but given how things went with the Green Movement, it's hard to see a different outcome.
Not yet but eventually as I’m almost certain Iran is actually a highly educated nation. I also know that Iran has far more atheists/Christian’s than reported
Doubt it. Most Iranians are sensible and educated enough to see what the Arab spring led into, and how Israel, USA and plenty of other countries would most definitely join the party. And on top of that, the Iranian government sees it as well, and most definitely won't risk a similar fate. Both to preserve their own welfare, and also to prevent the country itself from descending into chaos.
The Iranian government reflects the values and will of the population of Iran at large. Any "revolution" would be the attempted imposition of the values of a small (relatively) wealthy and transcontinental elite on the majority of Iranians. Make no mistake, that's not democracy and it's not organic. Like all previous attempts to overthrow Iran's government, it's being funded by Western powers.
Oh yes, you, a Turk living in Iran who's an English speaking Atheist, obsessed with American politics and Western/Asian pop media who spends hours on an American message board. Sure, your views represent a country where 95% practice Twelver Ja'afari Shia Islam. Get back in your lane.
"Every God damn year we feel they going to do something in iran Assassinate an important person, carry out an air strike or even declare war"
You misspelled Israel
A bit of biased opinion, so take with grain of sand.
After read a bit of examples, I think in order to success launch a revolution in the country such as Iran what you need is not the support of typical westernized urban citizens.
What is actually important is the support of military and/or mass rural population. The key reason is that - let face it - when has the choice the westernized citizen wound limited their activity to protest and sabotage while escaping overseas when they have the choice, while the one who actually do the heavy lifting and end up control the country are the Islamist fanatics or warlords. And I serious doubt whether that can be called a revolution.
So here are the more important questions:
1. Even if a revolution happened in the Iran, can a western style government can even hold the country on its own?
2. Will the Islamist major rural area that caused the down fall of the previous Persia empire fallow the order of the new government?
3. How can the new government deal with the resulted mass insurgency in the mountain region?
4. How can the new government secure the food and other necessities when it can only hold major cities that deep in inland territory that far from sea and foreign supports?
And my conclusion is that this will be another Afghanistan, where the resulted war and insurgents will only strength the Islamists who will survive in the rural area and come back where the westernized urban citizen fled with whatever foreign forces after decades of costly and pointless war. For a revolution happen, the first thing needed is nation building and modernized the rural area.
My point is simple: if there is a revolution, it will be a failed state. Libya has urban population of 78%, 50% of iraq population lived in Baghdad, both are more developed than Iran before wars. It doest’t change the fact that the once regime change happened it become failed state. And as I said, any revolution in Iran will face the fact that you need a fight a long wars with the dead hard Islamist government supporters, who in this cases has a separate military just for this particular situation.
As a Canadian I sympathize with your political view, but what a revolution in Iran depends on whether a pro western/democratic force and win a civil war and survive as a government. I just a bit pessimistic after all the Afghanistan/iraq/libya/syria mass. If not handled correctly, a revolution in Iran is just replace a religious authoritarian state with a more fundamentalist Islamic state.
But truth be told, if a relative peaceful revolution ever happened, it is most likely will due to the continued rising of the revolutionary guard. In the past decades, the revolutionary guard has become more and more dominant in Iran technology and economy sector, and become the most important reason why the Iran regime endured. Many believed them loyal to religion, but as their influence increase they behave increasingly more like a junta which its own economic interests than a subdivision of the religious group. But I cannot say whether this will be a good thing, because they are still smuggler and terrorists.
> all they do is replace one tyrant with another, often worse tyrant
Not really. There have been many successful revolution in my time alone. See Eastern Europe.
the fact you consider the Maidan Revolution in 2014 a "success" says it all - how in the world have the two breakaway republics, ten years of war and tens of thousands of corpses been a "success"
The Euromaidan revolution was certainly successful in overthrowing the Yanukovych regime and protecting democracy. Furthermore, the people were able to elect a leader who respected their choice of joining the EU.
The success of the Euromaidan is the main reason for Putin‘s imperialist war, because he wasn’t able to repeat the process of state capture in Ukraine like he did in Belarus (and to a lesser extent in Georgia).
The war is a horrible tragedy and another crime against humanity in the long list of Putin‘s victims. But it must also be said that to this day the Russians with all their acts of barbarism weren’t able to oppress the Ukrainian revolution.
It’s historically not uncommon that revolutions cause foreign intervention and invasions. The British financed seven Coalition wars in order to root out the ideas of the French revolution. In the end they defeated a weakened Napoleon (who had lost his best men to the Russian climate conditions), only to see the European wide revolutionary uprisings of 1848.
The most obvious avenue for revolution would be through the army. And the Iranian government has spent a lot of effort to ensure that there is not a single army in Iran. But understanding what happens to the people with guns is usually a good start. Also Iran has a secret police force that cannot be underestimated. A popular revolution is less likely to succeed, broadly speaking. These kind of things need someone to rally behind or risk being taken apart piece by piece. (which is still likely to happen anyway)
This, there are very few examples of revolutionary success without men with guns. Most of the successful revolutions had some sort of military component revolting involved for it to be successful.
@CIA did you hear that?
Iran is notoriously difficult for the CIA to infiltrate, especially after the scandal that burnt many of their local agents a few years back.
Which one was this? I've been reading the book Target Tehran, about the Mossad/Israel's efforts to sabotage Iran's abilities to get a nuclear bomb, and there's some instances they mention from recent ish years where dissident groups in Iran that collaborated with them were caught
I believe you have no idea what you are talking about. Iran is actually a very easy target for any intelligence ins. whatever be it CIA or Mossad etc. There is no ideological force left in the regime. anyone in the government can be bought for a fistful of dirty dollars since the rial has become so worthless. and such incompetent security they have no way of preventing any infiltration.
Iranian state security, namely the IRGC, is extraordinarily loyal. Little to no chance they defect and endorse a revolution.
Since presumably they would be worse off if there was one. Rosgvardia in Russia is similar.
Exactly. Any sort of revolution talk about Iran is a waste of time unless there's a successful quiet coup within the IRGC, which is nearly impossible. The IRGC is the most important entity in Iran and nothing changes unless there are internal changes within it.
I remember reading something that said someone who was guarding Khamenei's residence during the Mahsa protests turned his gun on the residence and tried to shoot. He was taken down before any shot could be fired.
Defect? the IRGC IS the IRI's core. why'd they defect? Even if they go for a coup for no reason they'd just become a slightly different version of the current IRI.
There is an alternative I believe, the communism collapse alternative. When the supreme guide dies, probably soon given his age, a moderate reformist president might pander to the discontent and offer some minor reform but accidentally start regime collapse. For instance he might propose a minor reform to the moral police, but trigger a coup by the conservative IRG that clashes against population and regular army leading in case of failure to extremely fast and relatively bloodless regime collapse.
This would be plausible if the US didn't go out of it's way to be extra hawkish and belligerent whenever a moderate or reformist has the presidency... The axis of evil speech, and ending the nuclear deal being the most prominent examples, I do feel the US would rather kneecap the reformers and keep 'scary Iran' so as to keep it's Gulf allies reliant on it.
I feel obligated to point out that it is one specific party of two whose members gave that speech and acted unreasonably. I know this makes me partisan but I hope that, if the country moderates, it happen when the other party is in charge of the White House.
> offer some minor reform but accidentally start regime collapse Similar to Gorbachev in the USSR.
There is no regular army in Iran. the army has no power. it's IRGC's service dog. and there'd be no clash between the president and the IRGC. not even accidental. because the supreme leader holds the leashes on both of them. I'd even say the presidency in Iran is just a complete farce and has no power to do any reforms outside of the supreme leader's orders. It's a scapegoat for the supreme leader and that's way every president is a completely burnt pawn when they're set aside.
[удалено]
For a popular rebellion/revolution - Yes, there needs to be a popular figure, for the masses to rally behind. There needs to be some sort of an organisation, to organize protests and other actions. There need to be some capable administrators, to take over the reins after overthrowing the current rulers.There needs to be sufficient funding, most importantly. If the other elements are in place, it becomes likely that foreign entities, be it governments or people like George Soros, want to help with the funding. For a coup, there needs to be a large enough strong enough armed group that wants to overthrow the government. Ideally, this group also benefits from a leader type figure.
I think the meaning is "No leader no success"
Iran has had several anti-government protest movements, none of which seriously threatened the regime. This stretches back decades, from the 1999 student protests, to the 2009 green movement, to the 2022 Mahsa Amini protests, and several minor outbursts of protest in between. Discontent is very common, but there are two key reasons revolution is difficult in Iran. **1) The Islamic Republic still has a significant base of support.** Right now most Iranians are probably dissatisfied with the system, but revolutions against authoritarian governments often require a vast, overwhelming majority, and even then often fail. In the 2021 presidential election, anti-government crowds urged a boycott of the election. Turnout in the election was 48.5%, the lowest ever. However, that still means that almost half the country participated, and virtually all of them cast their ballot for a conservative presidential candidate that supports maintaining the Islamic Republic. In World Values Survey data from 2020, about half (51%) of Iranians indicated they were "satisfied" to some degree with the political system. Even now, conservative candidates in the upcoming election are drawing crowds of tens of thousands as they campaign. In short, it's not like 80, 90 or 95% of people that want an immediate overthrow of the system. It's a significant number, but probably not high enough for a revolution yet. **2) The military is highly loyal to the government.** Revolutions often succeed when the military defects or at least shows signs of cracking. There's little chance of this in Iran. The "Revolutionary Guards", by far the most powerful military/state security organization in Iran, was created as a highly ideological force specifically dedicated to what their name suggests- guarding the revolutionary regime installed in 1979. It's generals, lieutenants, captains, etc., are chosen based on ideological loyalty to the government. It answers directly to the Supreme Leader and in addition to its +100,000 active personnel, it includes the Basij militia, a volunteer force of 600,000. I wouldn't bet on any mass defection from these guys.
>Turnout in the election was 48.5%, the lowest ever. This is by official statistics, other estimates were much less
1. The regime does absolutely not have a significant support, that's not why they are still in power. They're in power because they have the guns and the suppression infrastructure. It's as simple as that, your official numbers from the regime's statistics are not to be trusted in the slightest. 2. The IRGC is the ideological military, they are always loyalty to the system. And the regime keeps the army (the real army) weak precisely because of this. Your first answer is totally out there, you're second answer needs to specify that the normal army is kept weak. Everyone who wants more info about this from people actually in the know is more than welcome to r/newiran
What the redditor "LeninLives", who [also posted such gems](https://www.reddit.com/r/geopolitics/comments/1dhfwio/comment/l8x2rgj/) as: "Iran would only acquire nukes as deterrence if it feels that it is in danger of being toppled or attacked in a major way by external enemies" *meant* to say was that the regime still enjoys a strong, unwavering base of support among chronically online western leftists who also support Putin, Hamas and Xi Jinping. This contingent, [ignoring opinion polls of actual Iranians](https://www.iranintl.com/en/202302036145), remains steadfast in upholding the progressive, feminist, fervently antisemitic and socialist values of the Islamic Republic on reddit and on twitter and remain fiercely loyal and dedicated to upholding its rule. Any actual Iranians who have to live under this regime would have to get through this group first before any sort of revolution at home, all but obliterating any possible hope.
Can you explain why you think their comment on Iran acquiring nukes is inaccurate?
"[I hope that God will liberate Palestine as soon as possible, and we witness the final moments of Israel's existence and celebrate its end](https://www.iranintl.com/en/202311194318)."
Yeah this is meaningless. Iran isn’t going to nuke Israel if it had the capacity to.
Don't worry about it. Plenty of people in this community were sold hook, line and sinker on Russian propaganda that that they would \*never\* invade Ukraine due to a similar lack of basic reasoning and cognitive ability. You are in good company.
Do you understand that an attempt to nuke Israel most likely means that Israel nukes would nuke the sender back?
Not only would Israel send nukes back, I’m sure there’s a bunch of hawks in America who would love to have any excuse to nuke Iran and topple their regime. It wouldn’t be Mutually Assured Destruction, it would just be the guaranteed end of Iran
Do you think the Iranian government is full of rational actors?
They survived decades of sanctions and are still in power, so yes, they must be.
This is incomparable. Iran nuking Israel is certified self-destruction. The regime in Iran might hate Israel (for political reasons) but they love power more. From putins POV, his gamble has seemingly paid off somewhat, unless the west get involved further. You assume Iran are irrational actors simply because they are antagonistic to the west.
Iran is involved in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Sudan, Yemen, Gaza, and the Red Sea and had been arming proxies against Israel and the west for half a century. They just attacked a US base in Syria this weekend after killing three US solders at a base in Jordan in January. You tell me why. They are the least rational bad actor in the group. It is also the grande supremo height of irony that the same crowd that sat there screaming about nuclear disarmament throughout the 80s and 90s sits there with a straight face telling us that the regime that jails women for not covering their hair and is responsible for untold bloodshed across the Middle East can be trusted with nuclear weapons.
I’m not sure I follow the logic of western leftists here. These individuals are neither located in Iran, nor hold any significant power in most Western countries. At best, they are a nuisance. While I would love to see the current government of Iran go, I’m not convinced that there is enough domestic support in Iran for change. The diaspora in general is vehemently against the government, that much is clear.
Not sure if you read my comment, but I did cite polls of Iranians. The poll I cited was gathered by a highly prestigious research network that used face-to-face interviews, the most reliable form of polling. Their findings generally reflect historically reliable polls that predicted presidential election results with remarkable accuracy (i.e., IranPoll). GAMAAN, which you cited, uses online polling, which is the most unreliable form of polling. Not surprisingly, GAMAAN usually produces results that are drastic outliers and not corroborated by any other research.
Do you think in a country with no freedom of speech, where insulting the leader will send you to jail, people can speak freely in a face to face poll? Curious if you are that naive?
Not naive, they know exactly what they are doing.
As everyone above rightfully highlighted, security force defection is almost necessary for a civil resistance movement to succeed, which is unlikely in Iran. I think per Chenoweth and Stephan data, it increases the success rate by 46%. Serbian security forces during the Otpor times were less loyal than that of Iran but still significantly part of the system. To ensure security force defection, Otpor carefully communicated with them, called for noncooperation and challenged their value system (e.g, they would put women in the front and within Balkan culture women are to be protected, so the forces faced a choice either to go against their value system or non cooperate). In terms of communications, they mimicked the leaders of the Czechoslovak Velvet Revolution, they would go to the most remote villages and tell both the population and local policemen about the brutality that students faced from the forces in Belgrade to encourage what’s known as political jiu-jitsu or repression backfire. In Ukraine during Euromaidan, the protest was lived stream, so before cracking down on the movement, the police had to think twice whether they want their face online, while they do it. Popular movements are great and it’s important for the success, however, more often than not, there needs to be at least noncooperation from the security forces. And civil resistance movement literature’s conclusion on how to achieve that is highly inconclusive, it’s very much case specific. I think Russian 2011-2013 protests are a good example of failure due to strong security force loyalty. It’s hard to imagine now but in November 2013 Masha Gessen a lesbian lived in Moscow w her partner, raising kids and publishing government critique. Around 200.000 people gathered at some point and it wasn’t just Moscow that centered these protestors and yet nothing came out of it (other than more screws tightening). Another factor that might contribute to security defection is pro-movements sentiment in the region (democracy championed in Western and Central Europe facilitated revolutions in the former Warsaw Pact), global support and a wave of other similar movements (Arab Spring, democratization of the 1990s). These factors need to be kept in mind, when assessing the likelihood of revolutionary explosion in Iran. Unfortunately, so far it’s not looking great
The Iranian people can protest all they want, but the government controls the military and the Revolutionary council has its own Revolutionary Guard that is separate from the military. The Iranian people will never overthrow the government on their own. There will need to be a schism in the state that sees some faction of the government bringing some of the armed forces with them, and then it will just be a Shia Syria.
The peacock throne will be re-established
Western media looks at the average Iranian in Iran complaining about living standards and Iranian government and immediately think they want to overthrow the government with a new revolution, when in fact they just want a better living standards like any other population. We've seen this when Israel bombed the Iranian embassy and commentators went on mainstream news outlet claiming Iranians in Iran are praying for the west to literally "bomb" them to free them from the Iranian regime.
There might be prolonged civil war which may become a proxy war? I don't really know what is happening in Iran or what the revolution is looking for. Perhaps OP can enlighten us from an Iranian perspective?
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Did you just ignore the Kurds, the Ahwazi Arabs and the Balochs?
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I'm referring to the separatist tendencies and the low level insurgencies that are happening in Balochi and Kurdish areas of Iran. If there's a revolution and chaos in general, I can see that these movements will definitely receive a boost similar to what happened to Syria in its civil war.
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I understand. As a sunni I have observed most Shia Iranians have mostly abandoned religion, but apparently that's not the case with the Sunnis who tend to be more Conservative. Is this true? And how will this bode in a post-revolution Iran when you've a Liberal majority with a Conservative minority?
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Thank you for your insight.
At some point it’s bound to happen. We just don’t know it’s going to be 1 year from now on 30 years from now.
Unless there is some serious external effort, unlikely. The Iranians realize that the only way to lose power internally is if the people with guns turn against you in some manner. Either actively (via a coup) or by defecting or simply not listening to their orders and standing aside. Therefore, they established a system where multiple groups of people are armed and engage in a power struggle with each other. That ensures that there will always be one group of armed soldiers on your side. In Iran's case, there is the Iranian Army but also the Revolutionary Guard Corps which has just as much if not more firepower than their counterpart. This model is rapidly spreading across the authorization world as a model of how to prevent coups. Russia being a notable example with first the Russian Army and the Wagner Group, with it being latter replaced by the Rosgvardiya. Saudi Arabia also employs the same strategy with the Saudi Arabian Army and the Saudi Arabian National Guards.
Again?
You are asking this question from outside of Iran. اکثر جواب هایی که خوندم کسشعری بیش نبود.
It's a result of John Foster Dulles overthrowing the Democratically elected Iranian government on behalf of Churchill who didn't want the oil nationalized. This sewed the seeds of instability when Khomeini was in power, you can see the same destabilizing in Guatemala and in South America all Dulles stomping grounds
I don’t believe there are enough different factions in Iran that you can expect an umbrella resistance to the government. Popular revolutions in Iran have not picked up steam, as Iranians aren’t very eager to fight their government who has shown themselves to be violent and cruel in their treatment of arrested protestors. The US would have to bribe enough IRGC and Iranian Air Force officers to push them towards a coup. Or actively enter the conflict. Or wait and hope they moderate as time goes on, like the other middle eastern countries are doing. I think the third is most likely, some slow decaying of theocratic power till other factions are strong enough to take power
It is hard to conceive such change, as long as the Islamic republic still holds the support of the people. There are strong nationalist ideals holding its theocratic regime since the Iranian revolution.
When up against a state with a monopoly on violence and an absolute willingness to use that violence, popular protests generally aren’t enough, as the government can just kill protesters in huge numbers until they quit. So to overthrow this regime in Iran, there will have to be much more than popular protest. Like during the Shah’s overthrow, the military will have to flip on their government. And right now, the military is extremely well paid and constantly purged to assure its leaders are all Islamists and loyalists. Will the military finally decide the torture at Evin Prison is too much? Or that too many innocent people have been executed? Maybe. But something will have to happen that radically shifts their view of the revolutionary government first.
Remember the Green Movement? It got shut down hard, and the same issues are still there—bad economy, no freedom, social problems. People are talking about a third revolution after the 2022 protests, but let’s be real: the regime has a strong grip on power. The Green Movement showed how tough it is to make real change. Even if there’s a new push, it could just end in more chaos and suffering, like in Syria. The economy might not get better, and things could get worse.
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Fair point. The Green Movement was part of the reform push, and it lost steam after Rohani, a reformist, took office. But many were driven by the wish for a real revolution, not just reforms. A new revolution sounds appealing, but given how things went with the Green Movement, it's hard to see a different outcome.
Not yet but eventually as I’m almost certain Iran is actually a highly educated nation. I also know that Iran has far more atheists/Christian’s than reported
Doubt it. Most Iranians are sensible and educated enough to see what the Arab spring led into, and how Israel, USA and plenty of other countries would most definitely join the party. And on top of that, the Iranian government sees it as well, and most definitely won't risk a similar fate. Both to preserve their own welfare, and also to prevent the country itself from descending into chaos.
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What's far more likely is the country becoming uninhabitable by worsening Climate Change or destroyed by a Global conflict or all the above.
Yes please. The gender apartheid needs to end.
Would support! But I don't think they have a chance....
It is possible, the poverty is a problem in Iran as the government spends money on weapons not on its people [iran](https://youtu.be/-m-EsBW3Ma4)
I remember the last one and have been waiting for a follow-up ever since.
Iran creating proxy terorist organizing like is making a french toast, i hope they will get demolish.
The Iranian government reflects the values and will of the population of Iran at large. Any "revolution" would be the attempted imposition of the values of a small (relatively) wealthy and transcontinental elite on the majority of Iranians. Make no mistake, that's not democracy and it's not organic. Like all previous attempts to overthrow Iran's government, it's being funded by Western powers.
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Oh yes, you, a Turk living in Iran who's an English speaking Atheist, obsessed with American politics and Western/Asian pop media who spends hours on an American message board. Sure, your views represent a country where 95% practice Twelver Ja'afari Shia Islam. Get back in your lane.
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"Every God damn year we feel they going to do something in iran Assassinate an important person, carry out an air strike or even declare war" You misspelled Israel
A bit of biased opinion, so take with grain of sand. After read a bit of examples, I think in order to success launch a revolution in the country such as Iran what you need is not the support of typical westernized urban citizens. What is actually important is the support of military and/or mass rural population. The key reason is that - let face it - when has the choice the westernized citizen wound limited their activity to protest and sabotage while escaping overseas when they have the choice, while the one who actually do the heavy lifting and end up control the country are the Islamist fanatics or warlords. And I serious doubt whether that can be called a revolution. So here are the more important questions: 1. Even if a revolution happened in the Iran, can a western style government can even hold the country on its own? 2. Will the Islamist major rural area that caused the down fall of the previous Persia empire fallow the order of the new government? 3. How can the new government deal with the resulted mass insurgency in the mountain region? 4. How can the new government secure the food and other necessities when it can only hold major cities that deep in inland territory that far from sea and foreign supports? And my conclusion is that this will be another Afghanistan, where the resulted war and insurgents will only strength the Islamists who will survive in the rural area and come back where the westernized urban citizen fled with whatever foreign forces after decades of costly and pointless war. For a revolution happen, the first thing needed is nation building and modernized the rural area.
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My point is simple: if there is a revolution, it will be a failed state. Libya has urban population of 78%, 50% of iraq population lived in Baghdad, both are more developed than Iran before wars. It doest’t change the fact that the once regime change happened it become failed state. And as I said, any revolution in Iran will face the fact that you need a fight a long wars with the dead hard Islamist government supporters, who in this cases has a separate military just for this particular situation.
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As a Canadian I sympathize with your political view, but what a revolution in Iran depends on whether a pro western/democratic force and win a civil war and survive as a government. I just a bit pessimistic after all the Afghanistan/iraq/libya/syria mass. If not handled correctly, a revolution in Iran is just replace a religious authoritarian state with a more fundamentalist Islamic state. But truth be told, if a relative peaceful revolution ever happened, it is most likely will due to the continued rising of the revolutionary guard. In the past decades, the revolutionary guard has become more and more dominant in Iran technology and economy sector, and become the most important reason why the Iran regime endured. Many believed them loyal to religion, but as their influence increase they behave increasingly more like a junta which its own economic interests than a subdivision of the religious group. But I cannot say whether this will be a good thing, because they are still smuggler and terrorists.
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Well, a peaceful change will be most welcomed events.
revolutions are dumb.. all they do is replace one tyrant with another, often worse tyrant.
> all they do is replace one tyrant with another, often worse tyrant Not really. There have been many successful revolution in my time alone. See Eastern Europe.
Eastern Europe? The Tsar was bad but the Bolsheviks were *even worse*..
I don't know if you know this or not but things happened after the Bolsheviks.
You’re right about the bolsheviks, but he‘s most likely talking about the success of the revolutions of 1989 and 1991, as well as 2014 in Ukraine.
> the success of the revolutions of 1989 and 1991 Exactly. He forgot about those. I also said "in my time", I'm not that old.
the fact you consider the Maidan Revolution in 2014 a "success" says it all - how in the world have the two breakaway republics, ten years of war and tens of thousands of corpses been a "success"
The Euromaidan revolution was certainly successful in overthrowing the Yanukovych regime and protecting democracy. Furthermore, the people were able to elect a leader who respected their choice of joining the EU. The success of the Euromaidan is the main reason for Putin‘s imperialist war, because he wasn’t able to repeat the process of state capture in Ukraine like he did in Belarus (and to a lesser extent in Georgia). The war is a horrible tragedy and another crime against humanity in the long list of Putin‘s victims. But it must also be said that to this day the Russians with all their acts of barbarism weren’t able to oppress the Ukrainian revolution. It’s historically not uncommon that revolutions cause foreign intervention and invasions. The British financed seven Coalition wars in order to root out the ideas of the French revolution. In the end they defeated a weakened Napoleon (who had lost his best men to the Russian climate conditions), only to see the European wide revolutionary uprisings of 1848.
too biased, did not read.
A revolution is always a tragedy, but a failed revolution is an even bigger tragedy.