You mean the "counter protests" organized and dictated by IRGC and the regime, you mean? The totally organic, completely believable groups of coordinated military aged men and occasionally their wives showing up for on-message photo ops for Khamenei & crew?
This regime has already completely failed - their currency is completely debased, they've destroyed their water supply, and over the last several decades they've been unable to meet the very reasonable and understandable conditions needed to join the international community and get sanctions lifted, allowing them to engage in trade and lift their economy out of the gutter.
The choices made by this regime are the precise and exact reasons for their current degraded state. The rest of the civilized world set the conditions, and they chose not to engage in civilization. I have absolutely zero sympathy for the supporters of the regime, they're a group who've been in power for less than 50 years, and every year they've been in power they've brought nothing but atrocity and grief to the world.
No, I have principles. I wish to see people live the best possible lives for themselves, out from under tyranny and oppression, without the threat of death and violence and mayhem from those who have power over them, to the greatest degree of liberty and human rights that they can accommodate reasonably.
Because of my principles, I do not pretend cultural or moral relativism has legitimacy, and that somehow religious or cultural rationalizations of murder and oppression and mayhem can't be assessed as such because I'm halfway across the other side of the planet living a good life of riches nearly unimaginable to previous generations, arguing with people on the internet that I want things to be this good, or better, for everyone, especially the ones currently under the thumbs of tyrants.
I don't want the US to invade and try to build some sort of mythical liberal Iran, I want to see them rise up and get all the support they need to get their best and brightest to rebuild something awe inspiring and new for themselves.
The odds aren't great, but they're not as bad as recent American and Western driven nation building exercises. The Iranian people will have to walk a tightrope, and I'm cheering for them.
Do you have a source for these counter protests being organized and dictated by IRGC?
I agree with your other points. This current regime has degraded Iran to very unfortunate levels.
I really hope for a regime change for Iran, I sincerely do. The only reason I'm being quite particular about sources and facts is that I just don't want to see another Iraq and Afghanistan where the regime change causes more deaths, and then it leaves a power vacuum for all sorts of other violence and degradation.
They're state-organized. It's a recurring pattern. After any major protest, the Iranian government organizes rallies to project an image that they have popular support.
>>> Do you have a source for these counter protests being organized and dictated by IRGC?
Basic logic and a pair of eyeballs.
They're about as brazen and blatant as these sorts of things get. No, I don't have recordings of the mullahs instructing IRGC what to do, but the pro regime protests are uniform and exactly what a mullah would want for pro regime propaganda, with none of the nuance or variability you'd expect with spontaneous, grassroots support.
As far as I know, there's no documentary proof, but the evidence implicit to the structure, timing, messaging, location, and demographics are more than sufficient to damn them as regime orchestrated agitprop as opposed to any genuine opposition to the anti-regime movement.
Sorry, but basic logic doesn't entail that counter-protestors are organized by the IRGC. Especially when you know a bunch of Iranians.
I know IRGC is bad, there is no argument there. But to take agency away from Iranians that could genuinely be protesting against regime-change protestors just doesn't feel right to me.
I'm not saying there aren't people supportive of the status quo. What I'm calling out is the notion that organized mass protests that perfectly align with regime tactics from the past several decades could possibly be legitimate, as opposed to being astroturfed, for which there is plenty of evidence.
The Basij and local militia, ostensibly under the control of the regime, and in coordination with the IRGC, will issue orders to militia/military members and sometimes direct them to bring families with them. Some go willingly, but all go with an implicit gun to their families heads.
The IRGC and Basij and forced astroturfing is a frequently used and well understood tactic that the regime has kept in its toolbox. It's not a crazy conspiracy or unfounded, it's just business as usual. Just like I know they're using 7.62 NATO standard ammunition to gun people down, even though I haven't seen even a single picture of spent shell casings or bullets pulled from bodies. It's just how they do things.
It's not taking agency away if you can't tell the difference between someone being forced, pressured, going along to survive, or genuinely invested and supportive of the regime.
What would give them real agency is not living under the thumb of a dystopian authoritarian theocratic dictatorship. Pretending that there's any legitimacy to supporting the regime is also a little crazy. As long as 81 million people think its ok to live that way, you should let them oppress and murder and enslave and exploit the other 9 million? That's right up there with saying the parades for Kim Jong Un in North Korea show us some real support for that regime, or that people who express support of Un could possibly have any legitimacy.
At any rate, I hope any genuine supporters of the regime that are simply ignorant of the abuses and atrocity are simply disappointed and free to grumble about it in the near future, and see their lives radically improved and uplifted by whatever comes next. There's a huge amount of potential funding and international support - not just the US - that could make a free Iran drastically different than Libya or Syria or Iraq or Afghanistan.
They've got a cultural core and the diaspora and families who'd love nothing more than to return and rebuild, from all over the world. Even if they don't go the route of restoring the Shah, I think the Shah and that apparatus is willing to support and legitimize whatever comes next.
I honestly thought I'd live my entire life with Iran being a rogue state and perennially agitating and sponsoring terror, that it'd just be the way things are, until AGI, Aliens, or Armageddon.
Of all the dictatorships you might want to be an apologist for, I can't think of a shittier and less inspiring one than this one, other than North Korea.
It will inevitably involve foreign intervention, which tends to work out badly. But I don't accept the alternative, that keeping a suppressive and violent regime is the best case. And I'd rather have the least amount of intervention possible, I don't even intrinsically care about breaking the regime; I want to directly support the protestors as much as possible.
Sure. I'm just acknowledging that even opposing it, parts of foreign countries' governments will interfere when they see blood, and it may not be possible to significantly help the protestors without them.
Because the interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya didn't really help the citizens. Instead it created more instability, and created power vacuums for other sorts of violence and degeneracy to occur.
I'm not saying I know what's the best way for Iranians to get what they want. But recent history shows us that foreign interference doesn't work, especially because those countries that are intervening aren't merely doing it from the goodness of their own hearts.
Yes, unfortunately what I want may be unrealistic, and more likely I can't do anything substantial. But for a situation as dire as Iran, I believe it's moral to try something...
The difference is one set of protestors support US/Israel intervention for regime change.
The other group of protestors are protesting against this. There is a segment within this group that are ardently pro-Regime. The other segment (which I think is the majority of the group, and Iran, but I have no evidence and so this is purely anecdotal based on my various discussions with Iranians) is that they do want regime change, but not from any outside influence - they would ideally like an organic democratic process that Iranian citizens control.
The death toll and the pictures and videos that are coming out that these people don’t even dare taking their usual positions and try to just mitigate it. It’s that bad.
Usually these deflections mean that the IRGC has indeed killed 3 year olds. Thanks for confirming it.
Tomorrow when Islamic Republic falls, people will get their hands on the list of every one the registrar has funded and sent overseas. A day of judgment will come for all the innocents.
You’re pulling a fast one there. Pictures and videos are getting out showing what security forces are/were doing. You are claiming it’s all propaganda and we should not believe our eyes and also forget our past experiences with this and all theocratic regimes.
According to Iranian state TV there’s been a protest in support of the government.
The fact that you are so certain of it, shows that during the total blackout you have some information from inside that normal people don’t? How do you have this information? It’s getting very interesting.
You've said this several times on different threads today. You're smuggling in a premise nobody else was discussing. The protest movement is huge. It is not "US/Israel-led". We don't even reach the question of whether the "majority wants US/Israel"; I'm sure they don't!
> smuggling in
Your response seems to elicit you have some pre-informed opinions on this that my comment has irritated you. I'm not smuggling anything. I'm making a comment on an open forum.
> The protest movement is huge
Source? How big is it? What % of the Iranian population is protesting?
> It is not "US/Israel-led"
Source? We have reports to the contrary, and given the amount US and Israeli politicians are leaning in to the protests, notwithstanding their constant talking points on escalating things with Iran, it's not beyond reasonableness to suggest there is outside influence.
I was merely providing a talking point, as the general theme in the West is that US forcing a regime change is a good thing. I'm merely reiterating that it is not (based on historical regime changes the US has been involved in), and that there is good reason to believe majority of Iranians don't want a regime change if it's US-led and not a real democratic outcome.
Again: it's a protest movement, not an Israeli invasion. Your last sentence continues the premise that there's a live question about "US-led regime change". No there isn't.
It would be one thing if you were arguing that it was, and presenting evidence. But this is just innuendo.
You're right, I'm not going to provide you evidence for this, my claim is that there's no need for me to do so, any more than I need to provide evidence that the sun rose this morning. Again: there's nobody here but me and you at this point, so there are no points to score.
It would be totally reasonable for you to break off this thread at this point (I normally would too), but if you want someone to talk to that isn't susceptible to wishcasting in either direction on this news event, I'm here for you.
I won't continue, but it's great you clearly highlight your hypocrisy, and proves my thoughts on how people in the West get so easily led by their governments and media.
"no need for me to do so" or because you just can't? I'm not waiting for an answer. Just ask yourself that. Because at the moment, your methodology doesn't seem to be truth seeking.
I don't even understand the point of writing something like this. Did you think you were going to call me names and I was just going to internalize that and shrivel up? I disagree with what you're saying. I do not find you persuasive. If the existence of people who disagree with you is that destabilizing, I think you have some soul-searching to do.
On the other hand, if the reason you're engaging on HN is to evangelize a particular geopolitical position, I can imagine disagreement is more problematic, but you should know that's an abuse of the site.
Small sample, but talking about this with my Iranian friends, the sentiment among them and their wider network is that they do acknowledge that Iran has problems, that they need a change in leadership, but that they do NOT want a regime change at the hands of the US/Israel. For them that is a recipe for disaster and more carnage.
In their view, the topology of Iranians and their political views would be: 10% - pro-US regime change intervention; 20% - ardent regime supporters; 70% - pro-regime change but without US involvement.
Agree - but a lot of the sentiment I hear from my Iranian friends (and recent pro-regime protestors comments) is that they acknowledge they have issues, but they don't want a regime change at the hands of USA and Israel.
I despise the Iranian regime, but knowing what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, I find it quite troubling that people are quite giddy about this as though it's not going to result in many lives lost (many more than what the regime is currently responsible for), and destabilisation of the country.
And given the USA's track record in regime changes, and the issues they have in their own country currently, I don't think the US - nor Israel - have any standing to be carrying out a regime change in another sovereign state.
I'm not so sure. There are plenty of pro-regime protests in Iran currently, and the general replies on interviews I've seen is "yes we have our problems, but we don't want Israel and the US fixing it", which tracks with a lot of sentiment I've heard from Iranian friends of mine.
There was also a three year old killed by anti-regime protestors which has heightened the sentiments of pro-regime protestors.
I don't doubt this is true but would also note that high-profile online outlets --- Ryan Grim's Drop Site News, most notably --- have run pieces talking about how huge anti-government protests are in fact pro-government protests, when that has turned out to be flatly false. (I don't know where they get this stuff).
The Iranian anti-regime movement is very well established and is not the product of foreign intervention. It's actually not all that clear that foreign actors in the region favor regime change!
(I'm not holding out much hope that these protests will actually topple the regime, though it would be amazing if they did.)
I agree that the anti-regime movement is not all the product of foreign intervention, but I'd say some (and even wager majority) are. Not acknowledging foreign intervention in this aspect would not give a fuller picture of the dynamics.
I know quite a lot of Iranians, and when I talked about this with them about a year ago, their lay of the land given their own opinions and their wider networks opinion is that the majority of Iranians are pro-regime change but NOT at the hands of a US/Israeli intervention.
There are anti-regime segments that are pro-US/Israel intervention, but they think this is a minority and they think most of them are products of foreign intervention.
After Israel bombed Iran last year, there were a few Israeli cells that were uncovered in Iran, so suggesting there is some foreign intervention isn't out of the ordinary.
> After Israel bombed Iran last year, there were a few Israeli cells that were uncovered in Iran, so suggesting there is some foreign intervention isn't out of the ordinary.
What a leap of logic. I’d wager not being able to afford basic necessities and also your women being killed by morality police, not having any political freedom, not being able to decide how your government is run, etc. are enough incentives. Don’t you think the people there have enough agency to want all of these? If Israel wanted to intervene, it looks like Iranian government is doing their work for them by making Iran a living hell for its people.
The protests are, by credible reporting, huge, reflected in the scale of the number of arrests and fatalities. Their antecedents include sky-high unemployment, the highest inflation rates in the world, and water and power rationing --- far more severe and far more directly material conditions than what preceded the 2022 protests. Diverse outlets have the signal chant of the protesters "Neither Gaza Nor Lebanon, My Life Only For Iran", which correlates well with the belief the the IRGC is effectively an Iranian version of the KGB, a second "inner society" whose large membership has preferential access to everything ordinary Iranians don't.
Some of this is disputable, much of it isn't. Meanwhile:
* There's no evidence that foreign powers are behind these protests, just narratives. The track record on unsupported but convincing-sounding narratives everywhere is pretty bad; nowhere is it worse than in this part of the world.
* There's no evidence that the protests themselves are pro-US (and certainly not pro-Israel; most of the protesters probably don't like Israel!). They just want water, jobs, and currency that can reliably buy food.
* There's also not much evidence that any major government in the world wants Iran toppled. Iran is incredibly weak right now. Regional powers like Turkey, Saudi, and especially Israel --- which has basically depantsed the IRGC --- don't actually have much to gain from an Iranian overthrow, but the whole region has a lot to lose from instability.
So yeah, I'd say: pretty extraordinary claim --- again, that claim being, "the anti-regime movement is the product of foreign intervention".
I want to keep saying: I don't think the protests will be successful. It's a state specifically designed to prevent protests movements like these from being successful! They may suck at air defense, but I don't think they're bad at putting down rebellions.
> There's also not much evidence that any major government in the world wants Iran toppled
I’m sorry what? Maybe this is an argument over terminology, but Israel absolutely wants Iran toppled in any colloquial definition of the word. This has been their stated goal since the 90s. And much of their activity in the Middle East since then is towards this goal.
> and especially Israel --- which has basically depantsed the IRGC --- don't actually have much to gain
Again I’m sorry what? Iran has been a major deterrent to their regional hegemony for decades. Remove US support and Israel is destroyed. They need these threats removed so they can end their reliance on US support.
I know there's a sizable cohort of online people in the west who are convicted of the idea that Israel exists solely as a US proxy and is held in check only by Iran, but obviously no. Israel --- leave aside all the moral stuff right now --- is a hypercapable advanced high-state-capacity regional nuclear power with an extremely effective military. If they didn't buy arms from us, they'd buy them from someone we liked less.
Iran, on the other hand, partly as a result of Khomeinism and the status quo ante of the Iranian Revolution, when the military was a big part of the repression apparatus in the Shah's state, has more or less gutted its official military service branches. As we just saw, Israel literally controls Iran's own airspace. They flew slow drones over Tehran, presumably just as a "fuck you". Iran placed a huge bet on projecting military force through regional proxies --- the "Axis of Resistance". What they have instead of a modern military is the IRGC. See how that went for them!
What point are you trying to make here? I said Israel obviously wants Iran gone and stands to gain a lot from doing so. You didn’t address either of those points, which are extremely relevant when trying to understand why foreign powers want this regime removed and would be involved in its removal.
I agree Israel is not a US proxy (the tail wags the dog in this relationship), but freeing oneself from needing the (or any) dog is a sizable gain. Regarding Iran I think they know this. Their military is structured to operate in a post regime world. But that world doesn’t have the capacity to produce nuclear weapons, which is the key goal Israel is after. Iran with nuclear weapons likely ensures the regimes existence for the foreseeable future.
The general idea is that Iran would be more effective as a regional power if it wasn't ruled by islamists. And that at least the current government of Israel likes incompetent neighbours that make them look good.
Not a difficult argument in my view. Unless you're stuck believing what they say instead of observing what they do.
I don't think there's really clear evidence. They're geopolitical adversaries, but Iran's ability to project force has been decimated over the last 2 years, to the point where Israel literally controls Iran's airspace. They have not much more to gain from further injury to the Iranian regime, and something to lose from regional instability.
(I don't think this analysis speaks well of Israel, for what it's worth, but I don't really think about countries in those terms anyways.)
What is the point of attacking a TV station and a prison, if not for regime change?
For the record, I agree with you that Israel has little "to gain from further injury to the Iranian regime, and something to lose from regional instability." I just don't think the people in charge of Israel see it that way. I think they feel they have a short window to achieve certain objectives they've wanted for a long time while Trump is in power).
And I think they prefer to have regional instability - a bunch of weaker chess pieces that they can play against each other - like how they supported both sides of the Iran-Iraq war in the 80's, funded Hamas, ISIS, and ISIS-derived militias to achieve short-term goals etc..
In case you didn't know about the last few points, here are some links:
“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,” Netanyahu told his Likud party’s Knesset members in March 2019. “This is part of our strategy"
https://x.com/haaretzcom/status/1711329340804186619?s=46&t=s...
By the way, regarding "Israel literally controls Iran's airspace" - Iran don't really have an air force. Their deliberate strategy given their limited resources was to focus on a ballistic missile program and all things considered this has worked ok. By the way, Israel failed to deliver a knock-out blow to Iran even when they had the element of surprise with an attack that was planned 18 months in advance (drafted during the Biden administration) yet somehow Iran was able to begin answering within 48 hours and do enough damage (which required penetrating anti-missile defenses of several major powers) that Israel agreed to a cease-fire.
After the 12-day war, China immediately sold Iran a number of J10-C fighters and air defense options, but it takes months to deliver/train all of them. So Israel is incentivized to deliver a knock-out blow to Iran before this window closes as well. In other words, Israel's war is the 'cause its own necessity' (1).
I agree, Iran doesn't really have an air force. In fact, they don't really even have a military --- by deliberate design. Iran will never field a competitive air force and I think it's actually pretty unlikely that they'll ever even field a seriously deterrent air defense system. I think that apart from lobbing MRBMs at Israel they simply aren't a serious regional threat anymore. They bet big on the IRGC Axis and it collapsed.
I'm not as convinced as you (and the Economist) are about Israel's interests in the total collapse of the Iranian regime. Either way, the protest movement is far too large for it to plausibly be a product of foreign intervention. I don't think we have to convince each other on this point, even if we don't agree.
I think you're constantly making non sequiturs around details that aren't central to the point. I could answer these, but I don't want to get distracted. At the end of the day, given everything you know, you don't believe that Netanyahu wants the Iranian regime toppled?
Revolutions can have some component of foreign intervention without necessarily negating the will of the people. The French aided the US, for example. So I don't know why the idea that the Iran protests are not foreign backed is so important to you.
There is plenty of public evidence of foreign backing of Iranian opposition (which interestingly might actually play right into the Mullahs' hands https://www.meforum.org/mef-observer/has-reza-pahlavi-become...) but it would make sense for there to be orders of magnitude more activity behind the scenes vs. what is publicly stated. For example, the US didn't admit participating in the 1953 coup of Mossadegh until 2013.
So please tell me how you are so sure that there is no foreign intervention today..
It’s your choice to claim a negative in the first place. But yes, make an attempt to prove what you are saying and extraordinary claims require some evidence. Foreign countries have been meddling with Iran for over 200 years at the very least. The idea that now they aren’t is laughable.
I opened by showing how your statements are in direct contradiction, by the way.
I don't think either the US or Israel is all that worried about "defanging" Iran's actual military. Their proxies, like Hezbollah, Assadist Syria, Ansar Allah, and Kataib Hezbollah? Sure. But they've mostly already accomplished that. I think Iran's actual military is kind of a joke in military circles?
Israel definitely wants to get rid of Irans ballistic missiles.
That said; if you believe (as do some commenters here) that Israel could ignite nationwide protests with 100,000s of people whenever they want, then they definitely don't have to worry about Irans army
I don't believe Israel can ignite nationwide protest and sort of assume, as a military/strategic matter, that Israel's primary response to Iran's MRBM capabilities is deterrent. Israel control's Iran's skies. I think the direct military part of this conflict is basically over.
I'm just a message board commenter, this is just a take.
I went from a 27" 4k display to my 5k iMac I converted to work as an external display. You can definitely see the difference, especially with text. The 4k - although a HUGH improvement over 1080p monitors - will still have that fuzziness on fonts.
I actually had a 5K iMac that I sold when I got the Mac mini. As I was deciding on the display I looked at doing that, but I wasn't super keen on the unfinished look. And IIRC it was going to cost about $250 in parts at the time. I was able to get the ASUS for about $700 and sell the iMac for ~$300. So it was really only about $150 more to not DIY it and have a more finished final package.
It is a really neat looking project, I just determined it wasn't for me.
It has gotten a bit cheaper, a lot easier and somewhat better lately.
But I agree that it does not make that much sense because you end up with a product that has many flaws and is a bit annoying to use.
The main factor is being able to sell the iMac for that relatively high price. I can't figure out why they are still so expensive because most of the early 5K models are kind of useless nowadays (on low end version, the compute just cannot cope with modern media/files at such a resolution). But maybe it's people converting them to display driving the market...
The person who bought mine was a family friend who wanted a large display for her kid to do 3D printing stuff. Since he was just going to be running a slicer and some basic modeling stuff, it seemed perfect. I got a bit of cash, he got a computer with a good display, and it was a general win all around.
Ah yes for those use cases it makes perfect sense.
Apple excuse for stopping the big iMacs was that when you bundle up the display with the compute it makes it hard to upgrade and the whole thing become useless.
But in reality it just looks like some bad "reasoning" to force people to spend more on a less elegant solution that probably won't get upgraded that much.
At least an old school 5K iMac can have some secondary use case, like you demonstrated or even just to watch movies, do some light document editing and such.
And you can convert them to displays if you really want, but that should have been a built-in functionnality in the first place.
I guess this is why they still commend a relatively high-price, a good large display still has many uses even if the compute is weak.
The studio display is kinda useless outside of Mac use, so even though it's great quality its really not a good deal.
I really hope Apple finally release another big iMac because I won't get another Mac Mini or a Mac Studio. I like macOS (less so nowadays) but the whole point of the Mac was the integrated hardware for base/mid-range power. Their small desktop boxes that cannot take any upgrades are really pointless as a desktop because you end up with cable galore and not much space saved. This is so stupidly inelegant, I can feel Jobs rolling in his grave.
They added front accessible ports, so that's something I guess, but come on, they stink of greed and profit maximisation at all costs...
I mean, if he was really consistent, he'd also not be operating a business in America, given America is responsible for the deaths of millions of innocent civilians (more than Israel and SA combined) in recent history.
I'd love to hear an argument for this being true that doesn't involve counting all of the deaths caused by Sunni-Shia sectarian violence in Iraq, suicide bombings in civilian markets, ISIS etc. as caused by America.
Well there's Vietnam, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya etc which would tally ~300k civilian deaths alone. Given the blatantly false pretences that America invaded Iraq under, and the sectarian violence that significantly flared post-Saddam, I don't see why you'd not want to involve Iraq in the stats?
I accept US responsibility for a great many of the civilian deaths caused in Vietnam. I don't accept US responsibility for Islamists of different varieties blowing up each other's markets and places of worship with weapons provided by Iran and Syria.
So you don't accept the fact that a lot of this sectarian violence flared after the toppling of Saddam, which was because of the US? And how many of the deaths do you attribute to the sectarian violence, as opposed to the direct actions of the US in the region?
That was caused by a power vacuum and US's intentional act to oust the Ba'ath Party, remove all control from a country and it will fall to chaos especially when blood feuds are involved .
This seems to be a theme of people with certain political inclinations. "It's really America's fault they're blowing themselves up in crowded markets because...."
After toppling Saddam Hussein the US took political control in the country and decided who got to decide what. The slaughter that followed was a direct and rather predictable result of this.
You might be into that. The rest of us like to analyse things honestly, especially given America is going down the route of making the same moves as history. If you don't see that, then it'd probably be better for you to go read something than to offer pithy comments on here.
What is your preferred term for individuals and groups whose stated goal is to create a non-pluralistic religious state advantaging specifically their own religious sect, and whose means involves committing public mass killing of civilians along sectarian religious lines?
Exactly. It's usually the Zionist sources themselves that are unabashedly genocidal and supportive of ethnic cleansing.
More recent example is Bari Weiss, who wrote in 2021:
"The results of this mess, as always, are especially bad for the Palestinians who live under Hamas rule. Casualty reports are hard to verify because Hamas controls the media (even the international press) inside the Gaza Strip, but it appears that more than 50 Palestinians have been killed. Some of these people are entirely innocent non-combatants, including children. This is an unspeakable tragedy. It is also one of the unavoidable burdens of political power, of Zionism's dream turned into the reality of self-determination."
So according to Bari Weiss, the mass slaughter of children is one of Zionism's political responsibilities of power.
Or the ones that are counter-protesting that know foreign intervention will be a net negative for their country?
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