From markets to streets: Iran protests spread nationwide on day two

well we also live in a vibes based dictatorship in the US where whatever Trump wants goes. He wants to bomb Tehran? We are bombing Tehran.

 

We are still waiting on Trumps decision. Any attack that is less than removing the conservative religious elements from the government will result in a nuclear Iran. Hypothetically, they arrest Ayatollah like they did for Maduro and they let the moderate president run the country.

 

Frankly any Iranian Government, secular or religious will still have the same expansion ambitions due to irredentism.

 

We do what we do because we can. In this case regime change.

 

This is a bad take on history.

Iranians were not forcibly converted, they were considered Ajam or the mutes from the first Arab conquests. When the Abbasids overthrew the Umayyads, they did so from Eastern Iran/Khorasan with Iranian and Turkish support since the Iranians were the bureaucrats for the Arabs to help rule the empire from the start. With the Abbasids, Islam was effectively permanently preserved by the Iranians and this is when the Iranians started to convert.

Several empires later including multiple Mongol-run khanates, a group of religious fanatics from Ardabil recruited all the Turkish religious warriors to basically reconquer and unify Iran in what would be considered a truly Iranian led empire (as opposed to Abbasids or Seljuks before them).

The Safavids were called Safavids because they followed as esoteric branch of Shia Islam that later became what is the defacto faith of Iran. I want to say they were supported by European powers at the time as a counterweight to the behemoth Sunni Ottomans. By all accounts the Sunni to Shia conversions were forced but honestly who cares. The Safavids rule, get overthrown by the Afghans, the Qajars assume power. Then the Qajars overthrown by an upstart Cossack commander Reza Khan who founds the Pahlavi dynasty. Reza is forced out during WWII with his son being installed as both Soviets and UK invade Iran to save it from becoming allied with the Nazis. Soviets almost don’t leave. The UK has invested a lot in Iranian Oil at this time (AngloIranian oil now BP) and when the Iranians elect a liberal nationalist prime minister who wants to nationalize these fields the US overthrow him and reestablish the shahs son as ruler. The shah attempts multiple modernization programs which both impoverishes and radicalizes the masses and the charismatic cleric Khomeini is able to capitalize on this and form the Islamic government Iran has today. Had Saddam not tried to seize on the weakened Iran in the 80s, there is little reason to expect the regime to have survived. And yet here we are decades later.

Islam is not why the Iranian government is bad. And Islam is no less Iranian than modern Christianity is Italian/German. But just as the Pope no longer rules over Europe, there is no reason for an Ayatollah to be a supreme leader either.

Iran was not as passively ruled by outsiders, but rather repeatedly absorbed conquerors and re-Iranianized them (Arabs, Turks, Mongols) until the Safavids finally reasserted a native state with a new religious identity that still defines Iran today.