Ok, but what does that actually mean?

The reality is, unless the Iranians themselves replace the Ayatollahs, it would require a foreign sponsored coup or outright invasion to meaningfully change the status quo there.

We are not asking for foreign countries to "replace the Ayatollahs" for us. What we are asking, is ending their diplomatic relations with this government, or at least severing it, instead of trying to strengthen their diplomatic relations.

A deal between this dictatorship and the west will only strengthen them, leading to more oppression. A weakened dictatorship due to foreign pressure will make it easier for the people of Iran to replace them.

That’s already been happening for decades. Has it made any difference?

Well, there was pressure, until the Obama administration released $50 billion back to the regime https://www.factcheck.org/2019/03/obama-didnt-give-iran-150-...

And economic pressure means nothing to a theocracy that governs over a poor population. That is in fact their bread and butter.

Look no further than Afghanistan to see how resilient they can be. They even withstood decades of occupation.

Hard power alone wouldn't have worked and who knows whether soft power could have worked either since there were so many saboteurs both internal and external like Saudis/Israeli lobbies killing the project in its infancy.

The Islamic Republic is nothing like the Taliban. The Iranian population, especially around 10 years ago, was by no means “poor.” Iran has rich natural resources, very well-educated people (in STEM), and one of the oldest extant cultures of the world.

Eh, that reduced it but definitely didn’t release the pressure. Trump turned the screws down pretty tight in quick order too.

Unfortunately, foreign governments only care about their own strategic interests, not Iranians. Do you forget who flew in Khomeini?

Iranians are quite ambiguous about that. When there are no riots, they generally blame the West for sanctions, cutting banks out, etc, as it ultimately impacts the normal Joe on the street.

Yet, when there are riots, they blame the West for not sanctioning enough...

One thing I do not understand - and if journalists are reading this, I hope this gets picked up, is that many of the Iranian elite's sons and daughters are actually living in the US. They try to hide that from both the American public, and the Iranian one (complete hypocrisy).

We Iranians all know that. It’s you Westerners who don’t. You deny visas to PhD candidates, while giving green cards to terrorists without a fuss.

I am genuinely curious - are there any historical examples where ending diplomatic relationships and imposing sanctions on a country has improved the situation for people living there?

South Africa

It's not clear how much of South Africa's Apartheid collapse was due to external pressure, and how much was from internal problems.

They had widespread and growing internal rebellion for a long time, with independent internal discussions and controversies going on about the unsustainability of Apartheid - both from a moral and economic perspective. Hell, they even tried Mandela for Treason in '56 and spent 27 years in prison after he started the revolutionary group in '61.

Apartheid didn't end until the early '90's.

Saying external sanctions caused it, is a bit like saying the USSR collapsed because of embargos.

They definitely weren't helping make it stay, but it's hard to say those where why it collapsed.

Economic sanctions mostly hurt the population and make the population less able to overthrow the government. Economic sanctions are known to strengthen the hardline elements. Its the hardline conservatives who can't deal with open economy.

Your arguments go against the research on this topic I have seen.

This hardline/moderate is a myth at least for last 15 years. However, the Iran lobbyist (e.g. NIAC) keep this narrative alive. Even in the 2000s era, the crack in the structure were minor. The so called moderator didn't had the motivation to really change anything substantial. It turns out they just wanted to use the people vote as a bargain to re-incorporate them into power (that fraction was in power in 80s but then kicked out). The regime is pure hardliner bcz this is a regime that the whole power has been consolidated under the hand of supreme leader (and this is why people in the streets called him dictator). The parliament/president and the election is just a joke! A show! They've re-define almost any word and void it from meaning.

The Supreme Ayatollah has a flexible user interface (UI) for the "West". When he wants to retreats: It wears the so called moderate president (Khatami, Rohani) and when the business is as usual he shows his teeth (Ahmadinejad, Raisi). The so called "president" is a joke. The last one (Raisi) has basically no self-agency, he is all ears for his leader and openly is proud about it! The previous ones weren't much different but at least they put up a show or a fuss when they told to do something. But this last one is perfect pawn (A soldier of leader as he puts it): "Sarbaze Velayat". The show was such a joke that in the last presidential selection: The supreme leader even eliminated his own long time friends and allies such as Larijani* and played Qalibaf to reduce the chance of any uncertainty (+). Note even with those eliminated in the run, it was still selection between potato vs potato...

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Iranian_American_Coun...

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Larijani

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Bagher_Ghalibaf

+ Uncertainty because previously people have tried to select the least favorable one for the grand Ayatollah, this time he didn't want to tolerate even that level of surprise! He has no fun!

It means: 1) publicly condemn the government 2) recognize that this government doesn't represent the people of Iran 3) don't give money to this government.

Anyone giving money to Iran already gets sanctioned by the US, no? And the gov’t is already pretty isolated, except for ‘persona non grata’ countries like North Korea or Russia anyway.

And I doubt those folks are going to change their mind over what’s going on.

> already gets sanctioned by the US

Iran trades with Turkey, Pakistan, the U.A.E., Germany, India, Kuwait and Qatar [1].

[1] https://oec.world/en/profile/country/irn/?flowSelector1=flow...

I think point 3 is this, no?

>I am worried this tyrannical government succeeds in putting down this movement and then the western governments sign another nuclear treaty which means sanction relief and more money for the regime

I do wonder on the feasibility of such events. I don't know a huge amount about pre-revolution Iran, but I don't think the Shah had an exceptionally powerful security force (I could be wrong). But now at least, the IRGC makes a revolution/coup very difficult.

The Shah had a very powerful secret police, the SAVAK[1]. Prior to the overthrow of Mosaddegh, there wasn’t a comparable security force.. but I think something about gaining power in a coup makes one incredibly paranoid about being a victim of a coup.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAVAK

>would require a foreign sponsored coup

Won't be the first time

> Ok, but what does that actually mean?

1. Sanctions: check

2. International isolation: ~check

3. freezing foreign assets: check

4. Bringing freedom to Iran by liberating them (successful operations like Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, ....): LOL, never gonna happen

The fact that Rouhani got elected and became a president and JCPOA got signed and so many catastrophic events happening by that administration shows there's a democratic election.

Impossible to think if it was a "dictatorship", such person would be elected in the first place.

Iran is a semi dictatorship. People have _some_ agency but not much.

The _election_ in which you can choose between 2 people who have already been filtered out by the regime is not really a democratic election.

As someone voted for Rouhani (and would do so again), in a democratic situation he would've been my last choice.

The fact that presidents get filtered out is a god send tbh in case of Iran.

Imagine ending up wit people like Masoumeh Alinejad-Ghomi, Reza Pahlavi, Supreme Grandma Maryam Rejavi (_Masoud Rajavi decided to become against the IR since his or his party was filtered out_) or any other weirdo.

Not so great process, but I don't think letting everyone run for presidency has much of its goodies packed with it anyway.

In either case, Iran's constitution keeps the president above so many levels that having impeachment becomes even harder. Whoever president Iran ends up with, it becomes almost impossible to replace or take them down by Majles.

I don't know, probably a role of Prime Minister will be more suited with some changes to law that person can be nailed down in wrongdoing or pressure to step down, but who knows, maybe that backfires too.

yuck, so complicated :p

edit: some typos

I'm Iranian just like the OP above. There is no doubt this narrative is the narrative of Basij which their propaganda outlets constantly put out. For further detail see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basij

However, for those who are not familiar with such jargon, Alir3z4, basically says it's good thing that his Supreme leader filtered out candidates. So then the people can select from "good" choices. Otherwise people would have select X, Y and Z which are bad. The argument needs no counter-argument other than removing the jargon...

I encourage the interested to read his other comments to take a first hand look how the regime internal propaganda put together. For fabrications and their constant strive for western mainstream media propaganda machine, you may look into NIAC and all its delicate network: usually they're commentator or journalists at NYT (e.g. Farnaz Fasihi), Washington post, CNN (Trita Parsi), Independent (Negar Mortazavi), BBC, etc. That's another more fascinating story.

There won't be another treaty but rather a green pass from the US for Israel to attack Iran and even more sanctions. Iran is currently cooperating with Russia so it could only go south for them.

> Israel to attack Iran

Yeah let me start lathing. Israel will never,ever, ever attack Iran. They know they can't win and can't overthrow the government. For them it would just be a total waste of money.

Israel couldn't even defeat the Iranian sort-off proxies in Lebanon.

Israel has for 30 years had 1 main strategy in regard to Iran, try to get the US to fight Iran for them. The only reason they agree to the Iraq war was because Bush and friends promised that this was all part of a plan to isolate and pressure Iran.

Israel has been claiming that Iran is '1 year away' from nuclear weapons for literally 30 years now. They have made up fake evidence to prove that Iran had a huge nuclear weapons program (evidence that then was dismissed by the CIA and every other security agency).

> Iran is currently cooperating with Russia so it could only go south for them.

Iran is 'cooperating' with anybody that will talk to them.

Israel does not attack like the US, meaning a full scale campaign aiming for regime change. They harass a regime by conducting repeated strikes on enemy territory (see Syria, Ghaza). What Israel primarily wants is to destroy Iran's nuclear installations.

Syria and Ghaza have no means to strike back. And Israel has no capability of destroying Iran nuclear capability that why they are so obsessed with getting the US to prevent Iranians nuclear projects.

It's too far for Israel to effectively attack it. Israel would need to refuel over Turkey or Iraq, or launch from an American aircraft carrier.

i.e. it would not be a Israeli mission, it would have to be a joint mission. Or in other words America would not be able to say "Israel did it", America would have to be fully on board - and perhaps help.

And that's not something small, that's why it hasn't happened yet.

Let's think that happens.

Russia-Ukraine case made the whole world go crazy due to gas/oil and price increase in anything that touches fossil fuels.

Imagine what would happen globally by Iran settings mines in Straits of Hormuz or rain missiles on countries that are hosting US bases (Oil producers) in retaliation and pressuring global economy in order to maximize the effect of the war.

The maximum Israel can do is to slow down the progress of whatever Israil think Iran is doing, is to conduct sabotage missions in Iran, killing scientists, military commanders, cyberattacks or lobbying as much as possible in other countries for more sanctions etc and so far that has not been effective. In matter of fact, it has backfired.

It's unlikely that Iran would do that in response to an attack on their nuclear facilities. What would they gain from it? They'd just lick their wounds and move on. Iran is already fighting a proxy war against Saudi in Yemen. Their military would be eroded pretty quickly in an outright direct conflict and that would risk losing power internally. Iraq fired plenty of missiles all over the place during the gulf war and it didn't really do much. Mining the straits will likely just result in the US or some international task force taking control over those and de-mining.

All that said it's very unlikely there will be an attack on Iran. The US would much prefer to see the regime fall. That doesn't seem super likely either but attacking Iran will probably just strengthen the regime.

That sounds like a lot of words to say, “we should create whatever pretext we need to invade Iran like we invaded Iraq in 2003”.

I’m not sure Iraq is far enough away in the collective US memory for your comment to be received positively.

That has been tried a few times now.

The Israel lobby and the Neocons had at least 3 major 'War with Iran' campaigns since 2003.

You are correct. These are frequent and I’m not paying attention until something meaningful changes.

The US will resign the Obama-era nuclear treaty as a fuck you to Trump, and the money will reinforce the regime. Little people don’t count in this situation.