This interpretation reeks of Western naivete. Students were not merely arrested — they were gunned down en masse in the streets and even in hospitals. They were provoked by the U.S. president, who promised support to take on the institutions, but that support never materialized. The likely endgame of this current gunboat diplomacy is similar to Venezuela: the U.S. secures resource access while leaving the existing system intact, and the student protesters are hunted down. In other words, nothing changes for the people demanding reform.
Did you read the article, or just my blurb before decicing the writings of "an ancient and military historian who currently teaches as a Teaching Assistant Professor at North Carolina State University" [1] are naive?
> Students were not merely arrested — they were gunned down en masse in the streets and even in hospitals
Non-violent doesn't mean peaceful.
People died in our Civil Rights protests. People died in the Indian independence and the Phillipines' People Power Revolution. Each of their leaders were gunned down. (Even if you only read the blurb, the state's violent overreaction is part of the parcel.)
> They were provoked by the U.S.
Lots of Americans think the world revolves around us. But the truth is we have less influence than we think. We didn't provoke these protests, though we did give them false hope.
> the U.S. secures resource access while leaving the existing system intact, and the student protesters are hunted down
Which opposition figure is being hunted down in Venezuela under Rodriguez?
But how does he explain the failure of peaceful revolutions in Belarus or China?
My understanding of social dynamics is that being peaceful only works as long as it gains you more supporters than you lose by government action against the movement. Some governments give in but if not, at some point, the scale tips and violence or surrender are your only options.
In Belarus, I knew they were fucked as soon as I heard that police support the protests by putting down their guns and joining the protesters.
They gave up their ability to use violence and therefore became as irrelevant as the other protesters. They should have kept their guns. They should have tried to use their openly armed protest to incite other armed people to also join. At some point, the potential violence would materialize but hopefully at that point, enough of the armed people would be on the side of the protest.
Maybe the dictator would give up if he saw the situation spiraling out of control (and hopefully be executed as punishment anyway).
Maybe the dictator would try to flee and get caught and executed ("gunned down"). Maybe his bunker would get overrun.
Maybe someone close to him would try to get favor from the protesters and kill him.
But all of those potential outcomes were closed off if people opposing him didn't have enough guns.
The article discusses "efforts, in a sense, directed against the state itself, both violent approaches (what we might call ‘terroristic insurgency’) and non-violent approaches (protest)" (Id.).
> Maybe he addresses it somewhere in the article but I have yet to read it
"The ‘center of gravity’ – the locus of the most important strategic objective – for most insurgencies thus often becomes the political support that sustains a government, be that a body of key supporters in non-democratic regimes or the voters in democratic ones. That body of key voters or supporters, of course, is often not even located in the theater of operations at all: the Taliban ultimately won their insurgency in Afghanistan because they persuaded American voters that the war was no longer worth the cost, leading to the election of leaders promising to pull the plug on the war" (Id.).
> how does he explain the failure of peaceful revolutions in Belarus or China?
"All that said, there are very obviously regimes in the world that have rendered themselves more-or-less immune to non-violent protest. This isn’t really the place to talk about the broader concept of ‘coup proofing’ and how authoritarian regimes secure internal security, repression and legitimacy in detail. But a certain kind of regime operates effectively as a society-within-a-society, with an armed subset of the population as insiders who receive benefits in status and wealth from the regime in return for their willingness to do violence to maintain it. Such regimes are generally all too willing to gun down thousands or tens of thousands of protestors to maintain power.
The late Assad regime in Syria stands as a clear example of this, as evidently does the current regime in Iran. Such regimes are not immune to an ‘attack on will,’ but they have substantially insulated themselves from it and resistance to these regimes, if it continues, often metastasizes into insurgency or protracted war (as with the above example of Syria) because the pressure has nowhere else to go" (Id.).
> there are very obviously regimes in the world that have rendered themselves more-or-less immune to non-violent protest.
This sounds like a cop-out to the original blanket statement, or at least this is how I interpret it from your earlier quote. Regimes copy methodologies from others wherever possible and learn from failure to coup-proof themselves faster than the population can keep up. This is why most authoritarian regimes have endured for so long despite many being otherwise failed states, and almost always need some sort of external covert or military intervention to tip the scales.
It's like saying that you can hit the target every time by just meditating. And having a professional take the shot for you.
Institutional memory is longer than individual memory. What drove this point home for me was an article about how the police on London can predict whether a protest will turn violent and that they know how to corral people depending on which outcome they want.
But for now, institutions still at least rely on individuals to retain the experience/memories/skills and individuals have their own agency and can leave the organization or die.
No foreign superpower barged into the Civil Rights or the Indian independence movement. Not directly. (If we’re counting hypothetical foreign involvement that’s a geopolitical constant.)
> sounds like a cop-out to the original blanket statement
And no excerpt from an article will do a full reading justice. The article makes no blanket statements, its entire thesis is armed insurgency and protest are strategic twins.
The presumably US Civil Right movement wasn't happening in an authoritarian state. There's no question that non-violent protest works differently in democratic or well functioning countries. But what's the value of this comparison in practice? Under an authoritarian regime would you recommend writing letters to your representative just because this has been known to work in democratic countries?
> or the Indian independence movement
At least this example is on point. But one good example doesn't generally validate a theory. Look no further than the Syrian civil war you mentioned in your previous comment which required trillions of dollars worth of foreign military intervention. Or the countless failed protests and uprisings all around the world.
> The article makes no blanket statements
It's presented as a "recipe" of sorts, a scenario that flows naturally to the expected and described conclusion when it's anything but. Where's the data to back up such a claim, even if later qualified with a weak "of course it doesn't work all the time"? Any evidence that it works most of the time? A significant even if minor part of the time? Does critical thinking have to take a step back in favor of wishful thinking just because the latter gives you the feels while the former the chills?
Hopefully there's more about how these regimes have failed in the past and how to make them fail in the future. Because AFAICT at that point, violence is the only possibility apart from waiting for the dictator to die from natural causes and the system to disassemble itself as potential successors fight each other.
Does that need special explanation? Violent revolutions fail too ... revolution does not guarantee a success.
> Lots of Americans think the world revolves around us. The truth is we have less influence than we think. We didn't provoke these protests, though we did give them false hope.
Sorry, but you're just wrong in this case. The US president absolutely had a huge impact here. Meaning it wasn't just "hope": if he hadn't said and done what he did, the protests and deaths absolutely would not have occurred at the same scale. I'll post an article for reference, but you will find more on this if you look.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/18/why-protesters...
The Guardian interviewing a handful of people, one of whom is a random protester in Iran, doesn’t establish this absolutely in any serious framework. The fact that the protests have recurred should give pause to your hypothesis.
First, the fact that they have recurred while the US has been building up military forces there should give you pause on your hypothesis.
Second, just because a fire grows and shrinks after being started, that doesn't mean there was no initial fuel.
Third, nobody said they wouldn't have recurred. The sentence was "they wouldn't have occurred at the same scale."
Finally, I replied to your other comment to avoid duplicating the discussion, and this is going to be my last comment on the matter: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47117884
One, we have no evidence they did. The claim that kids put themselves in front of guns forty days ago and again today because of Trump's tweets is extraordinary.
Two, if they did, it's because they're desperate. I can't imagine Iranians actually want the shah back. But they know rallying around the shah's image pisses off the regime. In that way, it's actually smart to wave his flag around if it means someone on the other side missteps.
What? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/18/why-protesters...
Have you read the news about this? Do you seriously think there's only one protester claiming this that we have any knowledge of, with one outlet reporting on it? Just because I gave one link to get you started that doesn't mean there isn't more if you look for it.
Nobody ever said "this is an open-and-shut case" either. Nor was anybody expecting a scientific proof. The sentence was "there is no evidence," and I produced one such, and you moved the goalposts.
I'll leave one more link here but you can believe whatever you want, it's a waste of time arguing here.
The essay you are responding to was written by a historian.
The ideas actually described in the essay were not developed by a Western person. They were first implemented successfully by a non-Western person.
Mahatma Gandhi.
And Gandhi developed these ideas from reading the writings of another non-Western person. Leo Tolstoy.
More information can be found here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Letter_to_a_Hindu
As you can see in this article the non-Western Tolstoy was influenced by many non-Western religious and philosophical figures. Tolstoy then influenced the non-Western Mahatma Gandhi to successfully implement these ideas.
Tolstoy delighted in Schopenhauer, a western philosopher who he based much of his later ideas on. And yes, Tolstoy was later influenced by eastern thought, and was famously a Sinophile, but that is, again, a western tendency common among upper class europeans of the period (along with Japonisme).
Furthermore, "War and Peace" is often called one of the greatest works of "western literature". It's even included in Encyclopedia Brittanica's "Great Books of the Western World".
Just because the Russian Empire wasn't universally western doesn't mean large groups of people within were not. My own great grandparents came to America from St. Petersburg and considered themselves western.
Russian culture, as it is practiced in the country's power centers, both historically and today is absolutely Western.
It may not be liberal western culture, but guess what, there's no shortage of Western countries that have been, or are, quite illiberal.
For a simple example, MAGA is western culture. United Russia isn't at all different from it, it just has a different coat of paint and supreme leader.
MAGA is western, because it is American. Russia is not western, because it is neither europe nor america. And they themselves consider themselves east. And did for over a hundred years.
Maybe not western enough for you, it does have a distinct flavour (but then Sicilia is also distinctly different from Sweden), but still much closer to Europe than to Asia proper.
The thing that makes it western is similarity of culture, philosophy, religion, social structure, historic exchange and cross-pollination. [0] All of which exist well within the range set by countries that you would have no qualms of calling western.
It is very similar to the rest of Europe on all those axes, in a way that Indian, East Asian, Middle Eastern, Native American, African[1], Polynesian culture, philosophy, and structures are not.
Yes, there are some peculiarities about it that the anglosphere finds alien. The same can be said for any distinct culture within the western sphere.
---
[0] Keep in mind that when I am speaking of Russia, my claims cannot be generalized among all of the ~100 ethnic and cultural groups that compose it. Just of the ones that make up the country's political center.
[1] I am speaking from a position of incredible ignorance when I just roll up an entire continent into 'African'. It's quite likely that people who know their ass from their elbow would be able to tell me why I'm wrong to do so.
I daresay the Brits were not as willing to gun down peaceful protesters as today's regimes are.
(Full disclosure - I had to look up the name after remembering it portrayed in the movie Gandhi)
The Iranian lot don't seem to have similar sentiments.
Not in the sense that it was viewed as a war by the protestors, but in the sense that the logistics, training, and operations of the Civil Rights movement were a well oiled machine that looked like a well organized, but nonviolent, army (including counterexamples where there was no organization).
One of the most memorable details is how James Lawson trained in nonviolence under Ghandi and came over to train protestors in nonviolent tactics. They gathered in church basements to scream insults and spit on each other to prepare for the restaurant sitins and other ops.
(1) Secession. This was used for evil in the form of slavery. But it is the most powerful check of federal power by the states we had. The fact it could be used for evil did not mean it is better to get rid of it.
(2) Expansion of the interstate commerce clause to mean basically anything. A main argument for why this can't be reversed is that it would destroy the civil rights acts, which acts upon even intrastate business. Rather what should have happened is 15th amendment should have been written to apply to private entities as well, instead of blasting away the interstate commerce clause.
https://www.britannica.com/money/commerce-clause/Interpretat...
Many times here on HN I have debated people who were well versed on constitutional law, and when I mention rolling back the interstate commerce clause one of their main go to is that they're afraid I will destroyed the CRA and that's why they can't do it. And they're right -- a nearly identical on many points CRA happened in 1875 as the one passed in 1964. The 14th and 15th amendment existed at both times, and the relevant points of the constitution stayed the same. Yet the latter was found constitution and the former was not, in large part due to the change in the meaning of the interstate commerce clause.
I'll be honest, I've literally never seen this argument in any hall of power. And I know quite a few folks who believe in overturning Wickard.
The CRA, as currently interpreted, is more than fine on equal-protection grounds.
The Reconstruction era ended with the resolution of the 1876 presidential election, and the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was the last federal civil rights law enacted until the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957. In 1883, the Supreme Court ruled in the Civil Rights Cases that the public accommodation sections of the act were unconstitutional, saying Congress was not afforded control over private persons or corporations under the Equal Protection Clause. Parts of the Civil Rights Act of 1875 were later re-adopted in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Civil Rights Act of 1968, both of which cited the Commerce Clause as the source of Congress's power to regulate private actors.[]
* my note: now expanded
The Khomeini government is not going to just say "oh, you're right" and change. Neither will the Kim or Putin governments. Sometimes - sadly - violence is the least worst answer.
It is a tool, it cannot be good or bad. States are the most prolific users of violence (even more when you also count potential/threatened, not yet materialized). Anyone who wants to claim that violence is bad has to oppose the existence of states.
Violence is risky, dangerous, unpredictable, costly, etc. But those are practical and legal, not moral, concerns.
Violence is also necessary, as you say, against governments or other actors which cannot be deterred, stopped or punished using other means.
Violence is also most effective when it's certain and overwhelming/indefensible. If we lived in a world where dictators and their flying monkeys get regularly shot or droned to death, we wouldn't have dictators. Not because they'd all end up dead but because nobody would dare try becoming or supporting one.
This is why we have to publicly support _proportional_ punishment of dictators and their supporters, both now and after they've been removed from power. Good people have to use the same tools as bad ones (after all, they are just tools, not good or bad).
I always find it useful to ask "why", whenever someone tells me their beliefs. Children do it and adults sometimes tend to find it annoying because they realize they cannot justify their beliefs but being children, they are easy to dismiss. Harder to dismiss an honest question from an adult.
Ideally we'd live in a society where laws are a complete and consistent description of a valid (also complete and consistent) moral system. That's not the reality.
(If it's possible at all because morality operates on reality while legality operated on provability - a subset of reality which can be proven to a neutral third party.)
Fundamentally though I'm not sure I agree with you. Violence is often an emotional reaction. When violence is used as a tool it is usually (always?) used by bad people.
If it helps you reconcile my worldview, I absolutely oppose the existence of states.
Keep in mind this needs to be judged separately in the legal, practical and moral dimension. For example a state might determine that a person _legally_ deserves to spend 10 years in prison. But the same state will attack you in turn if you abduct that person and hold them for 10 years in similar conditions to prison because _practically_, it weakens the state's monopoly on violence, even if _morally_ that action can be justified (i.e. because if a punishment is just there is no moral reason why it should matter who carries it out).
> often ... usually (always?)
I think the crux lies in how we quantify this. If you live in a western democracy, almost all of the violence you come into contact with or hear about is in fact used by bad individuals (thiefs, gang members, drunks, etc.) or the mentally ill. But even then you have the right (moral and usually legal) to defend yourself.
If you live in other places, that violence might more often be used be institutions (such as states or religions) and might not be materialized (it is potential/threatened/implied). E.g. what happens to a muslim woman who refuses to cover her face - the violence usually never happens because she knows it would and therefore doesn't break the rule. It is still violence used to achieve a goal though and she has the same (moral but usually not legal) right to defend herself - even if any practical defense is beyond her ability to do so because the aggressors are too numerous and dispersed.
I would argue that billions of people live in countries where violence is used against them every day because it is a threat which for example stops them from freely accessing information.
In that regard you're right that it is usually used by bad people. But it says nothing about its morality. The way I see it, violence being used by bad people is a stable equilibrium but it can be used by good people during a transition to a different stable state. It is usually not used by good people in a prolonged because materialized violence tends to reduce the number of people on both sides and cannot be sustained forever.
It's likely our views are divergent enough that we wont come to a consensus on this, but I appreciate the nuanced discourse!
I've encountered such opinions before but never cared to engage with them since they seem utterly alien to me. Can you give me a summary of your opinions or links to some materials?
There are multiple goals to a punishment - e.g.:
- Deterrence - Protection of others / prevention of re-offense - Removal of aggressor from community to minimize further trauma for the victim by having to interact with him - Restitution - Retribution - Vindication - Removing any gains from the offense from the aggressor - Further disadvantaging of the aggressor to make up for `expected_gains * probability_of_getting_caught` - Further disadvantaging of the aggressor to put negative evolutionary pressure on such behavior - Separation of the aggressor from others to prevent him from normalizing / spreading his behavior
These few are just off the top of my head, not all apply to all offenses, and not everyone will agree all of these are desired by their favorite society. But how do you achieve any, let along most, of them without punishment?
The naive summary would be that if an individual harms another this is "bad" (a harm to society). To then enact a punishment would be to apply another harm, which would be doubly bad. In my mind, justice is the restoration of balance to the whole, so double harm can never be considered just.
I understand the "goals of punishment" you've outlined and don't even disagree that they can be met (to some extent) via this mechanism. Though I wouldn't classify restitution as a "punishment"[0]. I can also see how the harms from punishment can be moderated when enacted by a state (a group of individuals holding some claim to legitimate power). The question is not whether a system of punishment is sufficient, but whether it is necessary.
If the goal is to reduce all harm to the minimum practical amount we must be pragmatic in our analysis and execution.
I have also seen states grossly amplify the harms involved well past what any individual could be capable of and I have seen individuals operating on behalf of the state launder harm through their office to absolve themselves of any personal accountability for what are ultimately personal actions.
From my observations, those who receive punishment after causing harm rarely become reformed and productive members of society. If anything the punishment[1] leaves them bitter and often actively disadvantages their opportunities for success, leading them to commit more harms and drawing us down a dangerous spiral. Even in confinement these individuals often commit harm to their peers or to those that guard them—and, more abstractly, to the tax payers that are compelled to back this system.
It's not that I doubt these methods can "work" to some extent, but that I see us stuck in a local maxima. I believe we can do much better.
I believe the vast majority of crime that is commited in modern societies could be eliminated through better education, cooperation, and social equality. Why commit crimes, especially violent ones, when the opportunity cost of not pursuing more productive activities is large?
For what remains, I would propose applying insurance. When the volcano erupts and the magma damages my house I do not feel the need to "punish" the volcano.
I do believe there is a floor to violence (and other criminal acts) that will exist no matter what we do. (One-off crimes of passion or acts commited by the criminally insane, for instance). For some of these there may not be any better answer than imprisonment or exile in order to protect the community from future acts. However, I'd love to explore the proactive solutions I recommended above (education, equality, etc) and leave the shrinking vestiges of the current system to handle these edge cases if necessary.
[0]: Likewise, I can see the utility of—e.g—restraining orders and would not call those a "punishment" either, though in this we start to get into the grey area of restraint (limiting an individual's freedom of movement could be classified as a harm).
[1]: Excepting the ultimate punishment.
It's not just a tool, it's also a human action. An action that exacts consequences on its victim and its wielder. Necessary and regrettable aren't exclusive.
What are the input variables which dictate the morality of an action (generally or in this particular case)?
Victim already implies wrongdoing so it makes justifying just violence harder than it should be.
For the record, i often use target instead of victim when talking about harassment, bullying, rape, etc. because it also doesn't imply surrender to the aggressor or lack of agency.
While I agree with the sentiment, the groups who support dictators (oligarchs, religious extremists) would decide to also use violence. So both dictators and the leaders on the side of the people would be murdered and society would be destabilized.
We need reliable anonymous communication as yet another source of friction (drink!) which the state needs to overcome to subjugate the people. And that's why so many states, even western democracies, are trying to oppose it now using children or terrorists as an excuse. The authoritarians and wannabe-dictators (most of whom will never achieve their goal or even publicly state it) are already in government positions, always have been.
There are two upsides:
- There are more normal (good or neutral) people than there are authoritarians (bad people - who want to exercise unjustified control over other people's lives). If the leadership attributes are evenly distributed, then they need to kill more of us than we need to kill of them.
- I don't think people should need to be led. It's a symptom of submissivity many have been taught since childhood ("do what I say and don't talk back") and to some extent is it probably natural but hopefully it can be reduced through better upbringing. Teach your children to question everything and to guess people's incentives and motives. What we need need is enough independent thinkers who are able to communicate and self-organize.
Your mention of anonymity reminds me of assasination politics [0], which is an idea I found enticing in the past. However I've since come to the opinion that such a system is neither optimal nor necessary, though I believe a similar outcome may be inevitable as we continue along the arc of the democratization of power through technical proliferation.
Only in single-step moral systems (one which judges actions as moral or immoral solely based on those actions in the moment and not what preceded them).
I have a multi-step moral system. Basically any unjustified intentional harm to a person justified proportional retaliation. Unjustified means it is not harm which is being caused as punishment to a previous offense. And proportional means that it shouldn't be too weak, neither too strong. IMO the optimum is causing something like 1.5-3x more suffering/"disadvantagement". However, it is important to signal to both the original aggressor and any potential witnesses why this is being done so that one is not mistaken for an original aggressor himself.
I am also a fan of judging others by their own moral principles. Basically, if someone thinks it is OK to, for example, limit my freedom or harm me (for various reasons or in various circumstances), I apply the same rules to him and it is therefore OK for me to limit his freedom or harm him (for similar reasons or in similar circumstances).
Either system leads to similar outcomes. (The first allows stronger response to offense, the second allows only mirroring).
Thanks for the link, it looks very interesting but it goes into my to-read list for today.
The problem is that it is routinely misused (especially by those who have overwhelming power), and the cases where it is really needed are really, really, really rare.
Even in cases when it appears that the use of violence is justified, the long term consequences (e.g. on culture and mentality, and hence ultimately on normal daily life) are usually such that it would have been better to avoid it in the first place.
At the moment you regularly shoot/drone the dictators, the one deciding who is dictator warranting such violence is the most scary dictator of all.
This talk about good/bad people is such naive childish ploy, are we adults here or what?
And that's why it's important to establish publicly known and accepted rules about this. Nobody suggests one person deciding this, usually people who imagine this situation have some issues of their own.
But the threat of absolutely any citizen having a decent chance of successfully killing a dictator would probably lead to democratization of power - individuals would not be attracted to having so much power they would likely become targets and we'd hopefully see more effort towards establishing more direct means of decision making.
> This talk about good/bad people is such naive childish ploy, are we adults here or what?
No need for insults, it's a simplification. It's obviously a spectrum. But broadly speaking, people who regularly intentionally harm others for their gain or pleasure (or see nothing wrong with doing it or support those who do) are considered bad. People who go out of their way to help others are good. The rest is neutral. Most people are neutral - don't see injustice or wrongdoing as their problem until it directly negatively affects them.
And obviously, there are people who do both a lot of good and a lot of bad. I consider those bad because more often than not, they only do the good things to gain support or compensate so they can get away with the bad things.
That's my personal opinion and experience. Other people could for example argue for simply summing up the good and the bad and the total would neatly categorize them. Intent also matters and that's even more complex but usually unprovable from the outside.
The least worst for whom?! For normal Iranian people who just want to leave their life?
I hate my current government. Do I think an armed uprising or a USA bombing campaign would would improve things? Heck NO!
Hitler was so bad that anybody is willing to publicly talk about killing him, there are movies glorifying it, people talk about going back in time and killing baby Hitler. He was so bad that the very strong taboo against killing does not work on him.
So, when _exactly_ did it become OK to kill him? Think about it.
What cumulative sum of his actions between 1889 and 1945 tipped the balance?
Now, do those same rules apply to current dictators or people in the process of becoming dictators even if the taboo is still strong there?
Are you comparing Iran to Hitler?! That does not make sense whatsoever.
If you mean 'At some point, you have to step in and make the change by force. Like we did with Hitler'.
I will say: Yes, at some point it is justified to step in. But, there must be a realistic chance that you will make things better, and low chance that you will make things much, much worse. International consensus would be highly desirable, as well.
In case of Iran: How sure are you that you can make a positive change in Iran by bombing only? If you kill (directly or indirectly, e.g. starvation/ruined water supplies) much more Iranians than Iranians killed themselves (like we did with Saddam), are you really helping?
I don't think there is a will (and maybe not even a capability) for boots on the ground. So, you are just hoping that the new regime would be a better one. Not many positive historical examples there.
Last, but not least: There are serious escalation dangers. What if China/Russia provided Iran with targeting data and/or missiles (not that Iran does not have their own) and Iran hit/sunk a carrier and some destroyers? Are you now in war with China/Russia? At what moment do you cross that line? Will you retreat with the tail between you legs, like from Afghanistan? Or will Israel decide to toss a nuke or two?
The idealism of helping the poor protesters is a noble one, but the road to hell is paved by good intentions.
Like the ones who are protesting? Idk, when people put themselves in front of a gun I'm inclined to listen to what they're demanding, not folks in their armchairs a world away.
"All that said, there are very obviously regimes in the world that have rendered themselves more-or-less immune to non-violent protest. This isn’t really the place to talk about the broader concept of ‘coup proofing’ and how authoritarian regimes secure internal security, repression and legitimacy in detail. But a certain kind of regime operates effectively as a society-within-a-society, with an armed subset of the population as insiders who receive benefits in status and wealth from the regime in return for their willingness to do violence to maintain it. Such regimes are generally all too willing to gun down thousands or tens of thousands of protestors to maintain power.
The late Assad regime in Syria stands as a clear example of this, as evidently does the current regime in Iran. Such regimes are not immune to an ‘attack on will,’ but they have substantially insulated themselves from it and resistance to these regimes, if it continues, often metastasizes into insurgency or protracted war (as with the above example of Syria) because the pressure has nowhere else to go" (Id.).
From my naive observation, the regimes of Eastern Europe had lost their will to perpetuate. (Everybody saw, including party apparatchiks, that the people in the west have better lives. Or at least better goods. :-) )
The cynical take would be that the (smarter) communists in power prepared themselves for the transition, positioning themselves to benefit after the change.
China didn’t collapse in 1989 because they were the only communist regime able and willing to massacre protestors.
Taiwan's GDP/capita is 2.6x China's [1]. It grew faster, for longer, in large part through high technology.
Counterfactuals are always hard in history. But we literally have the nationalist government's democratic, capitalist successor kicking in way above its weight class economically and technologically. It's fair to say that if the '89 protest hadn't been massacred, the 21st century would currently be undoubtedly China's to rule. (I'd also put even odds on Taiwan having peacefully reunified by now.)
[1] https://countryeconomy.com/countries/compare/taiwan/china?sc...
From your link: 1987: Taiwan 5325, China 300 1996: Taiwan 13588, China 710 --- 2024 Taiwan 34060, China 13314
Whatever starting point you choose, China has risen faster than Taiwan.
In fact, there is non-zero chance that if China had a regime change and heeded west's economic 'advice', it would have gone through equivalent of what Russia went in the 90's.
They are doing fine, thank you, doing it their commie way, despite Zeihan and others preaching China's immminent collapse for decades.
Also worth mentioning, all the while being under a military dictatorship (see White Terror) until the late 80's.
Some internal factor opaque to western media. Their economy's in the shitter, perhaps. Or the so-called water shortage. Though what it could be exactly, that western intelligence wouldn't be willing to trumpet from the mountaintops, I could not say.
Germany used to have great Middle Eastern intel, but they either lost it or got better about leaks. American HUMINT in the Middle East is notoriously awful, so I'd err on the side of us being as confused as everyone else.
It seems like a consequence is that publicity outside Iran is only going to be effective to the extent that it mobilizes people inside Iran?
(With the possible exception of getting Trump's attention, but I don't think air strikes are going to do it?)
And the government of Iran seems very willing to kill people.
I don't see this ending well.
Or Tel Aviv, Rihyadh, New Delhi or any other one of the hosts of Iran’s adversaries and enemies.
> the government of Iran seems very willing to kill people
I find it helpful to decompose states as monoliths in these cases. Besides attracting an intervention, the purpose of such a protest would also include motivating state elements to attempt a coup.
TLV (already know) and Islamabad are lobbying the US in favor of striking the regime, as can be seen with the prominence Asim Munir, Muhammad Aamer, and Asim Malik in acting as a backchannel and unofficial advisers to the US on Iran under the Trump admin as well as Netanyahu's continued lobbying for a stronger response to Iran for decades.
Nobody wants missiles flying over their homelands. At the same time, both goverments have been supportive of America's non-proliferation work in Iran.
My broad point is there are plenty of folks who may be open to covertly supporting the protesters beyond America blowing blowing god knows what up.
Absolutely
> My broad point is there are plenty of folks who may be open to covertly supporting the protesters beyond America blowing blowing god knows what up.
Makes sense. And yes that's true!
That recipe is the theory of the ideal case. If it were that simple authoritarian regimes would be a thing of the past. But those regimes have played the game longer than most protesters have been alive. That’s why these movements barely make a dent even with covert outside support.
Public support for the Iranian state has been around zero among the population for years now, the problem is that the Iranian government has probably 2-3 million of armed governmental agents (from police over regular military to IRGC/Basij) [1] and is just about as willing to compromise as the CCP was and is ever since Tiananmen.
In fact, I would say what we've seen from Iran the last weeks (credible sources say around 35k deaths) is even more deaths than in the 1989 China protests which had a death toll of (worst case estimated) 10k.
Against that level of fanatical, money- and religion-driven bloodlust, there is no chance of successful protests, not without serious external aid shifting the power balance. And in the case of Iran, that is the US and Israel wiping the mullahs out of this world, or causing them enough trouble so that the leadership accepts an offer to escape to Moscow alive.
Let me be clear: I despise both Trump and Netanyahu. But this is, IMHO, the one and only chance these two men have to assist a just and rightful cause for once.
I second that non-violent protest alone is a moral high-ground stance that has little effectiveness without an external force amplifying the leverage. The assessment quoted above is strangely superficial taken at face value.
Armed Baloch and Kurdish groups have been boasting of firing on Iranian police. The police are firing back. Hard to call them non-violent when they openly boast about armed attacks. Who knows where they are getting their weapons, with western countries also openly declaring their intent to destabilize Iran.
Two things that can both be true: the Iranian regime is fundamentalist and authoritarian and massively abusive to its people, and also western countries are continuing their long history of meddling and funding separatist and terrorist groups with the goal of regime change and establishing a client state (because that worked out so well with the Shah).
“…it is important to note that while the overall framework of these two approaches is the same their tactics are totally different and indeed fundamentally incompatible in most cases. Someone doing violence in the context of a non-violent movement is actively harming their cause because they are reducing the clear contrast and uncomplicated message the movement is trying to send. Likewise, it is relatively easy to dismiss non-violent supporters of violent movements so long as their core movement remains violent, simply by pointing to the violence of the core movement. It is thus very important for individuals to understand what kind of movement they are in and not ‘cosplay’ the other kind” (Id.).
The core protest is strategically and factually a non-violent protest. It is ringed by armed insurgencies. They undermine each other.
> Who knows where they are getting their weapons, with western countries
Nobody has a monopoly on weapons supply to the Middle East. If you want to seriously interrogate this line of questioning, try to learn what weapons they’re using.
The Kurds had their own state at the end of World War II - the US and UK forced them to dissolve and integrate with Iran.
Actually the US just abandoned the Kurds in Syria two weeks ago as it signed deals with Syria's former al Qaeda leader.
Kurds are people the West foments to armed rebellion, and then quashes, for decades, depending on western material needs at the minute.
The Kurds were also supposed to have their own state at the end of World War 1, but western countries abandoned them and didn't force Turkey to honour its obligations, leaving Turkey free to genocide them just like it did the Armenians, Assyrians and Pontic Greeks.
As opposed to standing idly by when the regime 'stabilizes' the country by murdering thousands of people? It's well past the stage where non violent protest or resistance stopped being a viable option..
The problem with your stance is that too many people want it both ways: They don't want the US to intervene, but then also want support in terms of money and special treatment for people emigrating from these countries (and blame the US for the deaths that occur for a terrible government).
There were almost no Syrian refugees before operation Timber-Sycamore. Thank you USA, our dear friend and freedom-sharing soulmate, for unnecessary refugee crisis in Europe (and another one from Ukraine). With friends like that, who needs enemies. Also, as the above two examples (and Biden's Inflation reduction act, and Nuland's 'f*k Europe'), it is not a Trump thing, its USA thing.
What special treatment are you talking about, really.
Do you demand an invasion of Israel? Because your moral principles seem to demand an invasion and subjugation of Israel.
There is absolutely no requirement for consistency in geopolitics. Advocating for a position on e.g. Gaza or Iran isn't undermined because that person isn't expending equal efforts on injustice in another theatre.
There is in morality, though. The US is a state, but you are a person.
Africa is tricky due to historical reasons, though. Any western power that would intervene there without the explicit invitation of the local government would be accused of neo-colonialism etc.
Do you really believe that after the violent regime change Iran will become the beacon of prosperity in the ME?
Yes, I believe if the things are really out of hands (like Khmer rouge in Kambodia), external intervention is warranted.
That can be done against small/weak states where the result can be achieved fast and without too much bloodshed (compared to what is already going on), and when agreed on by UN. Will most definitely need boots on the ground.
It is an entirely different matter against a 90million vast state like Iran. Note that boots on the ground is not in the cards, and most probably will never be. The approach is 'bomb and hope'. Which guarantees misery and bloodshed of Iranian blood. And if the result is fall of the ayatollah regime, and replaced by nationalists with socialistic tendencies, that would not really cooperate with USA (= sell oil rights and totally dismantle their military) then what? Bomb more? How can you honestly believe this is the best for Iranian people?
And all while making "death to america" part of their national slogan.
At a certain point there ceases to be a middle path between violent resistance and complete surrender.
> Protesters which foreign states (China or Russia)
This type of relativism is dishonest. Of course US is speed running the path to authoritarianism but its not quite there. e.g. morally it would be perfectly acceptable to support weapons to protestors in Russia and not the other way around.
The Iranian regime is objectively evil, period. Regardless of what honest or dishonest motives foreign actors might or might not have.
The statement 'The USA regime is objectively evil, period' is much more justifiable. Measured, e.g. by the number of people it has killed (both directly, and indirectly by sanctions and support for brutal dictators - e.g. Pinochet, but also Saddam while he was waging war with Iran).
Meddling in internal affairs of other countries has a terrible track record, the world would be so much better off without it.
Armed resistance most often leads to a damn bloody affair in which everybody is worse off, unless the state is already so rotten that it has no will to fight for itself. Supporting such resistance just means more life losses, both on the resistance and on the state side (typically, much more on the resistance side). Hence, the true aim is not to help the resistance, but to weaken the state. No consideration for the life of the local people, the show (the grand game) must go on!
Wishing away "meddling" is on par with wishing away war. Nice in theory. Practically impossible in practice. (Sovereignty has a Schrödinger's element to it. You really only know you have it when you test its boundaries. And the only test of sovereignty is against another sovereign. The world is littered with sovereigns meddling in each others' affairs and those who aren't sovereign.)
The US is evil because of who it supports? Tell me about Iran.
And at least the US didn't murder thousands of anti-government demonstrators so far this year.
You're right in this: The US is not the shining example of goodness and purity that we wish it to be. But when you condemn the US compared to Iran, using those metrics, it looks suspiciously like motivated reasoning.
What circumstances has Iran created that demand armed rebellion?
Just to name a few.
This would seem to suggest that sinking an aircraft carrier and frigate or two would actually be justified according to your principles?
Which were imposed for work on atomic bomb. These sanctions didn’t come out of the blue.
Sanctions-wise... When you sanction a society to the degree that Iran has been sanctioned, you force that society to turn to smuggling, black markets, and forces operating outside of usual law and norms, in order for the society to prevent its collapse. That naturally causes corruption to spread because you are involving outlaws in fundamental processes of your economy. This is one of intended consequences of such harsh sanctions, in order to maximize the negative sentiment of the general populace of the targeted country towards their government. It impoverishes the country and makes the populace more likely to accept when approached by foreign agents offering monetary rewards for help in bringing the government down.
Obviously the commenter I responded to is not arguing in good faith so I don't expect anything but an NPC talking point response, so I wish to note that my answer is for a curious passerby.
There is no reason whatsoever to enrich uranium beyond like 20% if its not for military purposes in such quantities.
Saying that others are NPCs is interesting. How do you know that you are not an NPC?
If Iran gets nuclear weapons, all big Sunni countries will get them too: Saudis, Qatar, etc. we do not want it to happen, as the next Arab spring can collapse those governments, and you can count on any Muslim radical group getting hands on one of those.
Anyway, there are countries that have nuclear weapons, and this Jinny is out of the bottle. But, it doesn’t mean we want to have more of this crap lying around. We need less.
At this point, every country which has natural resources which the US might want to steal should have nukes.
Except they don’t.
North Korea minds their own business.
When Iran builds a base in Mexico or Canada, we can talk.
Are your principals that a government should only focus on self preservation?
What would be better for the people of Iran, sinking an American aircraft carrier or just disbanding their nuclear and long range ballistic missile programs?
I dunno. Is the United States required to bake them a cake if it offends our religious principles?
The result: nothing of consequence happened because the faction they supported eventually won and was/is legitimately popular
Jaish al-Adl would continue bombing Iranian police stations regardless of who's in power in Tehran as long as India maintains operational control of Chabahar Port, Chabahar-Zahedan Railway, and INSTC.
Similarly, the BLA and BNA would continue bombing Pakistani police stations regardless of who's in power in Islamabad/Pindi as long as China maintains operational control of Gwadar Port, the Western Alignment expressway, and CPEC.
Iran is de facto non-existent in much of Sistan-ve-Balochistan. Heck, Urdu/Hindi fluency remains the norm in much of Iranian Balochistan as a large portion of Iranian Baloch continue to have family ties across the border in Pakistan, work with their brethren in the Gulf as migrant workers, or travel to Karachi, Quetta, or India for medical, religious (most Iranian Baloch are Deobandi), and education services.
Heck, one of our old neighbors growing up was a Iranian Baloch-Pakistani Baloch couple and according to them Baloch marriage across the border was extremely common. And Uzair Baloch had ties to both Iranian and Indian intelligence [0].
The Iran-Pakistan and the Iran-Afghanistan border is very porous because of how isolated Sistan-ve-Balochistan and much of Khorasan is from the rest of Iran.
But anyhow, the entire thing has become a quagmire after CPEC was announced in 2015, because that forced India to confront the very real possibility of being enricled by China during a war.
This is what lead to India's quiet and now overt diplomacy with the Taliban, continued investment in Iran despite the sanctions, and building Saudi and UAE cofinanced megaprojects on the Indo-Pak border in GJ and RJ as well as in JK.
Like for example supporting Russia genocide in Ukraine? As far as I know Ukraine had no qualms with Iran, why is Iran helping it's destruction?
> Who knows where they are getting their weapons, with western countries also openly declaring their intent to destabilize Iran.
When I fought in the YPG (Kurdish militia in Syria), almost all the weapons were Russian / USSR block type weapons, though the AK were stamped with the symbol of many soviet block countries.
That reaction maintains support for the movement, but at the same time disruption does not stop: the movements growing popularity enable new recruits to replace those arrested (just as with insurgent recruitment) rendering the state incapable of restoring order. The state’s supporters may grow to sympathize with the movement, but at the very least they grow impatient with the disruption, which as you will recall refuses to stop.
As support for state repression of the movement declines (because repression is not stopping the disruption) and the movement itself proves impossible to extinguish (because repression is recruiting for it), the only viable solution becomes giving the movement its demands.”
https://acoup.blog/2026/02/13/collections-against-the-state-...