Another poster here mentioned his experiences which are similar to what I've heard from my family and friends. You can remain in denial but everyone knows the truth, just like everyone knows that Iran is selling drones to Russia and everyone knows that Israel has a nuclear weapons program, despite denials to the contrary.
"Everyone knows" is not a valid argument, it's called argumentum ad populum and represents a fallacy.
To repeat, I've been at revolutionary rallies in Tehran and I never saw anything by means of which authorities could have checked the identities of those present. You've failed to address this simple rational challenge I put forward.
Also, you can be sure that if such a mechanism was in place, oppositionists would've plastered the internet with countless visual examples thereof. So given the above and by rational deduction, one is obliged to conclude that participants to those rallies aren't being forced in any way.
If the Islamic Republic has popular support among the majority then why not allow a UN supervised referendum ?
What government would resort to such an aberrant, strange exercise? There's no precedent for such and never will be because it's an outlandish notion for a host of stringent reasons.
If they do indeed win by a majority then that would instantly put the matter to rest and end the protests.
No, western / zionist propaganda against Iran will never cease, nor will their efforts to brainwash Iranians against the Islamic Republic. And they'll always find some pretexts, no matter what the Islamic Republic does.
Here you go again with more blame games. This is the Islamic Republic's typical response but what it boils down to is that it's not good enough. At the end of the day they are the ones in charge of the economy, they make the policies and it's those policies which have led to these violent protests for 7 weeks and a battered economy.
Biden came out and declared "we'll liberate Iran soon", which is akin to an admission of Washington's hand behind the violence of rioters in Iran, but I guess that counts for nothing.
You're free to stay under the belief that 70+ foreign-based satellite broadcasters inciting their audience against the government around the clock, as well as hundreds of thousands of websites and "social media" accounts doing the same will not impact the perceptions of those who joined the anti-IR camp. But it wouldn't make your position any more realistic or plausible.
At the end of the day, satisfaction or dissatisfaction with government is a highly subjective matter and opinions happen to be shaped by media at least as much and often more so than by personal experience, that's why said media exist. The notion that public opinion systematically and necessarily reflects objective realities is an illusion.
The CCTV footage shows her fainting.
It also shows her walking into the building and staying there for minutes without any sign of physical pain. Is this how a person who'd just been beaten to within an inch of their life will conduct themself? No, definitely not.
Anyways she was wearing a hejab. Why didn't they just give her a fine ? Why do they have to drag peoples wives and daughters away which creates animosity among society. Again it's their policies which caused these protests and either way people are not buying the governments explanation.
You've just implied that facts don't really count for these people. And I insist on 'these" because nowhere do they represent every Iranian, quite the contrary.
As for "dragging" arrested women "away", they drive them to a center where they're reminded of the law and its technicalities, after which they're free to go. Good or bad, it's not the extraordinarily horrific treatment you make it out to be.
During protests we've seen how they've responded to protesters with brutality and violence.
No, we haven't. What we've seen, is nearly a full week of law enforcement getting assaulted in brutal ways by out-of-control lynch mobs, personnel getting stoned, beaten and kicked all over their bodies by multiple rioters while lying on the ground. This clearly took place prior to any noteworthy response by law enforcement.
How many people have been shot by snipers while protesting ?
I'm not aware of a credibly documented instance of this kind.
Your narrative reminds me of those who, commenting on the situation in Syria during the early stages of the war, were arguing that "the Syrian people" took up arms in response to "the regime" / "the dictator" brutally squashing "peaceful protests" and having demonstrators shot at. When in truth, armed attacks against the Syrian Arab Army and mind-boggling violence including savage lynchings of civil servants had taken place simultaneously to the first protests, right at the start of the unrest.
I distinctly remember when the first large scale ambush against an SAA convoy outside Jisr al-Shuqur (Idlib governorate) was conducted by sectarianist terrorists, how "regime change" supporters were trying to suggest that the government had staged the attack itself, killing its own troops to blame the "peaceful protesters" and justify "more repression". Exactly what your oppositionist friends are now claiming with regards to the "I"SIS terrorist attack at the Shah Cheraq mausoleum of Shiraz, pretending it was a false flag operation carried out by the Islamic Republic.
The exact same playbook's at work, and apparently you're failing to see it.
Even if you want to claim that it's foreign infiltrators / agents, which I doubt,
Doubting this will be very credulous. Suffice to examine the track record of Iran's existential foreign enemies, as well as the rabid hostility they're exhibiting against Iran.
even then they've failed to provide adequate security for Iran. They've failed in every regard.
Well not really, no. A couple of spies and infiltrators getting through is nothing much compared to what the enemy's been throwing at Iran. For every successful terrorist attack, probably a hundred are thwarted.
To qualify the level of security enjoyed by Iranians vis à vis foreign destabilization attempts as a failure, could not be further removed from ground reality. Especially when the effects of NATO and zionist induced destabilization are visible throughout the region all around Iran.
What do you mean by collapsed ?
I mean the scenario which NATO and the zionists have sought to put into effect in Iran. In other words Iraqi, Libyan, Syrian conditions, because this is exactly what they seek to provoke a repeat of in Iran.
Look at the Rial. It was 70 to the Dollar when the Shah left. It's now 360,000. The economy is in ruins. The majority of Iranians are impoverished. The government even admits this. Iran is not flourishing and prospering like it should be. Iran is not living up to its full potential and never will with the mullahs in charge.
The exchange rate between the Iranian rial and the USA dollar is not the sole measure of economic success. You're wrong about poverty, which stands at around 18% (17,80% in 2019).
Under the Islamic Republic Iran has taken greater strides than she during the monarchy, and developed at a superior pace. Be it in the field of infrastructures, science and technology, industries and agriculture, public education, healthcare, you name it. In spite of suffering the world's most stringent sanctions regime, an 8-year war, as well as rabid hostility by the powers to be. Figures in this regard are available and there's no denying them.
Why is there so much pressure exerted upon Iran anyways ? It's because of the Islamic Republics policies, that's why. Yes Iran has progressed in some fields but Iran can never live up to its full potential as long as its locked out of doing business with the largest economies in the world.
It's because under the Islamic Republic, Iran chose to remain a sovereign nation-state, to gain back and preserve her self-determination, to benefit from the maximum degree of independence. Which is priceless and cannot be substituted by anything.
The west will not willingly accept an economically advanced Iran under any circumstances. They want Iran to have a solely oil exporting, mono-sectorial economy and depend on them for everything else. Which is fully reflected in the discourse of the exiled oppositionists they're supporting, from Reza Pahlavi to the rest of the lot.
Look at the Chinese, they're America's biggest rival, but they're intelligent enough to trade with America and the west and the entire world and use that revenue to their advantage. The mullahs, their policies are simply not pragmatic or intelligent.
Countries of different dimensions and characteristics, incomparable geopolitical settings, historic trajectories which aren't exactly identical (in spite of some similarities). There is no readiness on the west's part to enter a Nixon-Mao style pact with Iran.
Several nations in the region (Turkey, Saudi, UAE, Egypt, Pakistan, Qatar) send money and weapons to militant groups they support but they do so covertly. They still trade with the west and they actually use the revenue they generate from that trade to advance their policies.
You've missed the key point: those "militant groups" are backed by the west itself. Propping them up has been part and parcel of NATO's own strategy. Turkey or the Saudis in this regard are merely acting as regional auxiliaries the western agenda. See the terrorist insurgency in Syria as a prime example.
Maybe but the amount of revenue Iran has lost over its support of these groups are in the trillions. Iran should be right now selling atleast twice as much oil. Iran should be selling natural gas to all of its neighbors and to India, Pakistan, Europe and beyond. Iran should have a flourishing, booming tourism industry.
Oil is a curse and an impediment to development, not an opportunity. Read up on the concept of Dutch Disease introduced by qualified economists. This is actually an illustration as to why sanctions can act as a blessing in disguise, although diminished investment in the oil industry has not just been a consequence of sanctions but a deliberate policy pursued by the Islamic Republic, underscoring its sound take on economic development.
A similar reasoning applies to tourism, which is a scourge for other reasons, namely its potential tendency to bloat the service sector but more importantly, the way in which it contributes to eroding national culture and contributing to the globalist agenda of uprooting nation-states and civilizations.
Iran should be exporting cars, electronics, etc to the world. Iran should be trading and conducting business with the entire world, with foreigners begging to invest.
However none of this will happen under the this regime. Their policies have ruined Iran. And please don't try to deflect again and blame America or Israel or anyone else. The west is merely reacting to Iran's policies and as long as the mullahs remain in power nothing will change.
How many countries of the global south have managed to turn into large international automobile exporters? Zero, one, two?
Iran went through a Revolution and 8 years of Imposed War, and yet developed rapidly enough to start exporting cars towards multiple countries only a decade afterwards. As the west keeps declining and multipolarism rising, new markets and export opportunities will open up for Iran.
Honestly that's just basic fear mongering. A very common tactic used by authoritarian governments to garner support from the populace. Trying to convince people that without them the nation will collapse or the world will end. The truth is that Iran has existed for thousands of years and will continue to exist because that is the will of the Iranian people. There is no credible reason why Iran can't function as a free and prosperous democracy.
This right here is most naive speculation. Syrians were told the same thing. So were the Iraqis and Libyans. Now their countries are in ruins, in the true sense of the word. Something Iranians will discover the true meaning of, if they choose to go down the same path.
Was it the will of the Syrian or Libyan people to see their countries go up in flames like they did? Understand that when state authority is decisively weakened and when there's massive interference by powerful foreign players hell bent on destruction, then it matters zilch what "the people want". Their fate gets dictated to them under such circumstances.
The relevant question is, when has Iran ever faced a comparable kind of enemy - in terms of destructive power, resources, policy objectives? An enemy equipped with the actual means to wreck nations and societies for good, as they put on display in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen and elsewhere.
What you're doing is to obfuscate the actual policy program of the zionists and NATO, whose concrete implementation can be witnessed all over Iran's vicinity, whilst their desire to subject Iran to the same treatment is proclaimed openly by their think tanks. Invoking distant history as a pretext, you also seem to be in denial about the enemy's ability to achieve this sinister goal the very moment Iranian central state authority is out of the way.
Those who think along the quoted lines are in urgent need of refreshing their memories:
https://besacenter.org/dismantle-iran-now/
https://www.globalresearch.ca/greater-israel-the-zionist-plan-for-the-middle-east/5324815
Keeping one's eyes shut to the writing on the wall and misreading the specificity of the current geopolitical context is bound to have catastrophic consequences.
this must be end of time when Florida is doing something that makes sense !
abcnews.go.com
What happened?
Thousands of people took to the streets of many Iranian cities on Thursday. Protesters shouted anti-government slogans including "Death to Khamenei" and "Death to Raisi", provoking security forces into conflict.
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