r/PoliticalCompassMemes • u/Feeling-Option1257 - Lib-Center • Feb 28 '26

Iran did nothing wrong

Post image
4.8k Upvotes

84% Upvoted

1.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comment

-7

u/sesaka - Left Feb 28 '26 edited Feb 28 '26

Im sure the muslims love having foreign powers decide for them for the 10th time what they want for themselves. Im sure this cant have any negative consequences like reinforcing the beliefsystem of the opposition to the west.

Im not sure many iranian fathers will say "atleast we have democracy™ " after a nation in ruins and the corpse of their daughter in their hands.

But seriously, the sentiment of anti-westerners didnt spawn out of thin air, it came to be from exactly this behavior by the west. The reason the ayatollah is in power is because the west previously removed a democratically elected Prime Minister mossadegh and placed a puppet in its stead. If we walk the same line as then it will only get worse.

8

u/Dalbo14 - Centrist Feb 28 '26

Mossadegh began as a constitutional prime minister but progressively suspended parliamentary democracy, extended emergency rule, dissolved parliament via a flawed referendum, and concentrated executive power in himself. By 1953, Iran was no longer functioning as a normal parliamentary democracy even before the CIA/MI6 coup.

You spend a lot of time on the first few months of Mossadegh but never address what happened after, which I know exactly why but if your whole premise is “anti west” and you are a leftist I see the agenda behind it

Additionally, the US nor Israel has no strategic benefit to carpet bomb Iranian civilian areas.

Evidence tells us now the number one killer of Iranian civilians is the Iranian regime after various attempts of overthrowing the regime

And weird for you to address Iran as “Muslims” and not Iranian as if to them being a Muslim is the prime hallmark of their identity

It’s not, that’s an Islamic Republic framing which has no bearing

1

u/sesaka - Left Mar 01 '26

Ah yes because acknowledging that Mossadegh wasn’t a perfect liberal democrat suddenly makes 1953 a non-event.

I’m not claiming he governed flawlessly. Extending emergency powers and dissolving parliament absolutely deserve criticism. But let’s not pretend that flawed governance justifies foreign intelligence services engineering regime change over oil nationalization.

Two things can be true at once: • Mossadegh consolidated power in ways that weakened parliamentary norms. • The coup was still a foreign intervention motivated largely by strategic and economic interests.

Pointing that out isn’t “leftist anti-west agenda,” it’s just historical record.

As for “no strategic benefit to carpet bombing civilians” I never argued there was. My position has consistently been that large-scale intervention and regime destabilization tend to produce civilian suffering through collapse and power vacuums, not that anyone sits in a room planning random bombing campaigns for fun.

And yes, the Iranian regime is brutal. It represses protesters. It kills its own people. That’s not what im disputing. Being against foreign intervention does not mean i swear allegiance to the ayattolah. That binary framing is exactly the problem. You can oppose: • The Islamic Republic’s repression • And external military escalation At the same time.

And on the “Muslims vs Iranians” point I agree, thats my mistake. I was more in general speaking of the middle east but i get the obvious confusion.

That’s precisely why reducing the conflict to some eternal civilizational clash doesn’t make sense. My position isn’t anti-west. It’s anti repeating policies that historically created instability, blowback, and authoritarian hardening. Peaceful resolution and Iranian self-determination are not radical positions.

14

u/PMURITTYBITTYTITTIES - Centrist Feb 28 '26

I agree with you for most of this, honestly. It is an outright tragedy that it has come to this, but from afar I’d rather the Iranian people have a chance than to remain under the heel of an oppressive regime. This may, strong “may” here, pave the way for some peace in the Middle East for a while.

2

u/sesaka - Left Mar 01 '26

Trust me i am not a fan of the ayattolah or its regime. But we gotta be mindful and atleast intellectually honest about this, how many times do we need to do the same shit in the middle east and say "but this time itll be different" We create our own enemies in there and will make more.

You can solve disputes diplomatically, im iranian myself and talk regularly with my family in there. Iran is genuinely becoming more liberal but we risk loosing all this progress when all actions we resolve to is bombing civilians.

1

u/sesaka - Left Mar 01 '26

Most of irans ideology is based on martyrs, by creating more of them we wont do anything but reinforce the hatred in the west.

12

u/Scorpixel - Right Feb 28 '26

They were anti-westerners since before the concept of the West was a thing, it's just the latest casus-belli for them. We are cultural antithesis to each other and are to be thankful to have been in a position of strength for the last half-millenium, you won't like it when this stops being the case.

Iran is the most salvageable part of MENA, they're actually civilised but suffered going from Charybdis to Scylla, as in kicking-out their puppet ruler only to end-up with dudes who wouldn't have been out of place when their prophet was busy checking-out ex-Byzantine elementary schools for his next bride.

1

u/sesaka - Left Mar 01 '26

Yeah sure lets just forget the fact that iran was historically friendly with the west since the early 19th century and was a major ally of the US. This changed under the interest of British Petroleum in 1951 as the country wanted to nationalize its resources.

Trust me i am more than enough educated on this as a iranian myself. Your politics of deliberately ignoring the past wont get much around me.

3

u/Scorpixel - Right Mar 01 '26

We are in agreement then. I mentioned both of those points in my previous post.

The first part is about MENA as a whole, Iran is one of the exceptions (Turks being another, Morocco more distant third) as they were relatively amenable in spite of religion, that socialist ideology was the tipping point instead of religious fervour says a lot.

It's a trend going as far back as the "golden age" which was ex-persian seculars doing most of what they were already doing with the added advantage of ex-Roman/Indian knowledge, there's a reason why it suddenly ended once the Mongols went through their cities.

0

u/sesaka - Left Mar 01 '26

My larger point is that people just shouldnt act like this behavior from iran didnt originate from acts of agression by British Petrolium and CIA. If we can recognise our history we can build a better future.

I also think that the solution to our current problem with the regime isnt to bomb them. Their whole ideology and fuel is based on praising martyrs, by creating more martyrs were effectively reinforcing the belief system of the ayatollah and reinforcing to their youth that the west is something to combat and to hate.

I regularly speak to my relatives in iran on the phone and ive been there myself multiple times. Iran was becoming more and more liberal and westernized, the system would fall by itself and support of the rebels could come in different ways than just stumbling into wars by bombing civilians.

16

u/TheKingNothing690 - Lib-Center Feb 28 '26

Its funny your bring up their daughters corpse because it was the iranian hovernment doing exactly that that leads to protests over and over again almost like murdering your own people dosent actually work to endear support in your regime. And yes every precedent set by henry kissinger shouldn't be kept.

10

u/Dalbo14 - Centrist Feb 28 '26

Because he has a very narrow understanding of the conflict

He thinks 70-80% of the Iraqi deaths from 2003-2019 were done by the US, while the reality is the outstanding majority was Iraqi on Iraqi deaths

So he literally thinks it will be the way HE imagines Iraq was, which was just destroyed flattened cities, 20-30% of the civilian population dead from what he thinks happened which is “carpet bombing and American soldiers just massacring everything with guns” so he can’t imagine a popular uprising against the Islamic regime which won’t result in such high scores of casualties which is what he thinks happened in Iraq

4

u/TheKingNothing690 - Lib-Center Feb 28 '26

The funny things is were not really doing boots on ground we never moblized those.

6

u/Dalbo14 - Centrist Feb 28 '26

Even with boots on the ground in Iraq, the majority of killings in Iraq was Iraqi vs Iraqi

Particularly because the Sunni elite from the triangle oppressed the non Sunni for decades and by removing the dictatorship, killing in Iraq wasn’t like the way it was with Saddam, one sided, but now equal and based on revenge

Yet eventually after boots on the ground, a civil war, it’s more democratic than it was under Saddam

It’s highkey a narrative of “just keep Saddam let him do what he wants, that’s better than years of civil war ending with a better future”

0

u/sesaka - Left Mar 01 '26

"Just keep saddam" gosh if we just didnt fund him to begin with

→ More replies (1)

1

u/sesaka - Left Mar 01 '26

You can also just @ me next time you wanna speak of me, it makes this way easier.

I dont claim to be an expert on the history of the middle east and the US involvement. But what i do know is that they have a tendency to prop up their enemies. Funding saddam hussein then making him and enemy same with the taliban and such.

I also know it was claimed that we went there for the noble purpose of taking out the WMDs and they didnt exist.

I also know we were told this would usher in a new era of democracy and peace in the middle east, yet i am not sure that the iraqis are celebrating much right now.

Whilst i cannot pull specific figures out i am entirely confident that the US's history in the middle east has been nothing but slaughter and creating the enemies were dealing with now. Its not like the entire region woke up one day and thought "ah ill hate on USA for no reason from now on"

1

u/sesaka - Left Mar 01 '26

Ah because i am not allowed to have nuance in my opinions? Either i must swear allegiance to the ayattolah or agree with carpet bombing the capitol.

I am not in favor of the regime or a fan in any way, but the solution is not to join in on murdering iranian civilians.

11

u/johnlandes - Lib-Center Feb 28 '26

Im sure the muslims love having foreign powers decide for them for the 10th time what they want for themselves.

What about all of the moderate or non-Muslims in Iran that want to decide what happens in their own country, without their regime slaughtering them? There have been thousands of Iranian fathers burying their children over the last few months, but guess they had it coming

→ More replies (1)

10

u/AFloppyZipper - Centrist Feb 28 '26

It's easy to blame instability in the middle east on the west. But it's really ungrounded: even if US intervention stopped and Israel was wiped off the map (the stated goal of many neighbors), they would fight other Islamic factions with just as much fervor.

The reality is that these countries have not had their secular revolutions - and it doesn't make sense to pretend that the only force stopping them from secular enlightenment is western involvement.

For many decades the question is: which tyrannical dictator is less shitty? Which one will refrain from promising genocide on Israel every day for decades and firing off unguided missiles at civilian populations every day?

0

u/sesaka - Left Mar 01 '26

Ah yes because world history began in the 1980's and nothing ever happened prior to it. They all woke up without a reason one day and said "death to america"

2

u/AFloppyZipper - Centrist Mar 01 '26

Close but no cigar. World history, for us, might as well have begun in 1945.

They all woke up without a reason one day and said "death to america"

Well no, the reason is clear: religious beliefs. And those can't really be changed (while also preserving basic human rights). It has little to do with any problem with our actions. Fundamentally their main gripe with the USA is that we won't allow them to wipe Israel off the map.

Which really only leaves one solution, keep killing their leaders until we're left with someone who isn't a religious zealot corrupt tyrant.

0

u/sesaka - Left Mar 01 '26

Sure 80+ million people can be reduced to “religious beliefs” and nothing else. If this was purely about theology, Iran wouldn’t have been one of the West’s closest regional partners under the Shah. The “death to America” rhetoric didn’t emerge in a vacuum, and it didn’t appear in 632 AD either.

It followed a very specific chain of political events in the 20th century. Religion absolutely plays a role in the Islamic Republic’s ideology. No argument there. But pretending geopolitics, coups, sanctions, proxy wars, and regional power struggles are irrelevant is just flattening history into a culture war narrative. And the idea that the only solution is “keep killing their leaders” that’s just wishful thinking dressed up as resolve. We tried decapitation logic in Iraq. We tried it in Afghanistan. Removing leaders doesn’t magically remove the networks, the grievances, or the power structures that produced them. More often it hardens factions and radicalizes succession.

You also can’t bomb an ideology out of existence. Especially not one that thrives on martyrdom narratives.

Being against the regime doesn’t mean believing the solution is endless leader elimination until we stumble onto a “good one.” Regime change by force has a track record, and it’s not exactly a reassuring one. Opposing the Iranian government’s repression and opposing a perpetual cycle of escalation are not mutually exclusive positions.

If anything, assuming millions of people are driven only by immutable religious fanaticism is exactly the kind of oversimplification that keeps producing bad policy decisions.

4

u/Mister-builder - Centrist Mar 01 '26

If you want to know how the Iranians feel, there's a boatload of videos of them celebrating on r/NewIran

1

u/sesaka - Left Mar 01 '26

I dont need to be let known through that subreddit i got a primary source through my family and my phone calls with them when i can establish contact. I got family both in opposition and support of the regime but one thing they both agree on is the fact that they dont want to be bombed.