[TkTech]

> Iran’s government has a sense of being under siege / surrounded by powerful enemies, the US, Isreal, etc.

The well-educated government of Iran does not at all consider this. They are an autocratic, theocratic dictatorship. No one has any interest at all in annexing Iran. Like all governments of such a type, there must always be external, powerful, and yet weak enemies at the border or they cannot retain power. Iran has nothing the world wants except hydrocarbons, and their current level of production can easily be replaced by their fellow OPEC members. Anyone actually invading Iran would get nothing but 30 million citizens that live in abject poverty, with the UN expecting another 40% (!) of the country to fall below the poverty line in the next 2 years. Without China (40%) and Turkey (20%) importing from Iran, the country would fail overnight.

[vasac]

Yeah, no one ever wanted to overthrow democratically elected government in Iran, no one ever had interest in wrecking Libya, Syria... It's all just their imagination.

[jacquesm]

Iran is a democracy now?

Iran registers very clearly as an authoritarian country, what democratic institutions exist are not powerful enough to dislodge the ultimate rulers of the country.

[tmnvix]

I think the comment you replied to was pointing out that Iran had a democratically elected government until the 1953 coup instigated by the U.S. and Britain. Their paranoia is not without reason.