[hackerknew]

You’d be surprised, but the people of Iran have been waiting for this moment for years. There are 80 million people who want the end of the regime.

Whether this fulfills that goal, we will see, but anything that weakens the regime is good for the Iranian people.

[mullingitover]

Oh! I remember this one. The next part goes, “They’re going to greet us as liberators and give our troops flowers.”

And then twenty years from now everyone will say they were always against it.

[Kye]

It was true in some cases, but it was more "thank you, now please leave." Almost a direct quote from one report from an embedded reporter I'd cite directly if it weren't near impossible to find things online from that far back.

[spacecadet]

The problem is the timeline... MIC takes over and it becomes about building, selling, and dropping bombs instead of rebuilding and GTFO.

During Iraq the US military deployed some insanely creative strategies with the deployment of concrete- yet nothing meaningful was actually built for the people of Iraq...

[recroad]

You hear and read about it, but it’s still surreal to see the effects of propaganda in real life. I’m glad I’m old enough to have seen this show before live.

[gattilorenz]

Even those who want a regime change tend to dislike getting bombs on their heads.

And if anything, the last 20 years taught us that revolutions imposed from the outside never work

[hackerknew]

Not on their heads. On the weapons and heads of the regime. The regime is not the Iranian people.

[gattilorenz]

Israel is bombing cities too[1], and the neighbors of the people who might be associated with the regime are just like you and me.

There are cleaning people and canteen workers in uranium enrichment facilities.

And so on. Once bombs start falling, it’s a silly idea that there’s no innocent casualty and that people won’t fear for their life regardless of their status when they hear bombs falling in the neighbourhood.

[1] and sure, that’s Israel (for now), but I don’t think that you’ll bother with this distinctions once you see bombs falling down

[const_cast]

If this goes to war, it will be their heads. We cannot be so naive to assume the US does not want civilian bloodshed. We love that, that's, like, our favorite thing about war.

This is why US war-mongering is bad and we need to stop doing it. The US is absolutely ruthless. After all, we're the only country that has actually used nukes - and we did it on civilians.

[jokowueu]

Iraq flash backs , they were sure very happy to greet their liberators , it's amazing to see propaganda's effects working in action

[InsideOutSanta]

Nothing is more effective at unifying a country than being attacked by a foreign power. This is how Bush secured a second term and how Giuliani became America's Mayor, two individuals who were previously disrespected and/or hated by a majority of their constituents.

[dimator]

how does this do anything except strengthen the resolve of those thugs in power? even those against the regime will want retribution for an attack on their home land.

regime change has never worked, not with actual boots on the ground, let alone targeted air strikes.

[throwaway447573]

I don't see Hitler and Mussolini's grandsons ruling Germany and Italy.

[icepush]

Believe it or not, Mussolini's granddaughter is a fairly influential former politician within Italy

[portaouflop]

Anecdotally Mussolini’s granddaughter has been a member of both houses of the Italian Parliament as well as the European Parliament.

[UncleMeat]

Germany was split in half for 45 years. The Marshall Plan was the largest economic development operation in history. Meanwhile, the GOP has decided that the entire concept of foreign economic aid is bad because a theater somewhere was too woke.

Regime change and nation building worked so well in Afghanistan and Iraq. Onward to more death and suffering, I guess.

[nomat]

how much did it cost to rebuild germany? and how many trillions did we flush down the drain attempting to put together a functioning government in iraq and afghanistan?

where is DOGE when you actually need them?

[spacecadet]

Are they not there DOGE-ing as we speak?! lol.

[dlahoda]

yugoslavia?

[xoac]

The bombing campaign united the people against the new enemy: “the west”, and arguably gave Milosevic some more time to rule. I survived this, trust me that even if your regime is shit, people don’t want to be bombed and will unite against the aggressor. This is in part because even if the aggressor claims that they are “bombing the regime” they are usually in fact bombing the country’s infrastructure, industry, urban areas etc.

[fifilura]

I believe you that the regime is hated.

But can you define what "this moment" is that they have been waiting for?

I don't think "this moment" helps them along the way. It is rather a reason for more internal repression.

[hackerknew]

The moment is that the regime is severely weakened and is struggling to deal with an external war, with very few weapons left. Many heads of their military were eliminated and they are scrambling to put the pieces back together.

Couple that with a population of at least 80 million people who hate the regime and only didn’t fight back because the regime had physical power over them.

[vasco]

How many Iranians do you know that told you that?

[hn_throw2025]

https://news.sky.com/story/iraniansstandwithisrael-iran-bans...

[vasco]

Do you know those people in the article and if they are Iranian?

[adastra22]

Literally every Iranian I know, which is quite a few. The regime is NOT liked.

[vasco]

Waiting for this (to be bombed out if existence) and "don't like the regime" are very different things.

[throwaway97894]

Indeed, judging by the No King protests, some strong action is in order if we follow this pathetic way of thinking.

[hajile]

This is the big problem. Most of the people who would want a different government enough to take action took the only action they could and left the country.

This also accounts for the bias in people you meet as the ones who like Iran tend to continue living there.

[dreghgh]

I live in a major world city with considerable immigrant populations from many parts of the world, and saw some of the pro-Palestine demonstrations yesterday.

There were numerous groups of Iranians protesting against Israel's actions and in support of the Palestinians. These are Iranians living abroad so can be expected statistically to be less supportive of the current government than the average Iranian resident.

The counter-protest, mainly of pro-Israel demonstrators, this time also had Iranians, demonstrating against the current regime (and broadly in support of Israel). All the Iranian flags in this very small group were the Shah-era design with the lion.

The visibly Iranian groups in the pro-Palestinian demo vastly outnumbered the counter protest. They seemed quite ideologically diverse. There were some people holding pictures of the ayatollah with the words 'No Surrender'. But there were also groups with the sign "don't bomb us and claim it's for women's rights" (can't remember exact wording). Groups including women with headscarves, other groups with only bare headed women. As well as the current official flag with the swords, I saw people holding the lion flag, and others with the neutral tricolour without emblem. So at least some of the people present were anti the current regime, but supported the Palestinians in the current conflict.

Obviously a very selective sampling for many reasons, but far from what you might expect if almost all Iranians were united against their current government.

[hackerknew]

People living outside Iran participating in these protests have no idea what they are doing.

On the reddit NewIran sub, they were mocking a picture of somebody at one of those rally’s holding a giant IRGC flag… upside-down.

I wouldn’t use numbers of “useful idiots” showing up at rallies as a way of demonstrating internal support for the Iranian regime.

Surveys suggest around 70-80% are anti-regime, which makes sense considering the regime’s history of hangings and imprisonment for minor offenses. The people of Iran want the regime to end.

[stuckkeys]

There is some truth to that, but if it was that important for them to overthrow the regime…why not do it internally but instead they wait for someone to bomb them? 80mill is not a small number. You are saying 87% asked for this lol.

[vFunct]

Please don't promote war. Ain't no one going to overthrow the Iranian government now that we attacked them. The US and Israel just screwed up everything there. Thanks.

[anticodon]

> Whether this fulfills that goal, we will see, but anything that weakens the regime is good for the Iranian people.

Oh, enough to look at Libya, Syria, Iraq, to see what happens next:

1. Lots of infrastructure would be destroyed. It's the first thing NATO does in any invasion: bomb powerplants, water treatment plants, airports, hospitals, business centers (remember, that Iraq invasion started with destroying Baghdad business center, it was shown in all Western media). Infrastructure is super-expensive to rebuild, many countries in the world have no resources to build decent infrastructure.

2. At least several millions of Iranians would die. It's obvious. Somebody's moms and dads, somebody's children. The bombs do not choose. And we all know that West is indifferent to the deaths of non-Western non-white population (remember, e.g. killings and war crimes in Afghanistan).

3. In the end the country will end up in half-feudal anarchistic ruins (like Libya) or with "democratic" puppet government. Any outcome will allow selling Iran oil and gas to the West for the price of water, further lowering living standards of Iran.

I fail to see a single benefit for anyone living in Iran.

[tsimionescu]

Imagine a terrorist attack against the Trump admin in the following weeks, and someone coming in to say "you'd be surprised, but the people of the USA have been waiting for this moment for months. There are 100 million people who want an end to Trump".

People never, ever, under any circumstances, want to be attacked and bombed by another country. Not even the biggest dissidents rotting in regime jails would welcome this. Not even a little bit.

[simgt]

Even most children or partners of abusive people feel defensive when an outsider intervenes. Nevermind getting your country bombed by strangers. Spending days reading news that hide people behind symbols make some forget that we're dealing with human relationship.

[Ray20]

>People never, ever, under any circumstances, want to be attacked and bombed by another country.

Depends on the effectiveness of the bombing.

[hackerknew]

You write this because you don’t understand what people in Iran have been dealing with for the past 45 years.

It is one thing to not like the political leadership, but another thing if the government oppresses the population.

Those of us in America are privileged that we can’t fathom what that means.

[tsimionescu]

I'm not an American, and live in country that was under an even more authoritarian regime until fairly recently. While I was born just as the regime was ending, I know plenty from my parents about how they felt. And I stand by what I said: even under the worse circumstances, no one ever desires to be bombarded.

[fastball]

If the attack was specifically targeting the US to encourage the downfall of Trump, I am sure there are millions of Americans that would be celebrating. Spend some time on Bluesky – they'd love it over there if the attacks didn't literally hit them. They can't seem to see much further than that.

[autobodie]

Such bombs would necessarily need to fall in American cities, so the scenario you describe is not possible.

[fastball]

Which part is impossible?

[fastball]

Wasn't gonna post examples, but this thread[1] popped up in my Threads feed, so came back to share for posterity.

[1] https://www.threads.com/@djmelodie/post/DLNlE38PTNk?xmt=AQF0...

[Hikikomori]

US didn't like it the last time the Iranian people got their regime change.

[bobxmax]

That's nonsense. This is what westerners like to tell themselves because all they read is western media coverage of Iran.

No, 80 million people don't want to end the regime. Westerners can't fathom the fact that not everyone wants to live in a democratic free-for-all.... so clearly anyone who doesn't deserves bombing.

Pathetic. Imperialism is encoded in the DNA of Americans at this point.

[breppp]

It's a bit more complex than that, you have a country with two decades of mass demonstrations that were brutally suppressed and a new generation that no longer sees itself as religious while living in a theocracy.

they do have a massive popular support issue over there

[bobxmax]

None of what you said is true. They still enjoy large amounts of popularity - are you forgetting the entire country virtually coming to demonstrate when we slaughtered their commander a few years ago?

[breppp]

Not sure, how "nothing of what i said is true"

I didn't say there are no supporters, but there is an asymmetry between supporters and protestors. Supporters are being brought by buses, are often members of the Basij or other government functions and generally have incentives to do so. Protestors however risk extremely painful death and torture.

There is support for the regime, usually outside of large cities, but there's a reason there were large protests in almost every single year since 2016

for some reading you can take a look at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/reader/read-online/234eb6fd-85...

There's over 40% of responders that do not claim their religion is Shia, but rather Atheist, Humanist, etc. That's more than the people that define themselves as Shia, in a Shia theocracy. This also correlates with skepticism of government media and rejection of Hijab

[bobxmax]

The same GAMAAN org that in 2020 found 33% of Iran were Shia, and in 2022 reported that number was now 56%?

Religiosity surveys in the middle east are largely bunk. Actual boots on the ground reality is very different. In the 2000s much was made about the rapid secularization of the Arab world. ... in reality, the exact opposite has happened with the youth.

[chgs]

[flagged]

[deepsun]

I know a similar precedent from Belarus, an Eastern European country. The population is way smaller, and their main problem is Moscow in the east, but it's the same sentiment -- please bomb us as we cannot throw out this regime ourselves, yes.

Internet used to joke about US "freedom bombs", but it's taken quite seriously and positively there.

[brabel]

My wife is from Belarus and I have been there many times. What you say in so ridiculous it’s hard to even respond with a serious answer. Just want to point out that they suffered the most under Nazis and would do anything to prevent being in another war.

[tazjin]

US-aligned IT specialists are uniquely propagandized (they're one of the main targets of Western propaganda for good reason - they have outsized influence!), so don't expect many reality-compatible takes on this website.

[FpUser]

I personally friends with many IT people and their families from Belarus (the company I used to work for brought whole bunch to Canada). Not a single one wants their country freedom bombed.

[spacecadet]

Tech is MIC.