[Cipater]

I work with and know a lot of Shia (non-Iranian) Muslims and listening to them talk about this assassination I'm convinced that the likelihood of attempted terror attacks against the US has increased significantly.

The non-Iranian part is key. Millions of muslims around the world viewed the Iranian theocracy as the only power in the world fighting for Islam. They are devastated.

[somenameforme]

The most interesting thing to me is that he was apparently assassinated while working at his office. It's not like the US/Israeli actions were a secret, yet he seemingly made no effort to secure himself. It's hard not to see this as an intentional martyrdom. So it will be interesting to see whether his calculations were correct, or whether the US' were.

The one thing I think must be true is that I can't imagine an 86 year old cleric was an especially effective leader. So assassinating him is quite the gamble. I'd love to know what the military's chatbots thought about this idea.

[wiseowise]

Prophets are more dangerous when they're dead. At 86 he would either die from old age or fighting "imperialistic, evil" Israel/US.

[_DeadFred_]

This Prophet believed/taught that school girls should be raped before they are executed for not wearing hats so that they can't get into heaven (believing God would judge a child for being raped).

Should a believer/teacher of such things even be called a prophet? Old boy was straight trash with a horrific morality.

[arunabha]

> Should a believer/teacher of such things even be called a prophet? Old boy was straight trash with a horrific morality.

Sadly, that has been a fairly common attribute for a fairly large majority of people anointed as 'prophets' and 'saints'.

[cogman10]

He's not a prophet and he didn't teach that.

You don't need to lie about someone you don't like.

[hu3]

I have no horse in this race but I did find some daunting google results about that.

[cogman10]

I'd love to see a link to them. My cursory googles aren't finding it.

Look, not trying to defend the guy, but I don't like this sort of hyperbole. People have the wrong view on what Iran is like. It's ran by religious fundamentalists, which is bad, but it's also probably one of the more progressive muslim theocracies in the region. People tend to mix up shit that Saudi Arabia does with Iran.

In particular, Iran has a very progressive view on education. They have one of the best educated populations in the middle east (men and women).

[_DeadFred_]

I don't have it bookmarked but he did teach that and had his friend Lajevardi whom he supported and praised carry it out. And his Islamic enforcement police regularly engaged in it. And he has defended his Islamic enforcement police the Basij, whose job is to enforce his teachings, when they have conducted systemic rapes.

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmin...

Here he is defending the practice https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/aug/27/iran-ayatollah...

Amnesty talking about his Basij Islamic enforcement police conducting the practice: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/12/iran-security...

Challenges to his systemic use of rape and if it disqualifies his legitimacy back in 2009 https://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/15/world/middleeast/15iran.h...

2011 Frontline coverage of the practice https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/2011/0...

More coverage of the practice https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1890900/iran-rape-tortu...

In addition to the routine/sactioned religious police rapes how many executions have there been under this moderate? How many women arrested for religious reasons? Under his leadership the death decree against Salman Rushdie was never lifted. How many died of torture in detention after he called for people to be punished? If this is moderation then what does fundamentalism look like?

Hmmm, this may have been a 'mis-interpretation' but it seems odd that it wouldn't, you know, be corrected with a public 'correct' interpretation in all these years and with so much rape being done by religious police serving directly under him. Instead of easily issuing a public statement he defended the rapists indicating that in fact, it was a correct interpretation. https://wncri.org/2015/11/13/female-prisoners-virgins-raped/

[cogman10]

> I don't have it bookmarked but he did teach that and had his friend Lajevardi whom he supported and praised carry it out.

Look, I'm simply not going to believe this claim without evidence.

You are presenting terrible practices in Iran that I disagree with, but that wasn't your original claim.

From the links you've given, rape was because political prisoners were believed to be slaves. That's a despicable and gross practice. It is not, however "school girls should be raped before they are executed for not wearing hats so that they can't get into heaven". The reason for the rape of prisoners was because the prisoners were viewed as slaves, not to keep them from heaven (from what I've read).

> If this is moderation then what does fundamentalism look like?

Relative to the region. Iran has been brutal to it's dissidents and enemies of the state.

However, if you compare the rights of women under Iran vs Saudi Arabia, you'll end up finding that women in Iran have more rights and freedoms. That's what relative means.

I'm not here to defend Khamenei. The reason I pushed back was because, as I said, you don't need to lie about someone you don't like. These are the facts you should present and represent. Talk about how Iran rapes political enemies. That is a horrible practice. But the extreme "He said to rape girls without hijabs and then kill them to keep them from heaven" is just a lie. Hell, you can pretty accurately say "He taught that political prisoners are slaves, which his government used to justify raping female prisoners". That's a true statement that makes him look horrible.

[estearum]

AFAICT nearly everyone who is called a "prophet" by anyone is horrible, no?

Doesn't stop people from killing or dying in their name though.

[somenameforme]

I can't think of anybody, who has significant power, who isn't seen as horrible by somebody else, and often by quite a lot of somebody elses. With power people always end up trying to make the world a better place. The problem is one man's better place is another's dystopia.

[Cipater]

>I'd love to know what the military's chatbots thought about this idea.

What a mad world we're hurtling ourselves into.

[mindslight]

"You're thinking about this just like a professional warfighter would"

I'd say the main contemporary dynamic of the times is hallucination. Not necessary by LLMs per se, but rather by the humans wielding them to mainline their own bullshit.

In a way Grump himself is just society's own embodied hallucination from decades of Republican marketing hopium. Some scraps of dignity are surely about to trickle down any day now, once those mean libuhruls are out of the way.

(the "warfighter" terminology-coddling obviously coming from the user prompt)

[ifwinterco]

Supposedly he had a very deep bunker under his house but he came up for meetings.

So the real problem for Iran is that mossad seem to know exactly when he was vulnerable i.e. there are spies within the inner circles of the IRGC

Edit: Or some very effective high tech surveillance, but that's also not good news to put it mildly

[urikaduri]

He was assasinated during a meeting with many other high ranking members of the regime. I doubt they decided on collective suicide.

[throwawayheui57]

> intentional martyrdom

He didn’t play 4D chess. I’d bet on pure hubris.

[dotancohen]

Why would you assume that someone with decades of experience could not be an effective leader?

[throwaway173738]

People lose cognition as they age.

[sethev]

And gain experience

[somenameforme]

In every field where competence can be objectively measured, experience does not endlessly correlate with competence. There's always a growth phase but then there's a bell curve of age vs competence, that reaches a peak and then there's a constant decline from there. So for instance chess is primarily a mental game, yet the decline comes as early as one's mid thirties for world class players.

I'm fully willing to accept that for a field where scenarios are fuzzier and intuition more important, it may well be that peak on the bell curve comes somewhat later. But I think it's essentially inconceivable that one is near, or even remotely near, their peak, in their 80s, in anything.

[sethev]

>There's always a growth phase but then there's a bell curve of age vs competence

A bell curve tracks the distribution of a single random variable. You're mixing statistical metaphors.

[acdha]

That’s true, but it’s not always good—Americans have stark examples of the risks of octogenarian leaders whose experience leads them astray by discounting how much the world has changed since they were young.

I think of mental faculties and experience as two separate overlapping curves where there’s a sweet spot in the middle where both are high but either one being low can become a big problem.

They also just don’t have the same energy they used to so even if they have a good idea they’ll be less effective at motivating people to embrace it, and the younger people behind them are going to be acting with more thought to succession politics.

[foldr]

Biden's surely a poster child for the value of experience and connections in the Presidency. Whatever you think of him (and I would certainly agree that he should never have considered a second term), he was quite successful in furthering his agenda while in office.

[simmerup]

But dude was 86, how many people in nursing homes would you trust to run a country?

[dotancohen]

Probably one in a thousand.

But as one whom the Ayatollah has sworn to eliminate, I can still state that man was sharp and brilliant and extremely well spoken. His worldview was internally consistent. He had vision and experience and knew how to motivate people. He was a one in ten million leader.

I give him that praise and more, even recognising that his stated mission was to exterminate myself and my children.

[leonvoss]

And as we can see with Biden and Trump, 86 is past the the optimal compromise between experience and cognition.

[cookiengineer]

Tell that to the US regime, too?

[polishdude20]

Many do!

[wvlia5]

Because he would be senile.

[simon666]

Being of an advanced age does not necessitate becoming senile. Do you have evidence that the Ayatollah was senile or trending in that direction?

[FireBeyond]

I'd say, too, that judging by the current President's speeches, there's probably good evidence towards him being or becoming senile/demented.

[kjfarm]

I think the responses are very diverse throughout the region. Got example, in Karachi protestors gathered outside a consulate https://apnews.com/article/pakistan-protesters-attacked-us-c...

But inside Tehran (and in my neighborhood of D.C.) there have been celebrations https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/28/world/middleeast/iran-kha...

[RaftPeople]

I have a friend that left Iran just before the Shah was overthrown. Over the years he has gone back multiple times to visit family and friends etc.

He told me years ago that the majority in Iran were not aligned with the new regime, it was a minority of the population that were.

[konart]

>But inside Tehran...

where both celebrations and sorrow

[throwawayheui57]

of course. How do you think they systematically massacred so many people in so many cities during the protests. All those personnel are now devastated.

[Cipater]

Any celebrations are an indicator but are far from the entire picture.

Wouldn't there be celebrations in the US if Trump died? What conclusions would you draw from that?

[muzani]

Exactly. Oddly enough most countries have politics split down the middle. A left and right. Up and down. Rarely even a 2/3 majority.

If you wanted to find people celebrating, you'd find people celebrating.

But my opinion is more often than not, you have two bad guys fighting each other for the top spot. They don't support Option B because they're dumb, they support B because Option A would sell his mom for power, while Option C would just become a puppet to A.

[estearum]

It's a lot easier to agree Current Guy Bad than it is to agree on who Next Guy should be

[rayiner]

Judging by George W. Bush’s approval rating right after 9/11, it probably wouldn’t be very many.

[estimator7292]

9/11 was the first major attack on the continental US in living memory. It was literally a world-altering event for most of the population, and it radically changed the geopolitical calculus of the average citizen.

Lots of american citizens demanded retaliation. Our counterattacks weren't sanctioned by congress, but they were by the people.

Meanwhile, the current president just started a war based on a temper tantrum and an attempt to distract the population.

These aren't really the same thing.

[rayiner]

I agree with you that the Iran strike is an effort to distract the public from Trump’s failure to bring down grocery prices like he promised: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wag_the_Dog

I was addressing the hypothetical of how Americans would react if Trump was killed by a foreign country in airstrikes similar to how the Ayatollah was killed. I think Americans would react like they did after 9/11, instead of celebrating like many are in Iran.

[hollerith]

I agree. Half the country would be happy if an entity composed of Americans killed Trump, but most of those would be unhappy with a non-American entity doing it. Or at least I hope they would.

[bdangubic]

if starting a war in the middle east gets you high approval ratings after campaigning as “presdent of peace” and crying like a little bitch trying to get nobel “peace” prize, the downfall of America is coming a lot sooner than most are ballparking (we are well on the way)

[jfengel]

You may be right, but a lot has changed in the last quarter century. The 9/11 attacks came at a time when the Cold War had just ended and the dotcom boom had just given us a strong economy. There was a lot of resentment over the 2000 election but it didn't seem like the end of the world.

Since then public discourse has almost completely broken down. The President spends his days thinking of insults, and has deployed masked armed forces against civilians. As bitter as 2000 was, it's nothing compared to January 6 2021.

I imagine the details would depend on the circumstances. Say, a targeted assassination versus killing thousands of civilians. But I'm not so sure that things would look anything like 9/11.

[woodruffw]

Bush’s approval rating benefited from the US being attacked, and then responding. Trump has the order wrong; preemptively attacking countries (even bad ones) doesn’t poll very well with Americans.

(This is ahead of Trump’s base being isolationist; it’s not even clear who wants this besides conventional hawks.)

[rayiner]

I think it’s just wagging the dog: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wag_the_Dog.

Combined with the fact that the media will be confused about how to respond. You’ll have Iranian diaspora celebrating, like Venezuelans did after the capture of Maduro, making it impossible for the media to frame this simply in terms of “Trump is racist.” As a result, the whole thing will get memory holed, just like the Venezuela attack.

[woodruffw]

That’s a very different argument than it being similar to 9/11!

[Cyph0n]

Now imagine if Bush & his family were assassinated by AQ on 9/11, and you’ll understand why the majority of Iranians inside Iran will not be celebrating.

[bsaul]

i don't think any american would celebrate if trump was killed by a foreign army bombing the country.

Whereas french did celebrate US planes bombing nazis on their soil.

[kbelder]

Some would; you see some in this thread. But only a fringe, thankfully.

[arbitrary_name]

speak for yourself.

[anon291]

I mean Pakistan is a nation founded on the idea that Muslims cannot live with non Muslims. /R/Pakistan is currently talking about this. What do you expect?

[nerdyadventurer]

> But inside Tehran

This is done by diaspora lead by US, they started destroying public resources first and created public unrest on top of falling Rial due to sanctions, this lead the govt take matters in to their hands. Cunning US indeed, always playing cheap tricks.

[rayiner]

> The non-Iranian part is key. Millions of muslims around the world viewed the Iranian theocracy as the only power in the world fighting for Islam

Yup. My Bangladeshi relatives who have no stake in Iran are upset. I suspect the lady who cuts my daughter’s hair—who was an accountant back in Iran and celebrated when Jimmy Carter died—is over the moon.

[anon291]

We cannot continue like this where one religion gets to get mad whenever they do not achieve utter dominance.

[vovavili]

I have seen major celebrations here in a major Dutch city. If anything, my bet is that overall balance of Muslim opinion on the West has probably shifted to be more favorable.

[jojobas]

Both can be true at the same time.

[dotancohen]

Are you suggesting that the US should appease Muslim ideology, under threat of terror?

[Cipater]

No, I am telling you about people's sentiments. You are not required to do anything with the information.

[nerdyadventurer]

This is not about Muslim idealogy at all, it is US want to play god on who to have nukes or not. Similar to Libiya WMD.

[Kinrany]

Men have been trying to decide who's allowed to own big sticks forever, there's no "playing god" involved

[lm28469]

> Muslim idealogy

If you can't differentiate muslims from islamists you can probably keep your comments for yourself...

[dotancohen]

If you can not recognise that Muslims overwhelmingly support Islamist extremists, then maybe you should not tell others who have quite the experience in the matter, to keep their comments to themselves.

[spaghetdefects]

Terror attacks? I think you mean self-defense, as the US/Israel just bombed Iran with no justification at all. That is a terror attack.

[rayiner]

I’m quite sympathetic to the general assertion that the U.S. launches unprovoked attacks on random countries that didn’t attack the U.S. Iraq being the most egregious example.

But Iran is perhaps the least sympathetic actor on that front. Iran has been attacking the U.S. and its proxies for no reason for decades: https://www.britannica.com/event/1983-Beirut-barracks-bombin....

Tehran is a thousand miles away from Tel Aviv. Iran has no rational self-interest in whatever is going on between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Iran got itself involved in that conflict because it inexplicably chose to involve itself in that conflict.

[regularization]

> Iran has been attacking the U.S. and its proxies for no reason for decades

Iran did not attack the US and Lebanese Shia did not attack the US. Israel invaded Lebanon and the US went in in August 1982. This allowed for the Istaeli allies to perform the Sabra and Shatila massacre. About six months later the US embassy was bombed. Then the barracks was bombed.

The US eas not attacked, the US sent troops into Lebanon, which helped allow for the massacres which took place, and Lebanese attacked the US barracks that came into their country a year earlier.

[rayiner]

> About six months later the US embassy was bombed. Then the barracks was bombed.

By whom? Passive voice doing a lot of work.

[estearum]

Aren't Iran's interests in Israel pretty analogous to the US's?

Regional security and holy book brainmush?

[rayiner]

That’s my point. The U.S. certainly can’t complain it’s catching strays either. It chooses to involve itself in that conflict.

[spaghetdefects]

Iran has not attacked the US. Israel has though, just look at the Epstein files.

[ChoGGi]

Well, no they were trying to get Epstein out of his bunker... I mean free the oil from the people, err no, the people from the regime.

Someone start playing fortunate son.

[jo6gwb]

Well that's an awfully Islamophobic take. Never has a condition been so aptly named.

This morning's terror attack in Austin was perpetuated by one wearing a "property of Allah" shirt.

The world need not continue to live with and accept Islamic barbarism, and the people of the US will not bend to the sword of the Mullahs or your Shia coworkers.

[Cipater]

People are what they are.

You can take the information I have provided into consideration when you build your internal worldview or you can ignore it.

There is no call to action here. It's just data.

[markus_zhang]

The "good" part is that Sunni Muslims probably won't have the same feeling, or do they?

But I agree with the assessment. I'd definitely avoid large public events. Darn the world is becoming more and more chaotic and we are just waiting for China to put up the last piece to make it into 19th Europe.

[dotancohen]

Sunni Muslims generally oppose Shias in Muslim-internal matters, and vice versa. But they both generally support the other in matters against non-Muslims.

[armenarmen]

Arab Bedouin proverb "I against my brother; I and my brother against my cousin; I and my brother and my cousin against the world”

[CoastalCoder]

> China to put up the last piece to make it into 19th Europe.

Could you elaborate for us non-historians?

[bluedevil2k]

Taking over Taiwan.

[rayiner]

Sunni Muslims will be upset too, because Israel was involved.

[skissane]

> Sunni Muslims will be upset too, because Israel was involved.

Some will be.

I saw on X a video of some Taliban commander saying nobody should cry for Khamenei, because "Israel and Iran are two sides of the same unbeliever coin"

Many hardline Sunnis view Shi'a as non-Muslims.

[markus_zhang]

Upset enough to get into terrorism?

[rayiner]

Probably not.

[lm28469]

Why do you bring up China here? Trump has done more harm to the west in 10 years than China in the last century

[markus_zhang]

No I'm trying to say, when China decides to copy the behavior of US, especially when her economy turns downwards again, will be the last piece of the puzzle (that shows up the end of the old world).

[jpster]

> the likelihood of attempted terror attacks against the US has increased significantly.

And one wonders if a terror attack on US soil would be the justification POTUS uses to cancel elections

[nailer]

The fact that millions of muslims worshipped a terrorist is not sufficient justification to submit to terrorism.

[UltraSane]

Sunni Muslims hate the Iranian regime and consider Shia to be heretics

[esalman]

I am Sunni and I condemn the attack.

Having said that, I also condemn Iranian regime killing (reportedly) 30000 protesters. So he probably had it coming.

I'm more concerned about what happens to US now, because I think the attack indicates a complete failure and collapse of the legislative branch of the US government.

[koolba]

> I'm more concerned about what happens to US now, because I think the attack indicates a complete failure and collapse of the legislative branch of the US government.

Why now? Why not when they took out Soleimani in 2020? Or when they invaded and took out Gaddafi in 2011? Can keep going all the back to Truman invading Vietnam.

[esalman]

I don't know. Have Congress and Senate always been this ineffective? I don't remember Obama, Biden or even Trump 45 act with this much impunity. I obviously can't go further back because I have been here since Obama's second term.

[amalcon]

The Iran-Contra scandal from the Reagan administration comes to mind. Congress explicitly de-authorized the executive from funding the Contras in Nicaragua. The executive kept doing it anyway. Nobody faced any consequences, though Congress at least made a lot of noise about it.

That's kind of ineffective, but not to this level where Congress is just fine with blatant illegality.

[bsenftner]

Oh, there is no effective US Government beyond Trump's demands. he's decimated anyone that could challenge, and the general public was manufactured without the critical analysis to understand. The USA is over and gone, the US is a headless zombie nation operated by 7th graders, pedos, and drug addicts. All they need is a social following and loyalty, and they are part of the government.

[nerdyadventurer]

Cannot believe so called great country, elected a convicted felon.

[daveguy]

The collapse happened when we elected a power drunk fool with a Project 2025 playbook to completely strip the separation of powers in favor of the Executive branch.

Now the war fool is trying to start as many conflicts as possible inside and outside the US to distract from his disturbingly heavy Epstein involvement to give him an excuse to take over polling sites in the US. No more wars my rear.

We have a chance to recover in the November elections by voting out his puppets and tools in congress. The question is whether or not we will take it.

[inglor_cz]

This is not completely true. The Iranian regime gained some credibility in the Sunni world by strongly supporting the Palestinian cause.

You can bet that every anti-war demonstration in the West now will have as many Palestinian flags as flags of the Iranian Islamic Republic.

Stranger coalitions have been put together by politics...

[UltraSane]

Oh boy flying the flag of the Islamic Republic in the US would get so much blowback. Everyone knows how incredibly evil it is. It recently killed at least 20,000 protestors to stay in power.

[mfru]

I hope the people doing the blowback also blowback against flying US flags, a country that is famously responsible for so, so many deaths.

[UltraSane]

You think flying the US flag INSIDE the US will have blowback?

[chasd00]

There were Hamas flags in the streets of NYC on Oct 8th 2023. Some people will gladly support anything.

[hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm]

Only people who live on social media believe these extreme views to be true. Most muslims hardly even know the difference or care.

[Cipater]

While the comment you replied to was "extreme", it is impossible for any muslim to not know the difference when the difference defines everything about how they practice their religion.

[hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm]

Are you muslim? In the real world most muslims are not that religious and hardly follow what is taught to perfect precision. They would not be able to answer the difference except in vague terms at best.

[Cipater]

No, I am not muslim.

Every single muslim, whether devout, practicing, lapsed or whatever, knows whether they are/were Sunni or Shia. They are literally born into it. It determines who is seen as the authority in matters of their faith, the way they pray, the sites they consider holy, the religious days they observe. Even Ramadan starts and ends on different days depending on which you are.

It's such a fundamental thing that I question whether you have any idea about what you're saying here.

[Marsymars]

I don't know much about Islam, but what's being described isn't uncommon for lapsed Christians. I know plenty of people in my orbit (including me) who went to mass on Christmas Eve and Easter as children, but literally wouldn't be able to answer if the curch they went to was Catholic or Protestant.

[UltraSane]

I can assure you all Shia and Sunni are very much aware of their religious differences.

[newyankee]

Well if you take religious interpretations to do the extreme they hate all 'non believers'. I am assuming that even the Sunni Muslim countries' average population might not be that happy with the bullying (their perception)

[Cipater]

Every single one of them?

There are many Sunnis who view their leadership as "traitors to the cause" and respected Iranian defiance especially against Israel.

It's far from black and white.

[UltraSane]

Promising to destroy Israel is a lot more than just "defiance". Israel's existence has no significant effect on Iran but Iran is strangely obsessed with destroying it to Iran's own detriment.

[SegfaultSeagull]

First, the Islamic Republic was not “the only power fighting for Islam.” It was fighting to expand Iranian state power under a religious banner. There’s a difference. The regime’s foreign policy has consistently followed geopolitical logic: expanding influence through proxies in Lebanon (Hezbollah), Gaza (Hamas and PIJ), Iraq (Shi’a militias), Syria (Assad), and Yemen (Houthis). That’s empire-building through asymmetric warfare, not some abstract defense of the global ummah.

Second, Islam itself is not a single centralized political bloc. The idea that “millions of Muslims” saw Tehran as their champion ignores deep sectarian and national divides. Sunni-majority states like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, and Turkey have spent decades actively countering Iranian influence. Many Arabs view Persian expansionism with suspicion for historical reasons that predate modern geopolitics by centuries. Even within Shi’a communities outside Iran, loyalty to Tehran is far from universal.

Third, the Islamic Republic’s model is explicitly totalitarian: clerical rule, suppression of dissent, morality police, imprisonment of reformers, execution of protesters. Calling that “fighting for Islam” collapses a complex global religion into one revolutionary state ideology. Many Muslims—Sunni and Shi’a—despise the regime precisely because it fuses religion with authoritarian control.

As for retaliation risk: yes, whenever a regime that funds proxy groups is hit, the risk of attempted attacks rises. That’s true by definition. But that risk has existed for decades already because of the regime’s own strategy of exporting violence. The question isn’t whether risk increases from zero. It’s whether removing a state sponsor that systematically arms, trains, and finances militant networks reduces long-term capacity for global destabilization.

Iran was not some neutral spiritual defender of the faith. It was a regional power using religion as a mobilizing ideology while building a cross-border militia network.

That distinction matters.

[steve-atx-7600]

Sounds like you should report them to the fbi then

[Cipater]

You seem to have misread my comment.

None of the people I know and have spoken to are capable of or even thinking of violent retaliation.

I am extrapolating from their sentiments that someone out there will be moved to violence.

[ndsipa_pomu]

This is likely what the USA fascists want - some Islamic terrorist attacks (possibly false flag operations) will provide a justification for removing non-whites from the USA.

[reactordev]

I was just saying this to someone this morning. Iran’s theocracy was the only one that has withstood the Middle East political wars in Jordan, Syria, Afghanistan, etc.

To rephrase it… if The Middle East was the UK, Iran would be British. If the Middle East was the US. Iran would be California.

[quotz]

> The Middle East was the UK, Iran would be British.

Did you mean England perhaps, not "British"?

[krapht]

Why? Is Scotland innocent?

[ndsipa_pomu]

Scotland is almost certainly innocent, though the Scottish people may not be.

Anyhow, the worst crimes of colonialism/genocide were mainly conducted by the English (including invading/killing plenty of Scottish, Welsh and Irish people).

[breppp]

Jordan political system is much older than Iran, as well as the Saudis and others. Iran theocracy is a new phenomena in the Middle East, ushering the implementation era of political Islam, later continued by ISIS, Hamas and the milder Qatar and current Turkey

[reactordev]

Not debating who came first. I’m also not debating that Saudi’s are equivalent to the French to the Iranians (if they were England in my UK analogy, or Texas for the US one).

I also don’t think that, in general, there’s any animosity there just talking size and influence over the region. Iran and Saudi are/were it. It’s a really interesting dynamic of faith, tradition, authoritarianism, and manipulation.

[animuchan]

Another good analogy would be, said theocracy is (was?) like a very bad piece of legacy code, impossible to refactor, until the entire feature gets thrown in the trash.

[reactordev]

That’s a greater analogy

[dfc]

I was with you until you said California. You think that Californians are understand Southern or Midwestern culture?

[reactordev]

Not about culture. Size and GDP.

[everdrive]

Well except for all those Shia in Iraq who more closely followed Ali al-Sistani. I still imagine they're not very happy all the same though.

[anon291]

and millions of Orthodox Jews view Israel as defending Judaism. So what? Maybe all the people who are willing to shoot and kill for their holy book should be put into an area and bomb each other to death

Would make a good reality tv show and an excellent warning on the danger of religious fundamentalism.

[weregiraffe]

Oh, so they ARE in fact death cultists! Thanks for confirming that, I guess there's a lot more work for bombs.

[echelon_musk]

I can't recommend Heretic by Ayaan Hirsi Ali enough.

[Cipater]

I don't think doctrinal reformation is possible with Islam.

The Qur'an is totally prescriptive. It contains direct legal commands, judicial rules and explicit government principles which are all binding and considered as direct divine speech.

I think Westernisation and an increase in the number of "casual" muslims is and will continue to be the moderating effect.

Think of what is happening in Europe (as the clearest example) with the influx of Muslim immigrants who raise increasingly more assimilated children as the blueprint.

[delichon]

The cultural gulf between left and right in the US is expanding rather than being assimilated or adapting. There is nothing stopping the same thing from happening between immigrants and natives in the EU. Both cases involve fundamentaly irecconcilable values, and it just depends on which values prove more viral.

[stickfigure]

I'm not sure the left/right cultural gulf will last beyond Trump. I'm not even sure it's still alive now, with Trump's approval ratings in the toilet. The US political system takes time to cycle and isn't on the same schedule as the political pendulum.

[CoastalCoder]

For those of us who haven't read it, could you explain why it's salient on this topic?

[dotancohen]

It's an English language book aimed for Westerner readers. It purports to argue that the core strategy for spreading Islam - terror - is not compatible with Western values. It also states that other features of Islam are incompatible with Western values, such as repression of women. The book argues that since these ideologies are incompatible with Western values, they must be abandoned.

However, the abandonment argument is only valid if one already accepts Western values as an axiom - which being an English-language book most of the readers would agree with. These readers will perceive the book to promote the reform of Islam into a religion that resembles a modern Christian denomination, just with different idols and prayers and holidays.

However those who do not come from the perspective of modern Christian values and as axiomic, will reject the argument outright. This is the Muslim population who might read it.

[anon291]

To be totally frank, Islam is the odd one out.

You can call it 'Western' values or 'Christian' values or whatever in order to make it seem chauvinistic all you want, but the simple truth is that these values are often shared by many other religions and places. As an example, look at the success of the Indian Hindus and the Chinese / East Asian Buddhists in the United States and across the globe. For a reverse example, contrary to popular belief, Christians, Sikhs, and Jains in Hindu-majority India are actually richer and more educated on average.

Time and time again, if you go look at the data, you'll find that Islam is almost always the odd one out.

The Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs, Taoists, etc can all be made to get along with Christians or 'the West'. There is really only one pretty much universally problematic religion, and that's Islam. You can argue this point all you want, but the entirety of Islamic history shows it to be true. You can again (correctly, in some cases) point out various bad actions from Christians (or Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, etc), but the simple truth is this: it's pretty easy today, in 2025, to imagine how to get along with these people. In places with diverse populations and migrants from these places, there is barely any violent religious conflict. At most you get some fundies in a tizzy over someone else doing their thing.

The only one that consistently performs violence is Islam. And that's something Muslims need to figure out. They don't need to abandon their religion. And they certainly do not need to be harmed for their beliefs. But, they do need to figure out how to integrate with the rest of the world in 2025 in a pluralistic global society.

[ndsipa_pomu]

You seem to be mixing up "Western values" and "Christian values" whereas Christian values are very much against the accumulation of wealth, whereas "Western values" seem to be all about worshipping wealth to the exclusion of all other considerations and even worshipping those who deliberately exploit others to amass an ungodly amount of wealth.

[dotancohen]

If you think that small difference means that Western values are not Christian values, then you have no idea how large the gulf between your values and Islamic values are.

Do you value separation of state and religious authority? Women's rights? Minority rights? Human dignity? Equality before the law? Sanctity of life? Individual moral responsibility? Monogamous marriage? The objective study of history? Fair trial? Witnesses at trial? Tolerance of alternative viewpoints?

[master_crab]

Most of these arguments on the effect of different religions tend to be a bit silly. Islam is much more related to Christianity and Judaism than either of those two are to each other.

Language, cultural history, and geography tend to play a bigger role on society than the monotheistic religions do.

[ndsipa_pomu]

Those values seem to be exactly the ones being discarded by the Christo-fascists of the USA.

My point is that the so-called Christian values are nothing to do with the reported teachings of Jesus and instead are used to justify the exact opposite.

[jimmydoe]

Anyone live in a metro in a major western country should feel legitimately feared, the chance of lone wolf just 100x-ed.