[swat535]

> Iran can absorb more pain than the US, but even that has a deadline.

It doesn't. This is the western mentality, thinking you are dealing with sane people.

I'm from Iran (now living in the West), there's a famous Shia motto: "Every day is Ashura, every land is Karbala".

Around 30% of the population are die hard IRGC supporters, another 10% are neutral and the rest don't like the regime.

The problem is that, the war has caused a major rally around the flag effect.

The IRGC has more support than ever now. It's a battle for the Iran now against United States, attempting to destroy people's homes.

I'm not a fan of IRGC. My 20 year old cousin was captured and tortured in Evin prison for 6 months during the Mahsa uprising in 2022 [3]. You can't imagine how much I hate them, but I love Iran more. If I was there, I would be fighting the Americans right now.

Iranians are not going give up, right now, you will have to kill all 90M of us to "win".

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashura

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karbala

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahsa_Amini_protests

[StilesCrisis]

> there's a famous Shia motto: "Every day is Ashura, every land is Karbala".

The shared cultural context is so low that as an American, I have absolutely no idea what this means. If I had to guess, "zealotry" or "patriotism"?

[KabukiOrigin]

Great cultural-disconnect observation. It's more specific than that. Fighting for your survival against an unjust and immoral oppressor who wants to force you to do things you do not want.

[mgfist]

> It doesn't. This is the western mentality, thinking you are dealing with sane people.

I'm not talking about sanity. I understand that the IRGC is greater than the sum of the parts and that no individual life matters.

I'm talking about the oil wells. The IRGC may not care about human life, but you need money to stay in power. Money that will disappear the longer you can't sell your oil and the more oils you have to cap.

> The problem is that, the war has caused a major rally around the flag effect.

I don't believe you. Do you have proof? Iran is pretty damn closed off from the rest of the world so I have a hard time believing that you have some great insider knowledge about this.

> I'm not a fan of IRGC. My 20 year old cousin was captured and tortured in Evin prison for 6 months during the Mahsa uprising in 2022 [3]. You can't imagine how much I hate them, but I love Iran more. If I was there, I would be fighting the Americans right now.

I don't believe you. I'd believe you saying that you'd be against America, but not that you'd be fighting them. If that were true, why are you not traveling to Iran to join the IRGC right now?

[watwut]

> I don't believe you. Do you have proof? Iran is pretty damn closed off from the rest of the world so I have a hard time believing that you have some great insider knowledge about this.

They are not entirely closed off. Apparently there is a communication going on around closures, because I have seen fairly inside Iran info in French media (about executions, about people leaving Teheran etc etc). They are more guarded and dont do strong statements as OP. It is not possible to establish general what people in general think under current conditions. The executions are still going on, no one will randomly admit they are against irgc. But, they are fairly consistent with what he said.

The other consistent thing I heard in interviews (this time by British media) is that Iran is very nationalistic. Even people who hate regime are proud of Iran itself. That makes them more prone toward rally around the flag.

And unfortunately, America made it clear it wants to harm average Iranian. Plus its idea of regime change is to keep regime intact and change head (see Venezuela), so there is no one who would had actual reason to want America win.

[mgfist]

> And unfortunately, America made it clear it wants to harm average Iranian.

By and large this is not true. The US and Israel have hit Iran tens of thousands of times, and have never hit a pure civilian target on purpose. They've hit dual use targets, and accidentally hit civilian targets, but not ones on purpose. They could flatten Tehran if they wanted to hit civilians.

> Plus its idea of regime change is to keep regime intact and change head (see Venezuela), so there is no one who would had actual reason to want America win.

You're not entirely wrong here, and I've seen frustration from the US side that Mojtaba Khamenei is MIA (or dead).

[teh64]

"A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again" - Sounds pretty wanting to harm the average Iranian to me.

[teh64]

Or "We are going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks. We are going to bring them back to the stone ages where they belong."

[_DeadFred_]

I love this 'death to America, death to Israel' crowd saying 'it's just metaphor' getting so worked up over this metaphor as if such statements out completely out of line.

Did you get upset when the Islamic occupiers took over Iran in 1979 and stated 'we have defeated/ended Persian culture/civilization'?

[watwut]

Did you get worked up over USA throwing down democratically elected president and putting hated king into powe? Because that is what preceeded revolution. This line of reasoning about USA feelings being hurt (check notes) in 1979 is profoundly idiotic. Most people here were likely not even alive back then.

And no, it was not metaphore. Trump was threatening them and stating his intent. Israel wants exactly that too. The claim here is not that iran loves america. The claim here is that Iranians hating on country that put in hated king in 1979 is weak argument about how Trump in 2026 wanted.

For that matter, American army is still murdering fishermen, it is not like it had norms against crimes.

[mgfist]

Fair. Still though, the rhetoric does not match what's happened on the ground.

[watwut]

Both USA and Israel hit civilian targets on purpose. Especially Israel who did it also in Lebanon.

Israels attacks on civilian infrastructure are not random or accidental either. They are the literal strategy and goal.

> I've seen frustration from the US side that Mojtaba Khamenei is MIA.

This is just US side being dumb, honestly.

[_DeadFred_]

Why did the Islamic government import militias from Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and put them on the streets if they already have organic support that wants to fight for Iran? That makes no sense, especially when the Islamic government is running short on funds, hiring foreign enforcers that they don't need would be a waste of limited funds.

[thiagoharry]

Ukraine import mercenaries from all over the world. So, you mean that they have no organic support for fighting?

[dh2022]

Re: "I'm talking about the oil wells. The IRGC may not care about human life, but you need money to stay in power." US stopped bombing Iranian oil infrastructure after Iran responded by bombing and taking out a bunch of Qatar's LNG infrastructure for a good 3-5 years [0]. So this problem at least is solved for IRGC.

Re: "I don't believe you. Do you have proof?" - you come off as un-necessary rude and aggressive. You are assuming GP lies - and that is not a good attitude. You could re-phrase your question in a way to make people engage with you.

Re: "If that were true, why are you not traveling to Iran to join the IRGC right now?" Do you understand that Iranians living in the US have different choices than Iranians living in Iran?

[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/19/iran-attack-qatar-lng-capaci...

[mgfist]

> Re: "I'm talking about the oil wells. The IRGC may not care about human life, but you need money to stay in power." US stopped bombing Iranian oil infrastructure after Iran responded by bombing and taking out a bunch of Qatar's LNG infrastructure for a good 3-5 years [0]. So this problem at least is solved for IRGC.

It's not. The problem, which I already wrote in my original comment, is with oil storage. When oil flows, it needs to go somewhere. Before it would go on tankers and be sold to China (and a few others). Now, it goes into storage. But storage is not unlimited. And when storage runs out, the oil wells will need to be capped. If they stay capped for more than a few weeks, those wells become insanely expensive to reactivate, and might not be something the IRGC will be able to do.

This is the clock that's ticking.

> Re: "I don't believe you. Do you have proof?" - you come off as un-necessary rude and aggressive. You are assuming GP lies - and that is not a good attitude. You could re-phrase your question in a way to make people engage with you.

You made statements about what Iranians think. I want some proof, given that the internet is off in Iran and I have seen no reporting around the thoughts of the Iranian people.

[ifyoubuildit]

> I don't believe you

The Trump admin has pretty low approval ratings. If some very hostile country bombed the US, is your default assumption that the folks who despise Trump would somehow support the bombing?

You could probably find a few crazies that would, but wouldn't you assume people would prioritize their hate towards the people blowing up their friends, family, and property?

[mgfist]

> If some very hostile country bombed the US, is your default assumption that the folks who despise Trump would somehow support the bombing?

You're missing some very important context, which is that the IRGC slaughtered between 6,000-36,000 people in January during the protests. And they would've continued for as long as the protests lasted, and still execute people to this day.

> You could probably find a few crazies that would, but wouldn't you assume people would prioritize their hate towards the people blowing up their friends, family, and property?

By and large the strikes have been against military capability, with some strikes against dual use targets and a few unintended strikes against purely civilian targets. The famous strike on the school was because the school had been an army barracks in the past and was not properly updated. This isn't an excuse, but it's to clarify the situation.

[ifyoubuildit]

> You're missing some very important context

If we're talking context, isn't there more to include? Like why those protests were happening in the first place? Did the hostile government cripple your economy first and potentially fund and arm agitators within the legitimate protest movements?

> This isn't an excuse, but it's to clarify the situation.

How confident are you that will clarify anything for the families of those children?

There are no good guys in this situation. Just the people supporting this calamity and the growing number of people affected by it.

[watwut]

There was systematic bombimg of universities by Israel. There was bombing of water treatment plant and basic energy infrastructure.

Claims about it not happening are a lie.

Also, double tap attacks. Even that school was dpuble tapped.