More protests Against The Theocratic Regime in Iran

[Thumpalumpacus]

Everyone today is sceptic about the Crown-Prince Pahlavi. After all his father was (in effect) one of the worst dictators of the 20th century. A bit like today’s MBS but perhaps even worse than him.
 
But this guy said in 2023 in the Women-Life-Freedom movement that he did not want any political power in Iran and that he was now more American than Iranian.
 
Now he is saying that he might play an intermediary role in a transition to a parliamentary monarchy or a total secular Republic.
 
The fact that he is close to Israel and that D. Trump is repeating him while talking to the Iranian people by saying “Take back your institutions, help is on the way” is not a bad thing either.

I think he doesn't have much heft in Iran, especially given his links to America, which sits poorly with Iranian historical memory. I suspect he's probably seen as a puppet -- perhaps useful even to Iranians, but not of lasting value.

[Leonardo17]

Grandnudger:
 
- I am not 100% sure about any of them (I’m talking about Netanyahu too). I am only talking about what should happen or what could happen if we (the rest of the world) were to seize this opportunity.
 
Yesterday (January 13th ) Elon Musk has reduced the price of starlink in Iran:
 
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/free...48247.html
 

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This is how we know that possibly some 12,500 people have crossed to the next level of existence right now
 
This is comparable to the 55,000 deaths of the 2023 Earthquake in South-Eastern Turkey.
 
And I want to add that the Turkish police has dispersed the pro-democracy demonstration in front of the Iranian consulate in Istanbul this weekend.
 
Resisting change is another ego-based attitude. In 1979, this “Islamic Republic” was seen as some sort of shift from the Shah’s increasingly autocratic rule. In today’s world countries (like mine) are experimenting with the 4th or 5th version of political Islam which is also not working (with working classes struggling for daily needs and a quickly enriched elite which is acting like some sort of new aristocracy).
 
The only thing we need to remember is that this is not going to work. Even if the West lifted all the sanction, that regime is still crumbling under its own weight.
 

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Thumpalumpagus:
 
- The world is changing. These 12,500 people (+ the ones that are being incarcerated and will start to be executed) are dying while shouting “Long live Pahlavi”.
 

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Monarchs have this legitimacy that tend to remain unchanged in time. It’s a state model that works well in many Arab countries and other countries like Jordan or Morocco for instance.
 
Besides he has made it clear that he will only be a transitional figure toward a regime that’s other than the Mullah Regime.
 
We need to understand Iran’s situation is very bad. The ordinary people are seen as a mob that is only there to support and serve the new aristocracy that lives a life full of riches and well-being while the ordinary people are unable to live with their salaries (Many cannot afford eggs or meat or turn on the heating in their houses). It’s not like Russia where the Regime is still able to pay good salaries to its people while making the country function in a way that is based on oil sale to China and India and a lot of spending on military industries.
 
These guys know that they are going to die. But in order to be able to live, they need the mullah’s gone. And Pahlavi knows that.
 

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But I really don’t know what Trump and Netanyahu’s plan is. I wasn’t expecting Trump to send these tweet to Iranian protesters. But maybe something is being prepared right now. If that is the case that should be good for the region and beyond.

[The Grand Nudger]

I bet elmo would sell you a fucking kidney right now if the price was right. He set fire to his otherwise very popular business empire when he went full sieg heil. Turns out it's hard to sell electric cars to tree hugging libs while you go doge on all their private data for the mad king. Anybody interested in a one way trip to mars? Discount price if you transport his seed as a carry on!

[Leonardo17]

I not I must have exaggerated a bit. Elon Musk is still a very smart guy. But I am not that sure about him a psychologically balanced person. His personal life is none of my business but he has 14 kids. That’s a high number for a business men who probably lives on a high schedule.
 
And yes, he is a very smart man. But he is not a Steve Jobs or Bill Gates kind of smart guy. He is more of a Jeff Bezos kind of smart guy.
 
So if I met him I would tell him that we are not locusts. We can’t simply consume all the riches of this planet and then move to the next planet (even if we could). That’s the “balance” I think is lacking in this guy.
 
D. Trump on the other hand might be undertaking some very smart moves right now. Maybe, this whole Greenland issue is a distraction (Greenland is only important for submarine activities and that was during the cold war, there is really nothing in Greenland other than some 50,000 “citizens” + ice – lots of ice).
 
Yet Venezuela is the N-1 oil reserve of the planet. Iran is the Third oil reserve of the Planet. Again: they are unable to exploit that oil completely because no investment was done in the oil industry since 1979. That’s very similar to Venezuela’s oil industry. And all of it is going to China (89%).
 
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/oil-rises...51007.html
 
 
So if he takes Venezuela + Iran (or removes the regime there), He gets a lot of leverage against China. He (and following administrations) will have greater leverage on rare-earths that China has a monopoly upon that are crucial for electric batteries, microchips, Tesla Automobiles etc.
 
So D. Trump has this “strong” energy in him. But that’s a very ego-based energy. That’s what Marianne Williamson is pointing out since Trump’s first presidency in 2016.
 
- But he won’t be around in two years and nothing is certain about the continuation of the MAGA movement after him.

[Angrboda]

So D. Trump has this “strong” energy in him. But that’s a very ego-based energy. That’s what Marianne Williamson is pointing out since Trump’s first presidency in 2016.
 
- But he won’t be around in two years and nothing is certain about the continuation of the MAGA movement after him.

I wouldn't bet a lot of money on that.

[Leonardo17]

There is another thing that I would like to add:
 

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I’ve been scrolling through newspapers on the Iranian issue today. I think that this event is showing us the limits of the intellectual class in the West. It reminds me of the inaction of European countries during the genocide in Bosnia in the 1990’s.
 
Some are claiming that there is no alternative to the regime in Iran. That’s because the Mullah’s there own the economy and have basically shared the economy among the Mullah’s, the Basij, regular army generals, the revolutionary guards etc. So the people basically have nothing and they just happen to be allowed to live (in their own country).
 
Second the regime is murdering all opposition figures. There is no opposition to the regime from within or from without. Do you see how similar this is to the communist party in the Soviet Union or to the regime in Caracas?
 
So they conclude that “There is no alternative to the Mullahs”
 
I completely disagree with that. The alternative to the Mullahs is the very people living under their dictatorship.
 
And I am someone who likes browsing through different media outlets in different languages. Everywhere in all news outlets they are inviting these journalists, political scientists, head of civil society organizations etc. Some of them are young, some of them old enough to know the regime of the Shah. All of them Iranians. All of them patriots living in almost all countries of the Europe and America. Reminding us of the true Iranian identity (The exact identity that this regime is trying to eradicated since almost half a century).
 
And many sources are not taking the Crown Prince seriously.
 
First: His father’s regime was not that brutal. The 1970’s was a brutal time. There were two political blocks in the world. There has been a war between Turkey and Greece at that time. In a country like Iran you had to face political Islamists. And you also had to face the left wing who wanted a Soviet-style revolution in Iran. There were civil wars all over south-America. It’s not an exaggeration to say that the world was in a pretty bad shape. So the Shah’s solution was to maintain a firm hold on the entire population of Iran. And even that didn’t work and it ended with him leaving the country rather than starting a bloody civil war.
 
Second: The crown prince is not a dangerous man. In fact he already has everything he wants living in a fine neighborhood of Washington DC. Many people in his shoes would simply do nothing if all that is said about Iran was true.
 
And my final word is this: The Iranian regime belongs to the 80’s and the 90’s. Even other authoritarian countries are not backing the IRI right now. The recent number of deaths in these demonstrations is between 2500 and 12,000. We don’t even have numbers right now.
 
So are probably tools on the table that are available for all foreign actors to use. We don’t get to know those things. But letting this Islamized Communist Party of Iran remain in power is only one of them.
 

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And I think that the current crown-prince is a very courageous man too. D. Trump is repeating his words. Netanyahu has met him several times. This means that there are some options on the table. I think we must take these options more seriously.

[Leonardo17]

Protests against the regime are still continuing in many European countries. While the Mullah’s are trying to present an image of “This is over we have it under control”, the Crown Prince seems to be preparing for a transitional government in Iran:
 




 
 
  What is happening right now is reminding me of Montesquieu’s ideas in “Persian Letters” (1721). Here the French philosopher describes how an authoritarian regime maintains and even promotes human vices and weaknesses therefore creating a vicious circle with a society of weak individuals who will therefore need an authoritarian leader because they are too stupid to rule themselves and the authoritarian leadership promoting these weaknesses so that he/she can dominate this society more easily.
 

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My question is what happens to a society if you rule them for decades or centuries the way the mullahs are running Iran?
In the first stage, anyone with brains who can leave, will leave.
In the second stage, anyone who has courage and bravery will either be liquidated or taken to prison, either killed or traumatized in the long run.
So what is left of this society?
- M.ons, liars, hypocrites, phony people, dishonest people, cowards, weak people etc.
…and anyone who is not a hypocrite will be too scared to speak up for himself / herself.
 
That’s what’s happening in all ancient eastern-bloc countries. Germans are still struggling to integrate what was East-Germany into the rest of the country. That’s because many are lazy, vote for populist parties and tend to blame other ethnic groups for their bad economic situation.
 
You can observe similar stuff in some migrant groups in Europe. There are many people of Middle-Eastern origin in Europe who are very successful and contribute a lot to the local economy. But there are still those who are completely confused, unable to understand Western value of freedom and democracy, unable to understand secularism and the free market in general, who end up being stigmatized and rejected by the rest of society and therefore end-up being non-productive individuals (and that’s the least we can say about them).
 
That’s what European far right leaders are constantly talking about. And they are right in many ways.
 
But what I want to show you is this: Think of what the Mullahs are doing to their own people today. Now imagine this being done to you by coming and going rulers for decades and even for centuries. There is nothing special about what the mullahs are doing. Many ancient rulers of the past would simply liquidate people whenever there was a revolt. If there was a group with different religious thoughts and beliefs, they would simply go all in and try to eradicate them by killing them.
 
The idea of democracy is the idea that we can change political rule in a given country without needing to have body piles in all of our cities.
 
Anyway: When you treat people like that, they gradually lose their ability to be real citizens. They become more likely to become fanatical mobs and/or people who are indifferent to everything who are just happy to keep breathing as long as their Lord or ruling party allows them to breathe.
 
In our age the opposite is happening. People are becoming thinkers and actors who want to be the masters of their own destiny. Their word is being liberated: We like to be able to talk when we beive in something. We like our identities (ethnic, cultural, religious, related to our social class, neighborhood etc.). We like to express us through art and literature, we like to read, to watch, to travel, to meet other people. We are not like those serfs who lived and died on the same spot with a completely uniform and monotonous lifestyle.
 
These are changes in human energy that will only increase in the future. So I wrote this to explain why many individuals with (for instance) middle-eastern origins are the way they are (even in 2026). And I am also talking about the solution. Mao liquidated 50 million Chinese because of this. In his views, the believers in the old ways had to be eliminated in any way that was possible. But as I said, such an attitude is likely to increase the number of compliant, low energy people and will lead to a country in which the number of people who are willing and able to be true, modern and responsible citizens will decrease.
 
So it doesn’t really matter who does what at this point. But in theory, the actions of the crown prince is exactly what Iran needs. And a similar approach is necessary in many south-American countries. You need to take these people and you need to give them a chance to live in their own place with an enhanced sense of self-respect and self-awareness.
 

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It doesn’t matter who will win this. But the same works for the USA. Terrorizing your own citizens by using an organization whose role was to stop uncontrolled migration into the US is not the action of a man who understand the real basis of real democracy. D. Trump does not understand what real democracy is

[Thumpalumpacus]

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Hackers disrupted Iranian state television satellite transmissions to air footage supporting the country’s exiled crown prince and calling on security forces to not “point your weapons at the people,” online video showed early Monday, the latest disruption to follow nationwide protests in the country.

The hacking comes as the death toll in a crackdown by authorities that smothered the demonstrations reached at least 3,919 people killed, activists said. They fear the number will grow far higher as information leaks out of a country still gripped by the government’s decision to shut down the internet.

Meanwhile, tensions remain high between the United States and Iran over the crackdown after President Donald Trump drew two red lines for the Islamic Republic — the killing of peaceful protesters and Tehran conducting mass executions in the wake of the demonstrations. A U.S. aircraft carrier, which days earlier had been in the South China Sea, passed Singapore overnight to enter the Strait of Malacca — putting it on a route that could bring it to the Middle East.


State TV disrupted
The footage aired Sunday night across multiple channels broadcast by satellite from Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, the country’s state broadcaster which has a monopoly on television and radio broadcasting. The video aired two clips of exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, then included footage of security forces and others in what appeared to be Iranian police uniforms. It claimed without offering evidence others had “laid down their weapons and swore an oath of allegiance to the people.”

“This is a message to the army and security forces,” one graphic read. “Don’t point your weapons at the people. Join the nation for the freedom of Iran.”

https://apnews.com/article/iran-protests...fa15b61456

[Leonardo17]

These are some images From Istanbul. A week ago Iranians living in Istanbul where prohibited from manifesting outside the Iranian consulate. So they are seen gathering inside a local café:

https://youtu.be/HGY0vBKdVRQ?t=112
 
   They did obtain a permit and did organize another rally this Friday though:

https://youtu.be/SdFFNX9wRcM?t=1
 
All these rallies are happening in Turkish. Although the two languages are very different Iranians are often very good in learning Turkish.
 

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/And there were counter protests too. But I don’t think these are worth any of anybody’s attention in this world.
 
+ Rich Iranians were seen partying in Eastern-Turkey because they wanted to avoid the instability in their own country.
 
In a Course in Miracles it says “Do not underestimate the vengeance of the ego”. All these “authoritarian” regimes they are constantly playing ball with one another like Turkish authorities blocking democratic demonstrations and local Salafist groups organizing pro-IRI rallies in a time in which thousands of people were being killed by their own state apparatus.
 
So pro-democracy forces need to support one another too. This can be Hong-Kong, or Taiwan, or Russia, or Iran, or (not yet but it seem like it is coming) the US. If we don’t rebalance this broken equilibrium these guys will work together to destroy everything we built just before turning on one another in the Orwellian style world they are hoping to create each one in his/her corner.
 

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These fanatics are so devoted to their madness (enough to crash passenger aircraft into the skyscrapers of a foreign country). So I don’t think it’s old fashion if we all decide to be more openly devoted to our fundamental values (everywhere in the world).

[Leonardo17]

The Shah (or crown Prince) is being very clear about the current state of events:
 
1) He says he didn’t call people to manifest in the streets. He says it was the opposite: The people of Iran hate the IRI so much that they became nostalgic of the monarchy.
2) He has a transition plan and it doesn’t seem like he wants to rule the country as a true monarch.
3) He is reminding us of the fact that the regime does not hesitate to kill its own people. Therefore there has to be some foreign military intervention like the hitting of the revolutionary guards + bringing Iran to a point where it cannot sell oil to anybody anymore.
4) He is reminding us of the situation before the IRI.
 

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See, starting from the 1950’s The US was present in almost all middle-Eastern countries including Afghanistan. They made their profit but they also contributed to development and modernization in these countries. Those were more civilized times with more underdeveloped nations aspiring to greater modernization and a modern way of life. If there is but one region who was completely sacrificed to the cold calculations of the cold war it’s the middle-east. All of these countries had huge oil revenues and this became the main cause of their collapse (or that’s’s how I see it)
 

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