I think Iran has elections, it’s just that the council of guardians approves the candidates. My preference is for the council to step down and removal of the position of supreme leader, but we keep the rest intact. Where do the council/supreme leader powers go? Which body picks up the slack, or do we create a new branch of government?
Or maybe we should stop sanctioning them. I think if we did, the regular people might stop protesting and our government might have to admit that theocracy might actually be able to deliver on the material needs of its citizens.
Correct. Also, the Supreme Leader is just that - he can override any decision made by the government.
Elections would be good, with an international body overseeing them to ensure they’re carried out properly.
The colleague I mentioned earlier reported today that he’s lost contact with his family. They have Starlink, but either it’s been disabled or Tehran knows how to jam it.
The poster you responded to inhabits a right-wing clicks by anecdote only online echo chamber….
So hardly surprising he missed the rest of the civilised world responding.
On another note…this is a mistake on the part of the US:
Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff met in secret with Reza Pahlavi, the exiled former Iranian crown prince, last weekend, Axios reported. A senior US official told the outlet the pair discussed the protests. In previous messages that have been blocked by the Iranian government internet shutdown, he has said that he is ready to lead a transition. He has also pushed for a referendum and nonviolent change in the country.
Quite a lot of older people in Iran (in positions of power and influence) remember the Shah and how brutal he was, so there is zero chance they will back him.
The question to ask is: is there any other widely-known individual, with an identity independent of the current regime, that is ready to step in as an interim head of government?
The older generation might have ugly memories of the Shah, but have you looked at Iran’s demographic pyramid? That’s a minority of Iran’s adult population, and Iran’s modern history is one where young adults have been particularly active in agitating for change (e.g., overthrowing the Shah).
I’d be skeptical of the selection of Pahlavi because of the history of the prior regime, but sons are not always like their fathers.
I was aware of this story a couple of days before seeing it mentioned on cnn.com (US). Sure, it’s a big story now getting heavy coverage, but the not-left press was on it earlier.
The protests have been covered by the NYT for weeks. And pretty sure it’s been continuously on the front page since the crackdown turned into a massacre. It’s just not the top news item.
FA is correct, it’s weird nobody bothered made a new topic, though not that weird since there’s now like 4 people who regularly post here.
It’s a mess of things. the internet forum is dying as a concept. and the AO was nuked by dw simpson, so the population here is low even if you ignore political.
But yes, also political is extra dead because nobody wants to defend trump. It’s just a losing argument. Of course you’re welcome to try.
Or to talk about other topics, many of which actually have two sides.
There are things about Trump v1 that I would be willing to defend. The woman I’m dating almost broke up with me for saying that before I clarified, but I agree with things like avoiding foreign wars and taking a strong stance against China, albeit not the way he actually executed those policies.
But Trump v2 is a clusterfuck that is worse than my negative expectations.
In terms of Iran, I have some overlapping views with Iran and Venezuela in that both regimes are evil and do horrible things to their populace. And it would be great if one could wave a magic wand and replace them with a reasonable government without bloodshed. But I have no idea what should actually be done given the utter failure of essentially every attempt to ever enact regime changes by force.
I’m not sure that most of us sitting here in the “west” would know who the potential players inside Iran might be.
I know over the last few election cycles there’ve been a number of people that the Iranian populace supported but they were blocked by the Ayatollah, etc.
I suspect it would be a mistake to appoint someone living outside Iran into this role.
Why should we have a strong stance against China anyways? They might invade Taiwan, but they’re not gonna invade us. If they conquer Taiwan, we’ll be buying chips from the PRC instead of the ROC, and then we’ll normalize relations, because we don’t have much beef with China other than the Taiwan thing.