[don_esteban]

I have lived through regime change in Eastern Europe in 1989. A year before the change, one cannot imagine the regime change. And yet, it did happen. Bloodlessly (except Romania).

Any external meddling would have probably made it much bloodier.

You can be assured most Iranians do NOT want US to intervene. How many Americans want China/Russia to intervene to 'help' you get rid of Trump?

Get off your high horse and use a bit of empathy and common sense.

[hunterpayne]

Empathy in this case apparently meaning allowing continued funding of terrorism across the ME and continued killing of any and all political opposition inside of Iran. So empathetic you are. Also, I'm totally sure your memories of what life was like when you were 5 are totally and completely accurate and captures the entirety of the geopolitical realities of the situation.

[don_esteban]

Empathy means understanding that nationalism is a powerful force and even people who are against their government would support their government against external aggressor.

Empathy means that you understand that what YOU consider terrorism might mean 'supporting self-determination of oppressed and occupied people' by somebody else. Is it so difficult to understand that ordinary Iranians do not see their government as international supporters of terrorism?

I was 19 in 1989. While I do not claim to understand geopolitical realities in their entirety, I was old enough to distinctly remember how surprising the fall of communism felt. Despite almost all people I knew being (low-level, passive) anti-communists, nobody saw it really coming until the last few months. In fact, in June 1989, I had a choice to make - either to go to a competition to West Germany, or go with friends hiking to Caucasus. The choice was obvious - go to West Germany, who knows when will be the next chance to see The West. On the other hand, I could go to Caucasus anytime.... we know how that turned out to be.

[Galaxeblaffer]

I'm sure there was tons of external meddling in most of eastern Europe before the many regime changes. It's very hard to draw any comparison between 80s eastern Europe and today's Iran. I don't think you really fathom how ingrained the regime really is. First of all Iran is huge and very rich in resources which makes the regime very rich and iran is technically self sufficient with food and energy. second, the regime has evolved and learned from the mistakes if other regimes making sure to have large foreign armies that don't give a shit about the Iranian people as long as the money keeps flowing, i could go on.

Also you seem to not grasp that the current regime are viewed as invaders forcing Islamic rule which I'm pretty sure is very very different from the scenarios your mentioning. And even in your scenario, if Trump really succeeds in destroying American democracy and takes everyone's guns away and closes the internet to the world and starts killing every and all opposition and terrorizes America for 40 years I'm pretty sure you'd like who ever the duck is capable of removing that to intervene. And it's not like I'm making it up, i happen to have many Iranians in my family, and many of them living in Iran still and i can assure you that the vast majority in the big cities want the US to kill off the regime. I'm sure there's some kind of rural population that loves sharia like the us has maga, but i don't think they are the majority any more.

[Rover222]

Equating Trump to the systems in China/Russia is absurd. You have no concept of what losing free speech really means if you think that's an accurate comparison.

Not saying that what's happening with ICE is okay. But it's a very sheltered view to think that is at all equivalent to what happens in those countries if you actively protest against the govt.

[don_esteban]

I am not equating Trump to China/Russia.

For Iranians, USA is strong foreign country that is hostile to them.

For Americans, Russia/China are (relatively) strong foreign countries that (they think) are hostile to them.

As Americans would NOT like if Russia/China was influencing their internal matters (Russia gate ?), so would Iranians NOT like if USA was deciding who is going to govern over them.

First, they are a proud nation with long history. Second, they have a very good reason (many historical precedents) to believe USA will not act in the interests of Iranian people, but in their own (and Israel's) interests.

[seanmcdirmid]

We know what losing free speech is like, we are living it with Trump. The Chinese and Russians don’t know what it’s like to lose free speech because they never had it.

It’s exactly because we compare against a just a corrupt government directly over a short period of time that our experience is fairly unique in the world.