[nomilk]

Are there any accurate sources on how many Iranian citizens the Iran regime has killed in the past couple of months? (some sources suggest tens of thousands, but I wonder if it could be a 'WMDs' situation [lie to get support for a war]).

Trump said in the State of the Union [0]:

> in just over the past couple of months with the protests they've killed at least 32000 protestors

And just moments ago Trump says 'tens of thousands' [1]

Is this confirmed or conjecture?

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4l-iErpskb8&t=1h21m20s

[1] https://x.com/realDonaldTrump/status/2027651077865157033

[usrnm]

I don't get that argument at all. Americans felt that they were missing out on all the fun, so they decided to kill even more Iranians? Does anyone really believe that bombing cities saves lives?

[bawolff]

Whether it will in this case i don't know.

But yes, i do think sometimes war can be a net positive for civilians over the alternative in the long term. Not often, but sometimes.

[RiverStone]

They’re not nuking Tehran, they’re dropping targeted bombs on government/military sites.

Get in touch with your local Iranian community. You’d be surprised how much they’re cheering the bombing on.

You might be surprised that people inside Tehran are shouting “get the mullahs out” and cheering us on.

[bawolff]

I think its incredibly difficult to get confirmed numbers in a situation like that.

I do think its on the higher end though as i dont think they would have bothered with a costly extended internet blackout if the number was small.

[epsters]

Why are we even talking about this? As if this is being done for the 'protestors'? Netanyahu didn't visit the White House 6 times in the last year to advocate for the welfare of the Iranian people. The "negotiations" over the last several weeks weren't over protestors - it was over the Nuclear program, ballistic program and proxy forces. It wasn't even about US interests. Iran offered mining, oil and other valuable rights. Trump wasn't buying. This is about Israel's national security interests and hegemonic ambitions. Protestors are just pawns in service of that.

If this turns into a full-scale war or a civil war breaks out, we are looking at 1 million Iranian deaths conservatively speaking. Just look at happened at every single foreign intervention in the region - Iraq, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Somalia. How does a million dead Iranians help them? How does it help the Americans, and the world if oil infrastructures or shipping lanes are targeted ? How does it help the region or Europe when millions of refugees flood out, and armouries are broken open and weapons and insurgents flood the region (like it did with Iraq and Libya)? It helps Israel greatly though, since they take out their arch nemesis, their conventional military and the nuclear program. And they think can shield themselves from the chaos they create around them.

[swingboy]

> This is about Israel's national security interests and hegemonic ambitions.

This sums it all up succinctly. Emphasis on the “hegemonic ambitions” part.

[Rapzid]

> Why are we even talking about this?

There were lots of reasons to do this. The massacre of 40k citizens opened the door.

Kinda like how Al Capone got busted on tax evasion? Capisci? Maybe no.

[tdeck]

Apparently you don't even have to give Americans the neocon foreign policy spin anymore, we generate it ourselves.

To wit, after Maduro was kidnapped and the exact same regime kept in place (minus selling oil to Cuba), and Trump openly said it was to control the oil, most of the reactions were pretending we live in a universe where the US does these things to spread democracy.

[colordrops]

Why does it matter? Is it justification to attack them?

[bawolff]

Its probably not the reason they are attacking (except in as much that it makes the iranian regime vulnerable). However i would say that yes, humanitarian intervention is one of the only non self-defense justifications for war that anyone has ever accepted in the post-ww2 era. (Edit: to clarify, im saying its the type of thing people build justifications for war around. Whether its a valid justification on this specific case is probably highly debatable. I think a reasonable argument could be made)

[nomilk]

The 'tens of thousands' figure is one primary justification. Iran (eventually) getting a nuke is another.