[Cipater]

I work with and know a lot of Shia (non-Iranian) Muslims and listening to them talk about this assassination I'm convinced that the likelihood of attempted terror attacks against the US has increased significantly.

The non-Iranian part is key. Millions of muslims around the world viewed the Iranian theocracy as the only power in the world fighting for Islam. They are devastated.

[somenameforme]

The most interesting thing to me is that he was apparently assassinated while working at his office. It's not like the US/Israeli actions were a secret, yet he seemingly made no effort to secure himself. It's hard not to see this as an intentional martyrdom. So it will be interesting to see whether his calculations were correct, or whether the US' were.

The one thing I think must be true is that I can't imagine an 86 year old cleric was an especially effective leader. So assassinating him is quite the gamble. I'd love to know what the military's chatbots thought about this idea.

[wiseowise]

Prophets are more dangerous when they're dead. At 86 he would either die from old age or fighting "imperialistic, evil" Israel/US.

[ifwinterco]

Supposedly he had a very deep bunker under his house but he came up for meetings.

So the real problem for Iran is that mossad seem to know exactly when he was vulnerable i.e. there are spies within the inner circles of the IRGC

Edit: Or some very effective high tech surveillance, but that's also not good news to put it mildly

[Cipater]

>I'd love to know what the military's chatbots thought about this idea.

What a mad world we're hurtling ourselves into.

[urikaduri]

He was assasinated during a meeting with many other high ranking members of the regime. I doubt they decided on collective suicide.

[throwawayheui57]

> intentional martyrdom

He didn’t play 4D chess. I’d bet on pure hubris.

[dotancohen]

Why would you assume that someone with decades of experience could not be an effective leader?

[kjfarm]

I think the responses are very diverse throughout the region. Got example, in Karachi protestors gathered outside a consulate https://apnews.com/article/pakistan-protesters-attacked-us-c...

But inside Tehran (and in my neighborhood of D.C.) there have been celebrations https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/28/world/middleeast/iran-kha...

[RaftPeople]

I have a friend that left Iran just before the Shah was overthrown. Over the years he has gone back multiple times to visit family and friends etc.

He told me years ago that the majority in Iran were not aligned with the new regime, it was a minority of the population that were.

[konart]

>But inside Tehran...

where both celebrations and sorrow

[Cipater]

Any celebrations are an indicator but are far from the entire picture.

Wouldn't there be celebrations in the US if Trump died? What conclusions would you draw from that?

[anon291]

I mean Pakistan is a nation founded on the idea that Muslims cannot live with non Muslims. /R/Pakistan is currently talking about this. What do you expect?

[nerdyadventurer]

> But inside Tehran

This is done by diaspora lead by US, they started destroying public resources first and created public unrest on top of falling Rial due to sanctions, this lead the govt take matters in to their hands. Cunning US indeed, always playing cheap tricks.

[rayiner]

> The non-Iranian part is key. Millions of muslims around the world viewed the Iranian theocracy as the only power in the world fighting for Islam

Yup. My Bangladeshi relatives who have no stake in Iran are upset. I suspect the lady who cuts my daughter’s hair—who was an accountant back in Iran and celebrated when Jimmy Carter died—is over the moon.

[anon291]

We cannot continue like this where one religion gets to get mad whenever they do not achieve utter dominance.

[vovavili]

I have seen major celebrations here in a major Dutch city. If anything, my bet is that overall balance of Muslim opinion on the West has probably shifted to be more favorable.

[jojobas]

Both can be true at the same time.

[dotancohen]

Are you suggesting that the US should appease Muslim ideology, under threat of terror?

[Cipater]

No, I am telling you about people's sentiments. You are not required to do anything with the information.

[nerdyadventurer]

This is not about Muslim idealogy at all, it is US want to play god on who to have nukes or not. Similar to Libiya WMD.

[lm28469]

> Muslim idealogy

If you can't differentiate muslims from islamists you can probably keep your comments for yourself...

[spaghetdefects]

Terror attacks? I think you mean self-defense, as the US/Israel just bombed Iran with no justification at all. That is a terror attack.

[rayiner]

I’m quite sympathetic to the general assertion that the U.S. launches unprovoked attacks on random countries that didn’t attack the U.S. Iraq being the most egregious example.

But Iran is perhaps the least sympathetic actor on that front. Iran has been attacking the U.S. and its proxies for no reason for decades: https://www.britannica.com/event/1983-Beirut-barracks-bombin....

Tehran is a thousand miles away from Tel Aviv. Iran has no rational self-interest in whatever is going on between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Iran got itself involved in that conflict because it inexplicably chose to involve itself in that conflict.

[ChoGGi]

Well, no they were trying to get Epstein out of his bunker... I mean free the oil from the people, err no, the people from the regime.

Someone start playing fortunate son.

[jo6gwb]

Well that's an awfully Islamophobic take. Never has a condition been so aptly named.

This morning's terror attack in Austin was perpetuated by one wearing a "property of Allah" shirt.

The world need not continue to live with and accept Islamic barbarism, and the people of the US will not bend to the sword of the Mullahs or your Shia coworkers.

[Cipater]

People are what they are.

You can take the information I have provided into consideration when you build your internal worldview or you can ignore it.

There is no call to action here. It's just data.

[markus_zhang]

The "good" part is that Sunni Muslims probably won't have the same feeling, or do they?

But I agree with the assessment. I'd definitely avoid large public events. Darn the world is becoming more and more chaotic and we are just waiting for China to put up the last piece to make it into 19th Europe.

[dotancohen]

Sunni Muslims generally oppose Shias in Muslim-internal matters, and vice versa. But they both generally support the other in matters against non-Muslims.

[CoastalCoder]

> China to put up the last piece to make it into 19th Europe.

Could you elaborate for us non-historians?

[rayiner]

Sunni Muslims will be upset too, because Israel was involved.

[lm28469]

Why do you bring up China here? Trump has done more harm to the west in 10 years than China in the last century

[jpster]

> the likelihood of attempted terror attacks against the US has increased significantly.

And one wonders if a terror attack on US soil would be the justification POTUS uses to cancel elections

[UltraSane]

Sunni Muslims hate the Iranian regime and consider Shia to be heretics

[esalman]

I am Sunni and I condemn the attack.

Having said that, I also condemn Iranian regime killing (reportedly) 30000 protesters. So he probably had it coming.

I'm more concerned about what happens to US now, because I think the attack indicates a complete failure and collapse of the legislative branch of the US government.

[inglor_cz]

This is not completely true. The Iranian regime gained some credibility in the Sunni world by strongly supporting the Palestinian cause.

You can bet that every anti-war demonstration in the West now will have as many Palestinian flags as flags of the Iranian Islamic Republic.

Stranger coalitions have been put together by politics...

[hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm]

Only people who live on social media believe these extreme views to be true. Most muslims hardly even know the difference or care.

[newyankee]

Well if you take religious interpretations to do the extreme they hate all 'non believers'. I am assuming that even the Sunni Muslim countries' average population might not be that happy with the bullying (their perception)

[Cipater]

Every single one of them?

There are many Sunnis who view their leadership as "traitors to the cause" and respected Iranian defiance especially against Israel.

It's far from black and white.

[steve-atx-7600]

Sounds like you should report them to the fbi then

[Cipater]

You seem to have misread my comment.

None of the people I know and have spoken to are capable of or even thinking of violent retaliation.

I am extrapolating from their sentiments that someone out there will be moved to violence.

[SegfaultSeagull]

First, the Islamic Republic was not “the only power fighting for Islam.” It was fighting to expand Iranian state power under a religious banner. There’s a difference. The regime’s foreign policy has consistently followed geopolitical logic: expanding influence through proxies in Lebanon (Hezbollah), Gaza (Hamas and PIJ), Iraq (Shi’a militias), Syria (Assad), and Yemen (Houthis). That’s empire-building through asymmetric warfare, not some abstract defense of the global ummah.

Second, Islam itself is not a single centralized political bloc. The idea that “millions of Muslims” saw Tehran as their champion ignores deep sectarian and national divides. Sunni-majority states like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, and Turkey have spent decades actively countering Iranian influence. Many Arabs view Persian expansionism with suspicion for historical reasons that predate modern geopolitics by centuries. Even within Shi’a communities outside Iran, loyalty to Tehran is far from universal.

Third, the Islamic Republic’s model is explicitly totalitarian: clerical rule, suppression of dissent, morality police, imprisonment of reformers, execution of protesters. Calling that “fighting for Islam” collapses a complex global religion into one revolutionary state ideology. Many Muslims—Sunni and Shi’a—despise the regime precisely because it fuses religion with authoritarian control.

As for retaliation risk: yes, whenever a regime that funds proxy groups is hit, the risk of attempted attacks rises. That’s true by definition. But that risk has existed for decades already because of the regime’s own strategy of exporting violence. The question isn’t whether risk increases from zero. It’s whether removing a state sponsor that systematically arms, trains, and finances militant networks reduces long-term capacity for global destabilization.

Iran was not some neutral spiritual defender of the faith. It was a regional power using religion as a mobilizing ideology while building a cross-border militia network.

That distinction matters.

[ndsipa_pomu]

This is likely what the USA fascists want - some Islamic terrorist attacks (possibly false flag operations) will provide a justification for removing non-whites from the USA.

[nailer]

The fact that millions of muslims worshipped a terrorist is not sufficient justification to submit to terrorism.

[reactordev]

I was just saying this to someone this morning. Iran’s theocracy was the only one that has withstood the Middle East political wars in Jordan, Syria, Afghanistan, etc.

To rephrase it… if The Middle East was the UK, Iran would be British. If the Middle East was the US. Iran would be California.

[quotz]

> The Middle East was the UK, Iran would be British.

Did you mean England perhaps, not "British"?

[breppp]

Jordan political system is much older than Iran, as well as the Saudis and others. Iran theocracy is a new phenomena in the Middle East, ushering the implementation era of political Islam, later continued by ISIS, Hamas and the milder Qatar and current Turkey

[animuchan]

Another good analogy would be, said theocracy is (was?) like a very bad piece of legacy code, impossible to refactor, until the entire feature gets thrown in the trash.

[dfc]

I was with you until you said California. You think that Californians are understand Southern or Midwestern culture?

[everdrive]

Well except for all those Shia in Iraq who more closely followed Ali al-Sistani. I still imagine they're not very happy all the same though.

[anon291]

and millions of Orthodox Jews view Israel as defending Judaism. So what? Maybe all the people who are willing to shoot and kill for their holy book should be put into an area and bomb each other to death

Would make a good reality tv show and an excellent warning on the danger of religious fundamentalism.

[weregiraffe]

Oh, so they ARE in fact death cultists! Thanks for confirming that, I guess there's a lot more work for bombs.

[throw0101c]

>> Millions of muslims around the world viewed the Iranian theocracy as the only power in the world fighting for Islam. They are devastated.

> They are devastated but they are were totally quiet on the unarmed thirty thousands+ protesters the islamist iranian regime killed in a matter of days a few weeks ago.

One person's protestor is another's insurrectionist.

See also the folks on January 6: (now-pardoned) patriots trying to 'stop the steal', or crazies trying to overthrow the government?

[nerdyadventurer]

> If people keep their mouth shut when a regime murders 30 000+

This is done by diaspora lead by US, they started destroying public resources first and created public unrest on top of falling Rial due to sanctions, this lead the govt take matters in to their hands. Cunning US indeed, always playing cheap tricks.

US is a regime too, world largest one, with minions everywhere. They murdered around 1 million just in Iraq. This war is not only about nukes but also oil and trade routes. Iran did not try to spread Islamic in the west, they do not want to either.

My point is US should not try to interfere with other countries internal matters. International threats should be dealt with treaties.

[Cipater]

Yes they were silent about the Iranian regime's tyranny. Yes they are hypocrites.

So what?

It doesn't matter whether it suits you nor I. You calling them out has zero effect other than making you feel righteous. They don't hear you and even if they did they do not care a whit what you think.

They believe, with utter conviction, that martyrdom in service of Islam will be rewarded in the "hereafter". Their holy book tells them this explicitly. And there are millions of them.

Hence my comment.

[pydry]

>If people keep their mouth shut when a regime murders 30 000+ unarmed people

That 30k number came from the same source the WMDs did - paid informants who knew exactly what they were being paid to deliver.

Same sales pitch, different war.

The standards of evidence some people will accept when America is hell bent on starting a war is so low it blows my mind.

Ive noticed that these people who try to guilt trip meek liberals over the alleged deaths of 30,000 people in Iran used to sell a war of aggression will almost always downplay or try to sow doubt about the genocide in gaza which america supported.

It's very remarkably similar to the way some of the most extreme racists on the planet used to try and guilt trip liberals by accusing them of being anti semitic.

[echelon_musk]

I can't recommend Heretic by Ayaan Hirsi Ali enough.

[Cipater]

I don't think doctrinal reformation is possible with Islam.

The Qur'an is totally prescriptive. It contains direct legal commands, judicial rules and explicit government principles which are all binding and considered as direct divine speech.

I think Westernisation and an increase in the number of "casual" muslims is and will continue to be the moderating effect.

Think of what is happening in Europe (as the clearest example) with the influx of Muslim immigrants who raise increasingly more assimilated children as the blueprint.

[CoastalCoder]

For those of us who haven't read it, could you explain why it's salient on this topic?

[jimmydoe]

Anyone live in a metro in a major western country should feel legitimately feared, the chance of lone wolf just 100x-ed.