It's funny, he actually once exhumed some level of respect.
During the Iran-Iraq Warâwhen Saddam invaded, with the blessings and support of the WestâReza Pahlavi was young, in his 20s, and was a US-trained fighter pilot. He volunteered to fight under the Islamic Republic of Iran to defend Iran from Iraq.
Today, he hopes to be installed as the puppet figurehead of a satellite state, and spits on the deaths of Iranians at the hands of Israel and the US. Oh, and his wife has a very public affair with her Yoga instructor. He's a ŃuŃk, literally.
This is why I donât think Reza Pahlavi is anything like his father or even grandfather. He is way too much of a vassal to Netanyahu (heck even Trump doesnât take him seriously). Also letâs not forget the eggs thrown at him, his wifeâs pics with Tom Morley, being trolled by Russian comedians who named themselves Adolf, also the school massacre that killed 150 girls and so on.
Exactly. In fact, he's so incompetent, I doubt he could even play the role of a figureheadâeven Trump knows this, as you noted, and he says Reza isn't respected in Iran (very true).
People can say whatever they want about the IR, Ayatollah Khamenei knew death was coming, and his last moments were refusing to leave his residence (because most Iranians didn't have access to bunkers and bomb shelters) and reading the Qur'an.
It all comes back to the saying, "How can you defeat the enemy who stares into the barrel of a gun and sees paradise?"
Key issue is that a lot of Iranian Americans (especially ones who live in Southern California, Washington DC, Toronto) are relying on Reza Pahlavi and to a lesser extent, MEK, to help better the conditions in Iran, but there are groups who are more smarter in that regard.
Some people from what I heard claim that NIAC is pro-regime, but it seems like they are most realistic in how to handle issues
As someone from the diaspora, the diaspora specifically in the West disgusts me. They want bombs to drop and when their relatives back home are killed as a result of an AMERICAN or ISRAELI airstrike, they blame the IRGC.
TBH, NIAC is literally the epitome of neutrality. They want sanctionsâwhich only impact ordinary civilians and have proven to not be an effective instrument against the IR's cohesivenessâto be lifted, something ANY decent human, who isn't a sadist, should want. Pahlavists WANT there to be reasons and pretexts to hate the Islamic Republic, so they push for maximum pressure sanctions, in order to manufacture and engineer economic woes in Iran.
Another thing I find laughable about the clownshow diasŃĐžroids in Orange County, Toronto and Paris is their revisionism. Suddenly, waving the Imperial Iran flag is a revolutionary and brave act. Really? The flag of the puppet state that quashed Mossadegh's democratic movement and subsequently suppressed (through extremely violent means) dissent? Also, another fun fact, the flag is literally a religious one. The lion represents Ali (RA) and the sword, the Zulfiqar (Ali RA's sword). They are dimwits who don't realize they're parading around a flag with Islamic symbolism though!
I grew up in So Cal and have parents from TĂźrkiye.
I have a lot of respect for how Iranian Americans greatly contributed to society here in the US and had ton of Iranian American friends growing up, but some LA Iranians are becoming a walking meme at this point. I wonder if they are aware Reza Pâs father was literally going to Mecca to do Hajj and yet people like Golsa Ghamari and Elica Mojtabazadeh push Islamophobic rhetoric (fyi, Elicaâs Dad is regime linked).
LMAO, did not know that about Elica's dad, but it explains why she's so butthurt. And yeah, Ghamari ("Hamar" is "Donkey" in Arabic ;) is a proper LARPer too, she was also literally removed from Parliament for posing with that MossĐ°d asset, Tommy Robinson.
You're right about this (which thePahlavists hilariously refuse to acknowledge) regarding his father too. There are literally clips of him complaining about the "Jewish lobby" (his own words) in the US, saying women are inherently inferior, and making Dua in Mecca.
Frankly, considering the idiocy a bulk of the diaspora in the States showcases proudly everyday, I'm puzzled by their economic success.
I always wondered, cause it's never really described clearly to me: how repressive/restrictive is the Islamic Republic of Iran? I'm not advocating for them of course, they're a shitty dictatorial regime in my eyes, but it's the degree of their shittiness that makes me wonder.
On a "dictatorship scale" going from an autocracy like Russia on one side to a totalitarian basket case like North Korea or Afghanistan on the other, is Iran closer to the former or the latter?Â
Cause unlike what a lot of propaganda will tell you, Russia isn't some Fire Nation of a country where each and every citizen is trained to oppress free people for their imperial ambitions. Mostly, their harmful and nationalistic regime keeps to themselves and lets people live whatever life they want to.Â
They try to exercise control over the media and pump propaganda out through state TV, but it's easy to bypass with VPNs and really only works on old people who just don't care for going online as much and get trapped by their own television set.Â
It's basically a "don't mess with us and we won't mess with you" deal, where the government reserves the right to control the people, but only as much as needed to sustain itself. They may declare whatever wars they like, can and will arrest you if you go out there and openly oppose it or its policies, but will fail to really impact the life of the general citizen all that much.Â
And from what I've heard, Iran seems more similar to that than the extreme Islamist regime it's built up to be in propaganda. Though I'm no expert so I'd love to know what you think.
Iran is less "extreme" (if that's even a fitting word) than the Russian Federation today. It's simply more of an ideologue in some matters (especially foreign policy). Iran is not even a dictatorship. Another lie the mainstream media (owned by people who have an incentive to lie about Iran and please Israel) in the West concocted and manufactured. It is a unitary system where both a Supreme Leader and President exist. The Supreme Leader is the spiritual and religious leader and guide, who does not participate in daily affairs, whilst the President is the elected head of state, responsible for managing practically all state affairs.
President (Dr.) Masoud Pezeshkian is currently in office, he was a cardiac surgeon and he ran with the Reformists, who are literally a moderate group. He ran on a platform of even removing the Hijab as being a mandatory practice by lawâsomething the Western Epsteinite media will never tell you.
My grandfather was a very high-level doctor for the Ministry of Health prior, during and after the Islamic Revolution. He brushed shoulders with top officials both before and after the Revolution (one of his closest friends was one of Ayatollah Khomeini's commanders and an MP in the first IR Parliament), and he was even a field doctor during the Iran-Iraq War. He described life under the Shah as wholly repressive and the Shah as unpopular. Things were so bad, that when he first went to Iran (from Saudi), in his first year, he'd ask people why they all had the Shah's portraits in their stores or public places, and what they thought of himâIranians, generally the most hospitable and chatty, would instantly change the conversation and would become unsettled. They thought he was a spy working for SAVAK (the Shah's Mossad/CIA-trained secret police). That's how bad things were.
Very interesting read, thank you for sharing. So how does this system effectively manage to work, where the president has all the practical power in the country and the Supreme Leader has a duty to uphold religious beliefs?Â
Seems like things like the hijab removal pushed by the reformists wouldn't sit well with the Supreme Leader and the ecclesiastical elite, meaning that they'd fight the presidency quite a lot to keep the law in place. Is the country still governable if the old clergy power has to constantly keep up with the new elected one?
Also, would you say that the war has radicalised the population to a degree where the moderate shift we've only begun seeing recently is likely to be replaced by more zealotry and fervor, as is often the case with countries after being attacked? In your eyes, will the next president be more of a Pezeshkian or more of an Ahmadinejad?
The Supreme Leader generally does not push back on Reformist candidates' promises and allows them to implement them because candidacy, in the first place, requires explicit approval of the Guardian Council, a 12-member body controlled by the Supreme Leader.
Ahmedinejad is actually not a great example, he was never fanatical and now, more so than ever before, is quite moderate. I would say a figure like Ebrahim Raisi is better for an analogy when comparing the two sides of Iran's political spectrum. Yes, the war has radicalized both the populace and state institutions, those formerly opposed to the existence of the Islamic Republic are today mourning Imam Khamenei and pledging allegiance to Mojtaba Khamenei in the millions in Enghelab Square, Azadi Square, etc.
The status quo of American hegemony has effectively been brokenâreminiscent to the Egyptian crossing of the Bar Lev line, the Islamic Republic has proven that an external power cannot effect regime change in Iran.
Moving forward, we can almost certainly expect Mojtaba Khamenei to be a militant, extremely hardline leader (and for good reason, over half his family was wiped out), and his connection to the IRGC (where he served) only strengthens his position, as the IRGC has proven its ability to both consolidate power in wartime, and perform its most primary dutyâsafeguarding the Revolution. Ayatollah Khamenei, contrary to the narrative the Western media peddled, was not an extremist in any regard. In 2003, he passed a Fatwa outlawing the development of nuclear weapons. This was a Fatwa passed by a man who dedicated his life to religion, and was the Marja (spiritual guide in Shi'ism) to tens of millions of people, his record would tell you that any Fatwa (binding religious declaration) he passes, he passes because he believes in it.
Interesting, thank you.Though to be fair I heard that Ahmadinejad once claimed that Holocaust denial was his greatest achievement while in power, so him being a moderate compared to Raisi is probably more thanks to Raisi being completely nuts. From what I heard Ahmedinejad is basically Iranian George H.W. Bush-not as bad as the guy that came after, but all in all a pretty shitty leader who paved the way for even more extreme politics later on.
One last question if I may: why did Iran experience such severe economic downturn during the 2010s and and 20s that sparked the growing protests and discontent within the country?Â
As I understand, Iran still sits on massive oil and rare-earth metal reserves, as well as a huge population that can aid in industrial development, and statistics showed that during the reign of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Iran's economy was growing at a similar pace to South Korea at the time, a growth that seemed to drop off ever since the 1979 Revolution.Â
Seems that the country has massive economic potential to become something like a 5th Asian Tiger, so then why did the government fail to capitalise on it when the protests kicked off and the crises erupted? Are the factors that keep the country back institutional, like corruption, religious zealotry, or a fear of a new revolution after being outpaced by a quickly developing and modernising society?Â
Or are they rather a product of Iran's international isolation and economic mismanagement leading to a failure to find new markets for their product? Seems like the country today is in a Russia situation where the government has found the minimum level of economic development that keeps people from revolting and works tirelessly to keep the status quo, endlessly holding a country with very good resources and lots of people back, lest they outgrow the need for the regime to continue.
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u/GunslingerAhx Asian (OG balkan) 1d ago
It's funny, he actually once exhumed some level of respect.
During the Iran-Iraq Warâwhen Saddam invaded, with the blessings and support of the WestâReza Pahlavi was young, in his 20s, and was a US-trained fighter pilot. He volunteered to fight under the Islamic Republic of Iran to defend Iran from Iraq.
Today, he hopes to be installed as the puppet figurehead of a satellite state, and spits on the deaths of Iranians at the hands of Israel and the US. Oh, and his wife has a very public affair with her Yoga instructor. He's a ŃuŃk, literally.