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I am Persian. From what I gather, the middle-plus class here still mostly believes that changing the regime is costly and risky (especially since it might very

by Siira 6y ago

I am Persian. From what I gather, the middle-plus class here still mostly believes that changing the regime is costly and risky (especially since it might very well lead to a civil war, as the regime has no humanity and has shown that it will kill every single one of the people to survive). These sanctions certainly help align our incentives more with the US agenda, but they do not seem to be enough after all. Obama's strategy was definitely a failure, as well; It simply gave power and legitimacy to the Islamic regime and only got temporary limits in return, limits that ultimately did not abate either domestic abuse or extraterritorial meddling. In the end, dictators know that the Western block is finicky, unstable, and short-termish; This makes it so that high-pressure strategies do not work. I do not know of a solution, frankly; Most of my peers see immigration as the only viable solution. But the blame of the quagmire mostly lies with the democrats and the EU. If they had committed to the high-pressure strategy from the Obama era, a much better compromise would have been reachable with the IR. (The democrats+EU mostly sided with the IR in recent protests as well, just to spite Trump. They are only good for virtue signalling, and do not help the oppressed where it matters.) Western democracies generally are very bad game-theoretic agents; They play repeated games as if they are oneshots. PS: Imagine if the USA sponsored Telegram MTPROTO proxies (and other anti-censorship tools). That'd deal a huge blow to the IR, and make the people more US-friendly as well. Does anyone know why they don't? It's an obvious LHF ...

crb002 6y ago
Grow a pair. Racism to Persians is wrong.
thaumasiotes 6y ago
I have basically no background in the subject, but I'd be interested in your perspectives if you feel like answering any of these questions: - What are the United States' goals with respect to Iran? - What goals of Iran's are being hindered, objected to, or otherwise meddled with by the United States? - In the end, dictators know that the Western block is finicky, unstable, and short-termish; This makes it so that high-pressure strategies do not work. Just to be sure I understand this, you're saying that because Western countries (Europe / the US) cannot maintain a consistent foreign policy, their targets (other countries) see the best strategy for dealing with moments of high pressure from the West as being "wait for the pressure to go away"? - I do not know of a solution, frankly; Most of my peers see immigration as the only viable solution. Solution to what problem? Immigration of who, from where, to where? Western democracies generally are very bad game-theoretic agents; They play repeated games as if they are oneshots. I suspect term limits have a lot to do with this.
- fakedang 6y ago
  Not OP, not Iranian, but going by my Iranian friend, it's mostly as follows: - odd that you're asking an Iranian Qn#1. They don't know either - Iran wants to play a regional power in the Middle East, far greater than it is now. It is to be noted that many countries in the ME, such as the UAE, Qatar, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Bahrain have significant Shia minorities or majorities in some cases. When the Arab Spring happened, Iran actively encouraged protests within the Shia population to overthrow the monarchy in Bahrain, until the UAE and Saudi Arabia reacted. Even now, the UAE regularly arrests Shia folks it suspects of cavorting with Iran (a large part of the Arab population in the Emirates are descended from Persia). Not to mention, Iran invaded and expelled the local Arab population of a tiny island of one of the constituent Emirates of the UAE, before the country's formation and during the time of the Shah. Iran is quite the expansionist. - basically what Rouhani thinks. Wait until Biden gets into power, and hope that he's going to continue the Obama policy. This is not common among all dictators though - some want Trump to be in power, like the monarchs of the Arab states, since he's an Iran hawk. - a solution to Iran's repressive regime, duh. Iranians have been immigrating en masse for a long time to the US, Canada, UK and Europe. Anywhere there is a democracy. There are a ton of Americans, British, Europeans and Canadians who graduated from Sharif University of Technology, the equivalent of Iran's MIT. - not just term limits, but the need to "pander" to their constituencies. One decade, they warred in the Middle East, the next decade they want to leave the mess they created, but then commit more troops (Obama on Iraq)? It's definitely not like Russia or China or India (all of which are/were friendly with Iran) who have had a steady policy in the region of being on talking terms with everyone.
  - gadders 6y ago
    Iran is also a state sponsor of terrorism (Hezbollah, Hamas), wants nuclear weapons and would destroy Israel if they could.
    - fakedang 6y ago
      Which is just a part of playing the Middle Eastern powers game. The current five major powers in the region are Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE and Iran. Out of them, one is rumored to be a nuclear power, three are delayed nuclear powers, while all but one are state sponsors of terrorism directly, and the last one sponsors them indirectly. Two of them want Israel destroyed, one is openly allied to Israel and one is secretly allied to Israel. Yep, the Middle East is complicated.
panpanna 6y ago
Do you actually live there? From what I have heard the "high pressure" has only affected ordinary people who can't get things like meds and equipment. Just look how they were affected by corona, so much worse than their neighbors. I would highly, _highly_, doubt a person actually living there would consider the "high pressure" strategy a good thing.
- jessaustin 6y ago
  Not to mention, such a comment seems to directly challenge HN admins to implement the same policy that Gitlab have, for HN users who live in Iran. That is, if we can believe the hyperbolic descriptions of "USA law" we read here...
davedx 6y ago
Whenever anyone uses the term “virtue signalling” I automatically discard their opinion in the same way this phrase does with the people it’s referring to: that a bloc of people (the entire EU and democrat party of the US no less) are simply “pretending to care to look good”. The use of this phrase belies a cynical, reductionist attitude that I have no respect for whatsoever
- concordDance 6y ago
  Is it that you think virtue signalling doesn't happen? Because I've done it myself many times (mostly before I understood the term, but also afterwards on occasion).
  - davedx 6y ago
    No, that's not it. I just find that in almost every case when someone uses that term specifically, they are trying to cynically dismiss good faith efforts of a person or org to do something good. Just like in this comment -- are we really to believe the entire EU bloc and democrat party are just "virtue signalling" with their posture towards Iran? Come on.
arp242 6y ago
The regime is here and as you pointed out it's not easy to "just change it"; the point of Obama's strategy was to limit the regime's access to nuclear weapons, not to directly make life better for the average Iranian. It was effective at that goal. And Iran with nuclear weapons would make regime change in the future even harder. International politics with these kind of countries are tricky business; personally I'd love nothing more than see Iran become a better place, but you can't just force things like this. We tried in Afghanistan and Iraq, and that didn't turn out so well. People are still trying in Syria and we can't exactly call this a great success either. So ... your best bet is to deal with these kind of regimes the best you can, by applying pressure in one area and making a deal in another. I think few people are especially happy with this, but it's the best option out of a bad bunch.
didibus 6y ago
A good NPR on the topic: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/671672020 https://www.npr.org/transcripts/671672020
currymj 6y ago
US government does sponsor a lot of anti-censorship tools of that type: Tor was funded by the Navy and DARPA, Signal received initial funding from the same organization that runs Voice of America.

by Siira 6y ago

crb002 6y ago

Grow a pair. Racism to Persians is wrong.

thaumasiotes 6y ago

I have basically no background in the subject, but I'd be interested in your perspectives if you feel like answering any of these questions: - What are the United States' goals with respect to Iran? - What goals of Iran's are being hindered, objected to, or otherwise meddled with by the United States? - In the end, dictators know that the Western block is finicky, unstable, and short-termish; This makes it so that high-pressure strategies do not work. Just to be sure I understand this, you're saying that because Western countries (Europe / the US) cannot maintain a consistent foreign policy, their targets (other countries) see the best strategy for dealing with moments of high pressure from the West as being "wait for the pressure to go away"? - I do not know of a solution, frankly; Most of my peers see immigration as the only viable solution. Solution to what problem? Immigration of who, from where, to where? Western democracies generally are very bad game-theoretic agents; They play repeated games as if they are oneshots. I suspect term limits have a lot to do with this.

fakedang 6y ago
Not OP, not Iranian, but going by my Iranian friend, it's mostly as follows: - odd that you're asking an Iranian Qn#1. They don't know either - Iran wants to play a regional power in the Middle East, far greater than it is now. It is to be noted that many countries in the ME, such as the UAE, Qatar, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Bahrain have significant Shia minorities or majorities in some cases. When the Arab Spring happened, Iran actively encouraged protests within the Shia population to overthrow the monarchy in Bahrain, until the UAE and Saudi Arabia reacted. Even now, the UAE regularly arrests Shia folks it suspects of cavorting with Iran (a large part of the Arab population in the Emirates are descended from Persia). Not to mention, Iran invaded and expelled the local Arab population of a tiny island of one of the constituent Emirates of the UAE, before the country's formation and during the time of the Shah. Iran is quite the expansionist. - basically what Rouhani thinks. Wait until Biden gets into power, and hope that he's going to continue the Obama policy. This is not common among all dictators though - some want Trump to be in power, like the monarchs of the Arab states, since he's an Iran hawk. - a solution to Iran's repressive regime, duh. Iranians have been immigrating en masse for a long time to the US, Canada, UK and Europe. Anywhere there is a democracy. There are a ton of Americans, British, Europeans and Canadians who graduated from Sharif University of Technology, the equivalent of Iran's MIT. - not just term limits, but the need to "pander" to their constituencies. One decade, they warred in the Middle East, the next decade they want to leave the mess they created, but then commit more troops (Obama on Iraq)? It's definitely not like Russia or China or India (all of which are/were friendly with Iran) who have had a steady policy in the region of being on talking terms with everyone.
- gadders 6y ago
  Iran is also a state sponsor of terrorism (Hezbollah, Hamas), wants nuclear weapons and would destroy Israel if they could.
  - fakedang 6y ago
    Which is just a part of playing the Middle Eastern powers game. The current five major powers in the region are Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE and Iran. Out of them, one is rumored to be a nuclear power, three are delayed nuclear powers, while all but one are state sponsors of terrorism directly, and the last one sponsors them indirectly. Two of them want Israel destroyed, one is openly allied to Israel and one is secretly allied to Israel. Yep, the Middle East is complicated.

panpanna 6y ago

Do you actually live there? From what I have heard the "high pressure" has only affected ordinary people who can't get things like meds and equipment. Just look how they were affected by corona, so much worse than their neighbors. I would highly, _highly_, doubt a person actually living there would consider the "high pressure" strategy a good thing.

jessaustin 6y ago
Not to mention, such a comment seems to directly challenge HN admins to implement the same policy that Gitlab have, for HN users who live in Iran. That is, if we can believe the hyperbolic descriptions of "USA law" we read here...

davedx 6y ago

Whenever anyone uses the term “virtue signalling” I automatically discard their opinion in the same way this phrase does with the people it’s referring to: that a bloc of people (the entire EU and democrat party of the US no less) are simply “pretending to care to look good”. The use of this phrase belies a cynical, reductionist attitude that I have no respect for whatsoever

concordDance 6y ago
Is it that you think virtue signalling doesn't happen? Because I've done it myself many times (mostly before I understood the term, but also afterwards on occasion).
- davedx 6y ago
  No, that's not it. I just find that in almost every case when someone uses that term specifically, they are trying to cynically dismiss good faith efforts of a person or org to do something good. Just like in this comment -- are we really to believe the entire EU bloc and democrat party are just "virtue signalling" with their posture towards Iran? Come on.

arp242 6y ago

The regime is here and as you pointed out it's not easy to "just change it"; the point of Obama's strategy was to limit the regime's access to nuclear weapons, not to directly make life better for the average Iranian. It was effective at that goal. And Iran with nuclear weapons would make regime change in the future even harder. International politics with these kind of countries are tricky business; personally I'd love nothing more than see Iran become a better place, but you can't just force things like this. We tried in Afghanistan and Iraq, and that didn't turn out so well. People are still trying in Syria and we can't exactly call this a great success either. So ... your best bet is to deal with these kind of regimes the best you can, by applying pressure in one area and making a deal in another. I think few people are especially happy with this, but it's the best option out of a bad bunch.

didibus 6y ago

A good NPR on the topic: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/671672020 https://www.npr.org/transcripts/671672020

currymj 6y ago

US government does sponsor a lot of anti-censorship tools of that type: Tor was funded by the Navy and DARPA, Signal received initial funding from the same organization that runs Voice of America.