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People should never treat the diaspora as representative of any population other than the diaspora. This issue comes up with Cuba a lot. A lot of Cuban-America
by jmyeet 8mo ago
People should never treat the diaspora as representative of any population other than the diaspora.
This issue comes up with Cuba a lot. A lot of Cuban-Americans hate Castro. Why? Because they were the upper-middle class to wealthy under Batista.
This history becomes almost comically distorted. Senator Ted Cruz said that he hates communists because his father was tortured by... Batista [1].
So let me give you an example of the Iranian/Persian diaspora. In 2024 in particular we had a lot of protests against Israel's genocide in Gaza and American support for it. Many were on college campuses. One was on UCLA.
In April 2024, masked counterprotesters attacked the protesters and the police stood idly by and let it happen. The police later then used this violence as a reason to crack down on the protesters. So who were these counter-protesters? Persian diaspora [2].
Anyone celebrating this knows nothing about history and honestly nothing about Iran.
First, Khamenei isn't a singular autocrat like Basheer al-Asaad or Saddam Hussein. No decapitation strike is going to result in regime change. Did you notice the Iranian response change after Khamenei's death? No. Because there isn't one. The religious governmental institutions still exist. A temporary successor was appointed. The IRGC continues as is. Iran is a functioning state that will continue without its Supreme Leader.
Second, let's just say that the Iranian government does fall apart. That's going to be incredibly bad for Iranians as you'll either get a fail-state like Libya, Syria or Somalia (which is what Israel wants) or you'll simply get an American puppet.
Do you know who the American puppet in Syria is? Ahmed al-Sharaa, formerly an al-Qaeda leader. Do you think that's going to end well? Saddam Hussein was an American puppet. Until he wasn't. The former Shah. Augusto Pinochet. That's who you get when the US installs a puppet regime.
Maybe you think Iran will get a functioning democracy. They had one until the US overthrew it in 1953.
Do you really think the US cares about Iranians? Like at all? What exactly is being celebrated here?
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/I2AdbLDVb0Q https://www.youtube.com/shorts/I2AdbLDVb0Q
[2]: https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/16/us/ucla-student-protests-counterprotesters-invs https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/16/us/ucla-student-protests-coun...
- inglor_cz 8mo ago"That's going to be incredibly bad for Iranians as you'll either get a fail-state like Libya, Syria or Somalia (which is what Israel wants) or you'll simply get an American puppet." Iran is one of the oldest continuing political units in the world, clocking over 2500 years as an organized state. I think you seriously underestimate the capabilities and know-how of the Iranians by expecting them to behave the same way as pre-state tribal polities like Somalia.
- jmyeet 8mo agoDid you miss the part where I said that Iran is not going to fall apart like some seem to think?
- inglor_cz 8mo agoWhy do you make comparisons to Libya or Somalia then, if you don't believe that this is going to happen. The defining characteristic of failed states is that central control crumbles and various local warlords step into the void.
- calf 8mo agoActually I do this a lot, I cite specific examples a, b to indicate a much more general category C that I have in mind. It's the 21st century and plausible that new types of failure-states unlike those seen historically will happen. So it's not necessarily a contradiction the other commenter had.