Ok, but what does that actually mean?
The reality is, unless the Iranians themselves replace the Ayatollahs, it would require a foreign sponsored coup or outright invasion to meaningfully change the status quo there.
The reality is, unless the Iranians themselves replace the Ayatollahs, it would require a foreign sponsored coup or outright invasion to meaningfully change the status quo there.
A deal between this dictatorship and the west will only strengthen them, leading to more oppression. A weakened dictatorship due to foreign pressure will make it easier for the people of Iran to replace them.
Look no further than Afghanistan to see how resilient they can be. They even withstood decades of occupation.
Hard power alone wouldn't have worked and who knows whether soft power could have worked either since there were so many saboteurs both internal and external like Saudis/Israeli lobbies killing the project in its infancy.
They had widespread and growing internal rebellion for a long time, with independent internal discussions and controversies going on about the unsustainability of Apartheid - both from a moral and economic perspective. Hell, they even tried Mandela for Treason in '56 and spent 27 years in prison after he started the revolutionary group in '61.
Apartheid didn't end until the early '90's.
Saying external sanctions caused it, is a bit like saying the USSR collapsed because of embargos.
They definitely weren't helping make it stay, but it's hard to say those where why it collapsed.
Yet, when there are riots, they blame the West for not sanctioning enough...
One thing I do not understand - and if journalists are reading this, I hope this gets picked up, is that many of the Iranian elite's sons and daughters are actually living in the US. They try to hide that from both the American public, and the Iranian one (complete hypocrisy).
Your arguments go against the research on this topic I have seen.
The Supreme Ayatollah has a flexible user interface (UI) for the "West". When he wants to retreats: It wears the so called moderate president (Khatami, Rohani) and when the business is as usual he shows his teeth (Ahmadinejad, Raisi). The so called "president" is a joke. The last one (Raisi) has basically no self-agency, he is all ears for his leader and openly is proud about it! The previous ones weren't much different but at least they put up a show or a fuss when they told to do something. But this last one is perfect pawn (A soldier of leader as he puts it): "Sarbaze Velayat". The show was such a joke that in the last presidential selection: The supreme leader even eliminated his own long time friends and allies such as Larijani* and played Qalibaf to reduce the chance of any uncertainty (+). Note even with those eliminated in the run, it was still selection between potato vs potato...
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Iranian_American_Coun...
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Larijani
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Bagher_Ghalibaf
+ Uncertainty because previously people have tried to select the least favorable one for the grand Ayatollah, this time he didn't want to tolerate even that level of surprise! He has no fun!
And I doubt those folks are going to change their mind over what’s going on.
>I am worried this tyrannical government succeeds in putting down this movement and then the western governments sign another nuclear treaty which means sanction relief and more money for the regime
Iran trades with Turkey, Pakistan, the U.A.E., Germany, India, Kuwait and Qatar [1].
[1] https://oec.world/en/profile/country/irn/?flowSelector1=flow...
Won't be the first time
1. Sanctions: check
2. International isolation: ~check
3. freezing foreign assets: check
4. Bringing freedom to Iran by liberating them (successful operations like Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, ....): LOL, never gonna happen