I've personally known 2 women from Iran who are not fans of the US foreign policy, but become red with anger and visibly shaking when talking about their govt's treatment of women.
Why "but"? Those are usually the same groups of people.
Intuitively, it is more likely that people who are not fan of US policies would be fan of Iranian govt's policies (you know because Iranian govt and US govt don't see eye to eye and all that..).
Oh sorry I misinterpreted this phrase. I read it as if it said "become red with anger when you criticize their govt's treatment of women". My bad.
In what world but an American worldview is that even remotely intuitive? That statement is plain wrong.
US-Iran relations post-WW2 and why some Iranians see the US as a causal factor for the current repressive regime is a fascinating topic! If you want to explore, here are a few starting points:
1. More of an anti-Shah stance: https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=100...
2. More of a pro-Shah, US-centric stance: https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/1979-iran-and-america/
US actions set the conditions (a foreign puppet ruler) for a people's overthrow which itself was usurped by the worst form of theocrats (your "Iranian Regime") who maintain power by murder (public hangings in squares, etc) .. and act which, again, US Courts have no time limitation on the consideration of.
That's not what I meant. What I meant was no one will excuse what Ted Bundy did because his parents had a divorce or were mean to him when he was a kid. While we acknowledge that stuff that happened decades ago still might have an effect today, we tend to attribute people with self agency. I think we should do the same with the current Iranian regime or all countries for that matter.
Also, these theories will never be verifiable. I don't see what's so interesting in exploring them then. This might be because of what the U.S did, or it might be because of what Iraq did (one million people died in the Iran-Iraq war), or simply it might be bad ideas in the minds of religious fanatics - or a million other things or a combination of them. What do we do with it then?
Some Iranians love their government! This is true in every country. On the whole, though, this is a gross mischaracterization.
Iran has been having enormous countrywide protests and strikes for the last several years. The scale of these cannot be understated. Protests in every city and town, and many small villages, across the entire country, for months and months on end.
Over 20,000 Iranians have been arrested in the most recent wave of protests, and somewhere between 500 and 5,000 have been killed since September 2022. The government steals people's corpses and buries them in secret so that the true death toll is hidden.
Iran has the largest standing military in the Middle East. About a third of the military is the IRGC, who is sworn protect not the people or national sovereignty, but rather to the Supreme Leader and the Islamic Republic, and is frequently deployed domestically. They have been instrumental in crushing protests, going as far as shelling their own villages with artillery to quell dissent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahsa_Amini_protests
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Iranian_food_protests
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%932020_Iranian_prot...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018%E2%80%932019_Iranian_gene...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011–2012_Iranian_protests
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Iranian_presidential_elec...
Regardless, that huge military you refer to in Iran is composed of... Iranians. They're not foreign oppressors. If the Iranian people don't want these village-shelling assholes ruling over them, they need to stand up and do something about it. These soldiers live somewhere, and have families somewhere. No regime can stay in power without military support.
Anyway, back to my point: Iran's current problems aren't America's fault. Iranians are doing this to themselves, just like Afghanistan's people are oppressing themselves.
Really, I can't understand why this worldview comes from.
The previous one (not exactly democratic, but not "let's kill everybody that dresses wrong" either) was created by a lot of popular pressure, replacing another set of religious nutjobs that were put there by the CIA.
Now, answer me, did the sanctions destroy the current government yet? Or maybe they are only there for 15 years and they just need a century or two to make any effect?
The CIA definitely did not put the religious nut jobs in power in Iran. Unless you want to blame them for the revolution in the first place.