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The US isn’t trying to restrict Venezuela’s oil sales. It is restricting those sales and part of that work, remember Russia invaded Ukraine and aids Iran in destabilizing the Middle East, is the seizure of ships flying under false flags in violation of international maritime law and in violation of US and European Union sanctions on Russian oil sales.
It's fair to be critical of the United States (which was also largely cleaning up European colonial messes in the Middle East), but it's not fair to take away Iran's agency and blame all of its ills on the United States.
Swap “Jews” with “Arabs” and you’d be describing Israel, except they don’t just chant and already have nuclear bombs
Israel isn't innocent either. Their actions in Gaza went beyond what was necessary, in my opinion, but I will never accept or entertain a discussion where all the blame just goes to Israel or just goes to the United States.
Neither Israel or the United States are doing what Iran is doing. Iran actively chooses to be belligerent because their authoritarian leaders, who also like to help Russia invade and bomb Ukraine mind you, need an enemy to try and maintain appearances.
I don't know but I don't doubt that Israel has a nuclear bomb. I also don't have a problem with it, because unlike Iran they don't go around threatening their neighbors with nuclear holocaust and destruction, like Iran does.
Are the Palestinians Iranian citizens? They weren't the last I checked. So no need for Iran to be involved there.
If you want to argue that Israel is "doing things right now" in this broad context against Arabs well, so did Hamas, Hezbollah, and others against Israelis. Iran threatens nuclear holocaust on Israel, Iran also launched ballistic missiles at Israel, funds ISIS/ISIL, Hezbollah, destabilized Syria and tried to destabilize Iraq. Maybe everyone just deserves what is happening to them?
I don't think it should be possible to kill two million people in a well planned and organised fashion without getting everyone involved...
I will. For example, it is a nasty group of medieval characters, extremely corrupt even by contemporary standards, and willing to kill and maim their opponents at every opportunity. Hanging people from cranes, bloody hell.
"most obvious CIA-sponsored color revolution"
Yeah, because millions of people are just stupid remote-controlled robotic zombies who will, upon a command of the CIA, go into the streets against Basij thugs who are willing to shoot at them.
Do people outside the West have any personal agency themselves in your view, or are they all just mindless puppets of the Big White Man in the White House?
This is not to deny that the US has some interest in getting the ayatollahs overthrown. But I find the opinion that everyone in the world just obediently dances by someone's flute quite dehumanizing.
Not saying it is what's happening.
But pretending our brain isn't subject to manipulation isn't the way to our own betterment.
In Iran of 2026, neither food nor even water is secure. That is very low on the same hierarchy. I would say that this is a much stronger motivation for discontent than anything on the heavily censored local Internet.
Not the CIA anymore. Today, it's done by "semi-governmental" organizations such as the NED[1, 2] or RFE/RL[3] or in this case, its persian-language incarnation Radio Farda[4].
You can agree with their overt goal of strengthening pro-democratic forces in authoritarian countries, (though the question remain: with what authority and who sets the objectives they are promoting?)
Even then, the list of countries in which they don't operate should raise some questions: No activity in Israel, Argentina or the Gulf states, even though those countries are also generally regarded as autocracies (Gulf states) or are currently experiencing a massive slide towards authoritarianism (Israel, Argentina). It just happens that those countries are all allies of the US...
[2] https://socialism.com/fs-article/betrayal-from-venezuela-to-...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Free_Europe/Radio_Libert...
Yeah, the West is not a bunch of angels. But among people who view the world as one big conspirational system, there is a visible lack of understanding that many of the domestic regimes are worse than that.
If any country maintains a massive secret police against internal dissent, it is a good indication that the Dear Leader is hated by the population.
As of 2025, most European countries do not maintain a massive secret police against internal dissent, though some particular events are worrying. But prior to 1989, there were massive secret police systems all over the former Eastern Bloc.
"with what authority and who sets the objectives they are promoting?"
Does it matter? Why?
The Iranian system in particular derives its authority from Allah, and? Did Allah actually confirm their authority? Nope.
What a lazy and ignorant attempt of spinning this. That's on the same level as the "so many people would know, no one could keep it a secret" fact check drivel. You don't need people to be stupid, "remote-controlled" nor robotic zombies. You just need to keep on funding assets, recruit new people and the seeds will form a groundwork sooner or later.
I recommend picking up a book on this some time: https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/cia-intervention
Some of these operations werde decades long.
> But I find the opinion that everyone in the world just obediently dances by someone's flute quite dehumanizing.
Basically no one means this when they speak of regime change operations and people participating in it.
I know a few activists who were involved in sending dialup numbers to fax machines during the Arab Spring during the Internet blackout in Egypt and most of them are pretty much aware that they were mostly pawns for Western governments.
If I lived in Iran, I would need no CIA to be angry about the status quo.
They do though. Spinning the 2014 Maidan Revolution as a fully illegitimate CIA-backed coup (with the implicit conclusion that it's against the will of the people) is one of the main rhetorical pillars used to justify Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
Still better than having western corporations loot the hell out of your country, like they did to Russia in the 90s, or what AICO did after it got Mossadegh out of the way.
> robotic zombies who will, upon a command of the CIA, go into the streets...
Money goes a long way, even in countries that aren't poor. For a country as heavily sanctioned as Iran, the CIA could buy out all of their politicians and all of their journalists several times over. We already saw this with "arab spring" in Egypt. Five-eyes and company con terminally online city kids into thinking the country is behind them, city kids protest and weaken the government, the peasants take notice and realize, "Hey, if these spoiled kids can topple the government, just imagine what we can do!", so instead of getting gay rights and feminism, they get the Muslim Brotherhood.
The story of Eastern Germany is much more interesting. Capital from West Germany was directly steering the process.
> Still better than having western corporations loot the hell out of your country, like they did to Russia in the 90s, or what AICO did after it got Mossadegh out of the way.
Really? By what measure? Just look at how many people fled the Islamic Republic vs. Shah's old regime. The diaspora has absolutely exploded since Khomeini's revolution, and the people fleeing are mostly the best educated ones. Iran has the highest brain drain in the world.
Do you think people go fight their armed government known for heavily repressing any kind of protest for fun after work ?
I hope to wake up to see a free iran any day now.
https://www.gettyimages.com/search/2/image?phrase=public+han...
If Iran turns into a monarchy, it will be a very formal constitutional one, like Spain.
Paradoxically, republics of today seem more vulnerable to authoritarian turns than the monarchies which survived the 20th century.
Probably because an elected leader has more legitimacy and thus can demand more political power, sometimes too much power. In a constitutional monarchy, there is always a psychological split between the sovereign and the prime minister or whoever gets elected to executive power, and one-man-shows are less likely to succeed.