Is there anything I, a layman, can do to support the Iranian protestors?
Or the ones that are counter-protesting that know foreign intervention will be a net negative for their country?
This regime has already completely failed - their currency is completely debased, they've destroyed their water supply, and over the last several decades they've been unable to meet the very reasonable and understandable conditions needed to join the international community and get sanctions lifted, allowing them to engage in trade and lift their economy out of the gutter.
The choices made by this regime are the precise and exact reasons for their current degraded state. The rest of the civilized world set the conditions, and they chose not to engage in civilization. I have absolutely zero sympathy for the supporters of the regime, they're a group who've been in power for less than 50 years, and every year they've been in power they've brought nothing but atrocity and grief to the world.
Because of my principles, I do not pretend cultural or moral relativism has legitimacy, and that somehow religious or cultural rationalizations of murder and oppression and mayhem can't be assessed as such because I'm halfway across the other side of the planet living a good life of riches nearly unimaginable to previous generations, arguing with people on the internet that I want things to be this good, or better, for everyone, especially the ones currently under the thumbs of tyrants.
I don't want the US to invade and try to build some sort of mythical liberal Iran, I want to see them rise up and get all the support they need to get their best and brightest to rebuild something awe inspiring and new for themselves.
The odds aren't great, but they're not as bad as recent American and Western driven nation building exercises. The Iranian people will have to walk a tightrope, and I'm cheering for them.
I agree with your other points. This current regime has degraded Iran to very unfortunate levels.
I really hope for a regime change for Iran, I sincerely do. The only reason I'm being quite particular about sources and facts is that I just don't want to see another Iraq and Afghanistan where the regime change causes more deaths, and then it leaves a power vacuum for all sorts of other violence and degradation.
Basic logic and a pair of eyeballs.
They're about as brazen and blatant as these sorts of things get. No, I don't have recordings of the mullahs instructing IRGC what to do, but the pro regime protests are uniform and exactly what a mullah would want for pro regime propaganda, with none of the nuance or variability you'd expect with spontaneous, grassroots support.
As far as I know, there's no documentary proof, but the evidence implicit to the structure, timing, messaging, location, and demographics are more than sufficient to damn them as regime orchestrated agitprop as opposed to any genuine opposition to the anti-regime movement.
I know IRGC is bad, there is no argument there. But to take agency away from Iranians that could genuinely be protesting against regime-change protestors just doesn't feel right to me.
The Basij and local militia, ostensibly under the control of the regime, and in coordination with the IRGC, will issue orders to militia/military members and sometimes direct them to bring families with them. Some go willingly, but all go with an implicit gun to their families heads.
https://x.com/impk247/status/2011046265594003705 https://x.com/Skeptic222/status/2010698808456360131
There are a large number of reports and reporting from new media, social media, and so on, but there's no current smoking gun.
https://jamestown.org/the-role-of-the-revolutionary-guards-a...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basij
https://understandingwar.org/research/middle-east/iran-updat...
The IRGC and Basij and forced astroturfing is a frequently used and well understood tactic that the regime has kept in its toolbox. It's not a crazy conspiracy or unfounded, it's just business as usual. Just like I know they're using 7.62 NATO standard ammunition to gun people down, even though I haven't seen even a single picture of spent shell casings or bullets pulled from bodies. It's just how they do things.
It's not taking agency away if you can't tell the difference between someone being forced, pressured, going along to survive, or genuinely invested and supportive of the regime.
What would give them real agency is not living under the thumb of a dystopian authoritarian theocratic dictatorship. Pretending that there's any legitimacy to supporting the regime is also a little crazy. As long as 81 million people think its ok to live that way, you should let them oppress and murder and enslave and exploit the other 9 million? That's right up there with saying the parades for Kim Jong Un in North Korea show us some real support for that regime, or that people who express support of Un could possibly have any legitimacy.
At any rate, I hope any genuine supporters of the regime that are simply ignorant of the abuses and atrocity are simply disappointed and free to grumble about it in the near future, and see their lives radically improved and uplifted by whatever comes next. There's a huge amount of potential funding and international support - not just the US - that could make a free Iran drastically different than Libya or Syria or Iraq or Afghanistan.
They've got a cultural core and the diaspora and families who'd love nothing more than to return and rebuild, from all over the world. Even if they don't go the route of restoring the Shah, I think the Shah and that apparatus is willing to support and legitimize whatever comes next.
I honestly thought I'd live my entire life with Iran being a rogue state and perennially agitating and sponsoring terror, that it'd just be the way things are, until AGI, Aliens, or Armageddon.
Do you have any source there were organic protest in support of the regime other than IRGC media? You see why people don’t buy it?
OP asked what a layman could do to help the protestors, and I asked which protestors he wants to support.
I despise the Iranian government lol. Stop attributing intent where there isn't.
This must be satire.
It will inevitably involve foreign intervention, which tends to work out badly. But I don't accept the alternative, that keeping a suppressive and violent regime is the best case. And I'd rather have the least amount of intervention possible, I don't even intrinsically care about breaking the regime; I want to directly support the protestors as much as possible.
A puppet installed by US/Israel is a puppet that will only benefit those countries.
Because the interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya didn't really help the citizens. Instead it created more instability, and created power vacuums for other sorts of violence and degeneracy to occur.
I'm not saying I know what's the best way for Iranians to get what they want. But recent history shows us that foreign interference doesn't work, especially because those countries that are intervening aren't merely doing it from the goodness of their own hearts.
So the anti-government protestors all protest for both? Like it's implied?
The other group of protestors are protesting against this. There is a segment within this group that are ardently pro-Regime. The other segment (which I think is the majority of the group, and Iran, but I have no evidence and so this is purely anecdotal based on my various discussions with Iranians) is that they do want regime change, but not from any outside influence - they would ideally like an organic democratic process that Iranian citizens control.
It's sad people don't see these dead bodies and take positions, because popular media don't publish this news.
Usually these deflections mean that the IRGC has indeed killed 3 year olds. Thanks for confirming it.
Tomorrow when Islamic Republic falls, people will get their hands on the list of every one the registrar has funded and sent overseas. A day of judgment will come for all the innocents.
Please make your point clear without accusing me of supporting state-sponsored violence.
Buddy the burden of proof is on you.
The fact that you are so certain of it, shows that during the total blackout you have some information from inside that normal people don’t? How do you have this information? It’s getting very interesting.