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Comment by jobgh | Hacker News Reader

No shot. The economy is already in the gutter. The productivity hit of a total internet cutoff would be a death sentence

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That assumes the regime cares more about the economic prosperity of their people than about staying in power. So far they seem to care more about power. North Korea provides a model for how terrible the situation can get for every day people in that sort of arrangement.

You can only let that go so far, because at the end of the day you need to pay the military to keep you in power.

In the long run we're all dead. In the meantime, NK is still standing.

The rules are rather different when your economy is mostly oil - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petrostate

Some level of eonomic prosperity is necessary to keep the government's key supporters (e.g. the ruling class and the army) satisfied.

Their economic prosperity is more linked to Oil than Internet.

Plus, the elites economic prosperity is also linked to their not being protests and for the toppling of govt to not occur and they might be willing to offset some losses to keep the average population in check

Which sucks for the average iranian but we saw how their protests were cracked down with 20-30 THOUSAND people killed and Iran hiding bodies etc.

I have heard that all shops are either shut down or running at the most minimum capacity. Economic prosperity just isn't a question now in Iran.

Yeah, foreign intervention is probably the best option at this point. If the elites are willing to murder tends of thousands of innocent people, then I see no moral issues with foreign intervention to get rid of IRGC and current government using any means necessary.

Consent manufactured or manufacturing consent I wonder.

Two things can be true at once:

1. The government of Iran is an oppressive, immoral dictatorship.

2. Foreign intervention to try to remove it would likely result in worse outcomes, not better.

North Korea is effectively an island. Iran has many neighbors and long borders. They have no choice but to be at least semi integrated into the world and strong enough to defend themselves.

The regime does not even care about the capital having water in the next month. They are basically doing pre-emptive starvation culling at this point.

North Korea unfortunately has given them a path forward. If you're willing to murder your own citizens en masse, you can get away with about anything.

Yes, just start small

North Korea has nukes though. Iran doesn't, and probably never will.

Iran has 90 million people and a giant conventional missile arsenal that deter neighbors from allowing military action against it. Invading Iran would be enormously difficult. It will also probably get nukes sooner or later. But it doesn't need nukes to be nearly untouchable.

Considering America and Israel accomplished total air superiority over Iran in matter of days just few months ago, they're obviously pretty damn far from being untouchable.

Invading Iran would be difficult, but totally destroying IRGC and military (as long as they side with the former) wouldn't be that hard. Dropping communications equipment and weapons to Iranian opposition groups wouldn't be hard either.

Yes, but what was accomplished with the air superiority? It's not regime change. It set back the nuclear program, maybe six months. That probably won't work ad infinitum, at some point they are going to build redundant sites and hardened facilities that are resilient to bunker busters.

The IRGC and military are HUGE. This is a numbers thing, not a competence thing. Neither the US or Israel has the munitions to make a lasting dent with air power alone.

No that is american propaganda. Glorious islamist economy is great! Look at ICE shootings instead.

And if you disagree you're a russian bot. But there wouldn't possibly be any middle-eastern bots spreading propaganda...

I don’t think a lot of their economy depends on the internet. Even rich countries in the Middle East would continue to sell oil if the internet wasn’t functional. Might cause some logistical issues but nothing that can’t be done over the phone.

Is the Iranian economy tied to individuals having internet access to the rest of the world much?

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