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The black and white "west is bad" narrative you're being fed isn't accurate.
Just trying to understand.
For three main reasons.
1. Culturally Iranians are way more aligned with west.
2. Western imperialism results in more democracy. Not 100%, but not this bad.
3. Economically countries under west's influence do much better. Iran is extremely poor right now.
Why do you think China and Russia are causing the economic instability? I thought it was because of US sanctions and currency manipulation.
Some "west bad" rhetoric is that the fall of communism was orchestrated by Americans and not of organic local origin.
In reality the communist regime protected by Russian/ soviet violence had no legitimacy or support from the population.
Perhaps Poles could not free themselves without the western , maybe Cia played active role in organizing solidarity movement.
If this is true then we Poles are forever grateful for orchestrating regime change in Poland in 1989.
Even the parent article reports first-hand that the Iranian regime is now labelling protesters as terrorists and calls for their arrests.
This, combined with the drought and economic collapse, has pushed the Iranian people towards revolt.
This is not the fault of Israel, America, Trump, Greenland, white people, or any other boogeyman. It's a feature of Iranian government, and the Iranian people want change.
[0]: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2026/jan/27/i...
[1]: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/07/iran-horrifyi...
[2]: https://persecution.exmuslims.org/countries/iran/
[3]: https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/10/14/iran-new-hijab-law-adds-...
[4]: https://www.equaldex.com/region/iran
[5]: https://time.com/7357635/more-than-30000-killed-in-iran-say-...
Also, US allies (ie Israel) can kill hundreds of thousands of people without any consequences. In fact, we bankroll the weapons they use to do it to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars.
So why are the documented atrocities of one country not an issue at all but the transgressions of another country worthy of starving that country for decades? What's different between these two? And who is making that determination?
Taken further, the US has actively deposed or supported the coups of over 50 governments since WW2 [1]. That includes Iranian Revolution of 1979 (where the US supported Khomenei) and Pinochet in Chile. It also includes puppets like Saddam Hussein who committed all sorts of crimes as a US ally including using nerve gas on the Kurds. US sanctions killed half a million children in Iraq according to a UN report. When confronted with this, then UN Ambassador and later Secretary of State Madeline Albright said "the price is worth it" [2].
Economic sanctions are a sanitized way of saying "starving people" and the track record is bleak. Arguably the only time they've ever worked is apartheid South Africa. What they do instead is entrench the very government we supposedly want to get rid of eg North Korea, Iran, Cuba, Russia [3].
So I would respectfully put this to you: you haven't thought this through.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
[2]: https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/3/25/lets-remember-m...
[3]: https://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/australianoutlook/th...
More detail: most people were uneducated and mostly Muslim, so [Khomeini](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruhollah_Khomeini) used this to provoke people against [Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (king of Iran)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Reza_Pahlavi).
A few years before Khomeini came to power, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi implemented the [White Revolution](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Revolution) to modernize Iran (including granting women the vote, land reform, etc.). Khomeini opposed these reforms and considered them contrary to Islam. Eventually, with support from some [communist parties](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tudeh_Party_of_Iran) and promises of free buses, electricity, and similar benefits to peoples (like what Zohran Mamdani did), the king was overthrown and Khomeini took control.
Interestingly, Khomeini subsequently suppressed and eliminated the communist parties, seized factories and homes of those who opposed the Islamic Republic, and labeled many opponents as terrorists and enemies of Islam.
To understand what Khomeini and the Islamic Republic enacted: - Chess was banned for a period as being against Islam. - Sexual relations with children were publicly condoned by Khomeini in his writings. - ...
Bessent said so at Davos:
"President Trump ordered our Treasury and our OFAC division (Office of Foreign Asset Control) to put maximum pressure on Iran. And it's worked, because in December, their economy collapsed. [...] So this is why people took to the street. This is economic statecraft". https://youtu.be/VQQXLnXlWqY?t=1722
Is this how America helps dissidents? Make them so miserable they can't bear it anymore? Anyways, it never works. It just makes civilians more miserable and the government more repressive. Look at Cuba or North Korea.
I don't get—never have, probably never will—painting the Islamic Republic of Iran as saviours, freedom fighters, or the last bulwark of an axis of resistance.
If the Boston strangler was anti-imperialist, would you claim he was a hero? It feels like you would.
Just because they have a shitty government doesn't mean we (USA) have the right to their oil.
USA indeed doesn’t have any right to their oil, but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t help.
Westerners work to slaughter the secular left in a country, then use that as their entitlement to take over the country - "there is no secular force to take over".
This just happened in Syria - the West forced out a secular leader to replace him with a now celebrated al-Qaeda leader who the US had a $10 million bounty on fourteen months ago. Who is currently slaughtering every minority ethnicity in the country.