The domestic repression is why the ownership of firearms is banned. We should try to arm the civilians so they can get to work on regime change.
Iran has an an amazing grass roots oppression system where poor, fanatical Shia zealots are recruited, trained and embedded in neighborhoods to create a Stasi style decentralized control network
This has worked well to maintain IRGC grip on power but it is becoming a liability as our military works to destroy the mutual support network that allows these thinly spread, rather isolated Basij operative to concentrate forces to suppress internal dissent
Soon, the Iranian people will be free to deal with these despicable and despised scum bags in detail
Possibly coming to a neighborhood near you, intentionally or unintentionally.
"Conversely, a government that finds it increasingly difficult (to repress) keep law and order in its own society also faces growing constraints on its regional ambitions."
Also possibly coming to a neighborhood near you.
The author is either a moron or is deliberately misleading the reader. It would be the height of hypocrisy for a country like the U.S. to base its dealings with Iran on that country’s “internal repression” at the same time we’ve been pissing away trillions of dollars and thousands of lives propping up radical Islamic royal families all over the Middle East.
If as the author presents, the Iranian regime relies upon violent internal repression to maintain itself in power, what does he imagine is going to cause that regime to abandon an existential tool? We are already bombing the crap out of regime targets, crippling Iran’s economy, and isolating it from its neighbors.
Does the author honestly believe that if only the US focused all its diplomacy and public rhetoric on demanding Iran stop human rights abuses, that the regime would hop to, and quit, saying, “Oh, was that wrong? We never realized repression was bad”? They know relaxing the internal repression would end with their own heads on pikes.