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Posted on 04/23/2026 5:44:44 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Iran’s decades-long bluff—built on terror proxies, nuclear brinkmanship, and Western appeasement—collapsed the moment it faced direct force and a changed geopolitical landscape.
How does the supposedly most fearsome regime in the violent Middle East now find itself on the verge of an utter economic and military collapse?
Iran’s half-century-long deadly terrorist reputation peaked with the October 7, 2023, massacre in Israel that it helped fund and coordinate.
Iran’s terrorist ambitions of running the Middle East had accelerated after witnessing Joe Biden’s cognitive decline and his administration’s distancing itself from Israel. Biden’s humiliation by a series of Chinese slights and the Russian invasion of Ukraine further eroded American deterrence. European appeasement was another force multiplier of Iranian hubris.
The theocracy apparently assumed that its supposed “ring of fire” terrorist proxies—in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Gaza, and Yemen—could lethally squeeze Israel, now reeling from the greatest single-day loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust.
The theocrats further conjectured that, like most incumbent presidents, Biden would be reelected and continue to revive the disastrous Obama-era appeasement.
Once Biden had begged Iran to reenter the Iran deal, lifted sanctions, sent cash, and removed terrorist designations from some of its proxies, the Khamenei regime, now flush with new oil revenues, logically stepped up its nuclear enrichment.
Tehran was assured that not even Israel would dare strike its nuclear labyrinth, given its reputedly state-of-the-art Chinese and Russian air defenses—and its own retaliatory armada of thousands of ballistic missiles and drones, augmented by perhaps 200,000 short-range rockets of its Arab terrorist clients.
But Iran sorely miscalculated.
The cognitively challenged Biden reelection candidacy imploded, replaced by the anemic Kamala Harris nomination—and with it, the Democrats lost power.
Worse, the supposedly politically dead and buried Trump pulled off the most amazing political return in modern American history.
(Excerpt) Read more at amgreatness.com ...
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VDH ping
And yet, the Democratic rabble are desperately trying to breathe life back into the mullahs. Because anyone shouting “death to America” is a soul brother and ally.
Oh but Trump is running out of time too vis a vis the War Powers Act. Iran has enough military left that the leftist media can point to how "ineffective" the American Military has been in keeping the Straits open while they slowly use up whatever is left of their missile and drone stocks. The IRGC is in a death struggle. Best we accommodate their suicidal wishes for paradise, quickly while preparing the Persian people to retake their country.
We just need to finish them off. I don’t want to do this again in 5 years.
I’m more concerned with what the voters will do in November. Blue states are lost. 25 or so competitive house seats. Open senate seat in Michigan is the best we can hope for.
The midterms come every administration. We can’t just stop everything out of fear. My understanding is that most people are supportive of this operation.
“ And yet, the Democratic rabble are desperately trying to breathe life back into the mullahs..”
And more than just a few Freepers.
L
VD writes some great stuff, but every 20 years or so, his “Baghdad Bob” personality or inner Lindsey Graham comes out.
WIKI
The dynasty that the revolution overthrew – the Pahlavi dynasty – was known for its autocracy, its focus on modernization and Westernization as well as its disregard for religious and democratic measures in Iran’s constitution.
Considered the founding father of modern Iran by contemporary historians, Army General Reza Shah Pahlavi replaced Islamic laws with western ones, and forbade traditional Islamic clothing, separation of the sexes and veiling of women (hijab). Women who resisted his ban on public hijab had their chadors forcibly removed and torn. In 1935 a rebellion by pious Shi’a at the shrine of Imam Reza in Mashhad was crushed on his orders with dozens killed and hundreds injured.
Reza Shah was deposed in 1941 by an invasion of allied British and Soviet troops who believed him to be sympathetic with the allies’ enemy Nazi Germany. In fact Reza Shah could not trust allied forces due to long history of British and Russian interference, separating parts of Iran and contracts exploiting Iran. His son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, agreed to substitute for his father as monarch. Prince Pahlavi (later crowned Shah) reigned until the 1979 revolution with one brief interruption. In 1953 he fled the country after a power-struggle with his Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh. Mossadegh is remembered in Iran for having been voted into power through a democratic election. He was selected by the Shah as Prime Minister and introduced to Parliament for approval following Iran’s Constitutional procedure. The Shah supported his Prime Minister who defended Iran’s right in the International Court of Justice in the Hague to nationalize British-controlled oil fields. Mossadegh was deposed in a military coup d’état organized by an American CIA operative and aided by the British MI6.
Leftist and Islamist groups attacked his government for violating the Iranian Constitution, and political oppression by the SAVAK (secret police).
During the time of Shah’s reign, women’s rights improved significantly. The urban and secular middle class grew quickly. Many universities and foundations of education were established, and many young people from lower and middle classes were funded so that they could study in the best universities in the West. Most of these new generations trained thanks to the Shah’s policies demanded political changes quickly, something that was not supported by traditional sections of society.
Shia cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of the Iranian revolution, first came to political prominence in 1963 when he led opposition to the Shah and his program of reforms known as the “White Revolution”, which aimed to break up landholdings owned by some Shi’a clergy, allow women to vote and religious minorities to hold office, and finally grant women legal equality in marital issues.
Khomeini declared that the Shah had “embarked on the destruction of Islam in Iran” and publicly denounced the Shah as a “wretched miserable man.” Following Khomeini’s arrest on June 5, 1963, three days of major riots erupted throughout Iran, with Khomeini supporters claiming 15,000 were killed by police fire. Khomeini was detained and kept under house arrest for 8 months. After his release he continued his agitation against the Shah, condemning the regime’s close cooperation with Israel (it gave Islamic diplomatic recognition, in addition to covert assistance) and its “capitulations” – the extension of diplomatic immunity to all American government personnel in Iran. In November 1964, Khomeini was re-arrested and sent into exile, where he remained for 14 years until the revolution.
To replace the shah’s regime Khomeini developed the ideology of velayat-e faqih (guardianship of the jurist) as government, postulating that Muslims – in fact everyone – required “guardianship,” in the form of rule or supervision by the leading Islamic jurist or jurists. Such rule would protect Islam from deviation from traditional sharia law, and in so doing eliminate poverty, injustice, and the “plundering” of Muslim land by foreign unbelievers. Establishing and obeying this Islamic government was “actually an expression of obedience to God”, ultimately “more necessary even than prayer and fasting” in Islam, and a commandment for all the world, not one confined to Iran.
Publicly, Khomeini focused more on the socio-economic problems of the shah’s regime (corruption, unequal income and developmental issues), not his solution of rule by Islamic jurists.
He believed a propaganda campaign by Western imperialists had prejudiced most Iranians against theocratic rule.
Seen as a proxy for the Russian menace in the north, Marxists groups were illegal and ruthlessly suppressed by SAVAK internal security apparatus. They included the communist Tudeh Party of Iran; two armed organizations, the Organization of Iranian People’s Fedai Guerrillas (OIPFG) and the breakaway Iranian People’s Fedai Guerrillas (IPFG); and some minor groups. The guerillas aim was to defeat the Pahlavi regime by assassination and guerilla war. Although they played an important part in the chaos of 1978 before the overthrow of the regime, they had been weakened considerably by government repression and factionalization in the first half of the 1970s. They subsequently failed to pose much of a threat to the regime once it had assumed power.
By late 1974 the oil boom had begun to produce not “the Great Civilization” promised by the Shah, but an “alarming” increase in inflation and waste and an “accelerating gap” between the rich and poor, the city and the country. Nationalistic Iranians were angered by the tens of thousands of skilled foreign workers who came to Iran, many of them to help operate the already unpopular and expensive American high-tech military equipment that the Shah had spent hundreds of millions of dollars on.
In 1976, the Shah’s government angered pious Iranian Muslims by changing the first year of the Iranian solar calendar from the Islamic hijri to the ascension to the throne by Cyrus the Great. “Iran jumped overnight from the Muslim year 1355 to the royalist year 2535.” The same year the Shah declared economic austerity measures to dampen inflation and waste. The resulting unemployment disproportionately affected the thousands of recent poor and unskilled migrants to the cities. Cultural and religious conservatives, many of whom were predisposed to view the Shah’s secularism and Westernization as “alien and wicked”, went on to form the core of the revolution’s demonstrators and “martyrs”.
In 1977 a new American president, Jimmy Carter, was inaugurated....He enlarged the Office of Human Rights created by his predecessor. The office proceeded to send the Shah a “polite reminder” of the importance of political rights and freedom. The Shah responded by granting amnesty to 357 political prisoners in February and allowing Red Cross to visit prisons, beginning what is said to be ‘a trend of liberalization’. Through the late spring, summer and autumn, liberal opposition formed organizations and issued open letters denouncing the regime.
That year also saw the death of the very popular and influential modernist Islamist leader Ali Shariati, allegedly at the hands of SAVAK, removing a potential revolutionary rival to Khomeini. In October, Khomeini’s son Mostafa died. Though the cause appeared to be a heart attack, anti-Shah groups blamed SAVAK poisoning and proclaimed him a ‘martyr.’ A subsequent memorial service for Mostafa in Tehran put Khomeini back in the spotlight and began the process of building Khomeini into the leading opponent of the Shah.
The Carter administration in the US also refused to sell non-lethal tear gas and rubber bullets to Iran.
in early 1977, the Shah announced liberalization policies to gain US support once again and resolve the crises of the state...Following the liberalization policies, mullahs played a crucial role in mobilizing the people against the regime.
the Shah abdicated the Peacock Throne and fled Iran on 16 January 1979
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Background_and_causes_of_the_Iranian_Revolution
The Chinese—who have turned a million Muslim Uyghurs into indentured serfs—saw Iran merely as a cut-rate gas station.
Ouch!!!
The wimpy Congressional Republicans (who refused to support Trump and MAGA) were doomed to lose both the House and Senate before the first bomb was dropped.
And it was 47 who finally did it to them. Weird.
“The Chinese—who have turned a million Muslim Uyghurs into indentured serfs”
The Communist Chinese constitution requires work capable persons of working age to work - 100%.
“From each according to his ability...”
There’s no exception under Marxism for Muslim Uyghurs who merely want their women to pump out babies and cook.
Thanks for history post
Trump certainly called “bullshit” on the globalist and mainstream government/media narrative that radical IRGC/Mullah Iran is a powerful, respectable, capable country.
Their leadership before they were eliminated, regretted the Oct 7 attacks.
This works now because their neighbors have finally had enough of them. Islam is islam, but they are tired of Iran bullying them and firing missiles and drones at them. Plus not all flavors of islam will automaticallback others, just because islam, especially when they’re getting attacked by them.
I doubt any of their neighbors wanted Iran to have nukes, so thismis why the timing is working now. They are fed up and dont want iran to nuke them too.
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