The lack of detailed reporting from Iran the past week is disturbing, to say the least.
Are there any (for the lack of a better word) "western" (I mean, I'd also trust, for example NHK, SBS, ABC Australia, etc) journalists from credible journalistic institutions on the ground in Iran?
I admit I'm ignorant to the limits of independent reporting I'm certain the government of Iran mandates.
We do have a habit of sending spies as journalists.
edit: we definitely do this. Also as grad students. Be upset about it, but not with me. The fact that we do this means that US journalists are limited in where they can go. Just like the fact that we're totally willing to send spies as NGO doctors administering vaccinations means that we can't do vaccination campaigns in countries that need help, or the fact that we send spies embedded with weapons/nuclear inspectors means that inspectors can't get access to things.
It's problematic because both sides have political backgrounds: The West would like to take advantage of the current chaos to perpetrate a possible revolution. The Iranian government is aware of that, and that regardless of the truth about the death of the girl it's going to be used against it.
The public has reasons not to believe the government story. You have to understand that the "morality police" has nothing to do with morality and it's a result of the power structures making the current Iranian society. In a way, the "morality police" makes the Iranian government weaker and not stronger but it's a ruling tool. This day-to-day ruling tool and its resulting stability comes at the cost of the possible revolution when the general population have had enough.
Will this time be the one? Who knows but at this time the sanctions can come in very handy. (if not for making this successful, they'd be used as leverage of the next negotiations round)
The Iranian journalists who covered the death of Mahsa Amini are now imprisoned. The Internet has been mostly shut down. There are, obviously, no foreign journalists. The foreign media rebroadcasts coverage Iranians can somehow upload.
As Iranian, I disagree! Those reporter of western mainstream media (last time I watched France24) which have a presence there needs to incorporate some propaganda and reports within the red lines at best. Otherwise, like many others they will be asked to leave the country or if they be Iranian correspondents they even can face serious charges (some form of treason)!
As Iranian, I usually watch with good amounts of doubts such reports with their Iran correspondence. The last time, the anchor said: "It's very good that we have you over there, let me ask...". For me, it was Nope! It actually worse than we have you over there. It means you need to conform!
It was even more surprising later for me that even in the western main stream media, the regime propaganda is the main voice that I hear, believe it or not you can research the NIAC network (Iran under-cover lobbyists) and see how often they're consulted as journalists/commentators on Iran issue in those medias.
I agree, there is a lack of resources here and Iranian journalists are responsible in part. But in defense there are not much hope/resources for independent journalism overall not only on this matter but almost any other. Simply money talks and sifting through that needs focus and great deal of time!
Some girl was killed because she lacked enough haircover. Just reading this makes it seem so utterly insane. A living, breathing, person was killed for a piece of cloth. Shame on anyone who defends it in any way, and shame on a culture that thinks it is okay.
@dang: is someone automatically flagging almost all of this user's posts? many past comments and threads seem innocuous at a glance but have been flagged dead.
the world can be quite brutal, and different. we're not special. it's upsetting when we get a reminder, but maybe this is a chance to learn that much of the world is.. not so nice.
Iranian government has a history of bloody crackdown. Enough is enough. There has been no free and fair election in the past decades so this government doesn't represent the people. I am worried this tyrannical government succeeds in putting down this movement and then the western governments sign another nuclear treaty which means sanction relief and more money for the regime that doesn't represent the people. The west should recognize that this government is a dictatorship and is not afraid of using any means including live bullets to put down protests.
The reality is, unless the Iranians themselves replace the Ayatollahs, it would require a foreign sponsored coup or outright invasion to meaningfully change the status quo there.
It means: 1) publicly condemn the government 2) recognize that this government doesn't represent the people of Iran 3) don't give money to this government.
Anyone giving money to Iran already gets sanctioned by the US, no? And the gov’t is already pretty isolated, except for ‘persona non grata’ countries like North Korea or Russia anyway.
And I doubt those folks are going to change their mind over what’s going on.
>I am worried this tyrannical government succeeds in putting down this movement and then the western governments sign another nuclear treaty which means sanction relief and more money for the regime
We are not asking for foreign countries to "replace the Ayatollahs" for us.
What we are asking, is ending their diplomatic relations with this government, or at least severing it, instead of trying to strengthen their diplomatic relations.
A deal between this dictatorship and the west will only strengthen them, leading to more oppression. A weakened dictatorship due to foreign pressure will make it easier for the people of Iran to replace them.
And economic pressure means nothing to a theocracy that governs over a poor population. That is in fact their bread and butter.
Look no further than Afghanistan to see how resilient they can be. They even withstood decades of occupation.
Hard power alone wouldn't have worked and who knows whether soft power could have worked either since there were so many saboteurs both internal and external like Saudis/Israeli lobbies killing the project in its infancy.
The Islamic Republic is nothing like the Taliban. The Iranian population, especially around 10 years ago, was by no means “poor.” Iran has rich natural resources, very well-educated people (in STEM), and one of the oldest extant cultures of the world.
I am genuinely curious - are there any historical examples where ending diplomatic relationships and imposing sanctions on a country has improved the situation for people living there?
It's not clear how much of South Africa's Apartheid collapse was due to external pressure, and how much was from internal problems.
They had widespread and growing internal rebellion for a long time, with independent internal discussions and controversies going on about the unsustainability of Apartheid - both from a moral and economic perspective. Hell, they even tried Mandela for Treason in '56 and spent 27 years in prison after he started the revolutionary group in '61.
Apartheid didn't end until the early '90's.
Saying external sanctions caused it, is a bit like saying the USSR collapsed because of embargos.
They definitely weren't helping make it stay, but it's hard to say those where why it collapsed.
Iranians are quite ambiguous about that. When there are no riots, they generally blame the West for sanctions, cutting banks out, etc, as it ultimately impacts the normal Joe on the street.
Yet, when there are riots, they blame the West for not sanctioning enough...
One thing I do not understand - and if journalists are reading this, I hope this gets picked up, is that many of the Iranian elite's sons and daughters are actually living in the US. They try to hide that from both the American public, and the Iranian one (complete hypocrisy).
Economic sanctions mostly hurt the population and make the population less able to overthrow the government. Economic sanctions are known to strengthen the hardline elements. Its the hardline conservatives who can't deal with open economy.
Your arguments go against the research on this topic I have seen.
This hardline/moderate is a myth at least for last 15 years. However, the Iran lobbyist (e.g. NIAC) keep this narrative alive. Even in the 2000s era, the crack in the structure were minor. The so called moderator didn't had the motivation to really change anything substantial. It turns out they just wanted to use the people vote as a bargain to re-incorporate them into power (that fraction was in power in 80s but then kicked out). The regime is pure hardliner bcz this is a regime that the whole power has been consolidated under the hand of supreme leader (and this is why people in the streets called him dictator). The parliament/president and the election is just a joke! A show! They've re-define almost any word and void it from meaning.
The Supreme Ayatollah has a flexible user interface (UI) for the "West". When he wants to retreats: It wears the so called moderate president (Khatami, Rohani) and when the business is as usual he shows his teeth (Ahmadinejad, Raisi). The so called "president" is a joke. The last one (Raisi) has basically no self-agency, he is all ears for his leader and openly is proud about it! The previous ones weren't much different but at least they put up a show or a fuss when they told to do something. But this last one is perfect pawn (A soldier of leader as he puts it): "Sarbaze Velayat". The show was such a joke that in the last presidential selection: The supreme leader even eliminated his own long time friends and allies such as Larijani* and played Qalibaf to reduce the chance of any uncertainty (+). Note even with those eliminated in the run, it was still selection between potato vs potato...
+ Uncertainty because previously people have tried to select the least favorable one for the grand Ayatollah, this time he didn't want to tolerate even that level of surprise! He has no fun!
I do wonder on the feasibility of such events. I don't know a huge amount about pre-revolution Iran, but I don't think the Shah had an exceptionally powerful security force (I could be wrong). But now at least, the IRGC makes a revolution/coup very difficult.
The Shah had a very powerful secret police, the SAVAK[1]. Prior to the overthrow of Mosaddegh, there wasn’t a comparable security force.. but I think something about gaining power in a coup makes one incredibly paranoid about being a victim of a coup.
There won't be another treaty but rather a green pass from the US for Israel to attack Iran and even more sanctions. Iran is currently cooperating with Russia so it could only go south for them.
It's too far for Israel to effectively attack it. Israel would need to refuel over Turkey or Iraq, or launch from an American aircraft carrier.
i.e. it would not be a Israeli mission, it would have to be a joint mission. Or in other words America would not be able to say "Israel did it", America would have to be fully on board - and perhaps help.
And that's not something small, that's why it hasn't happened yet.
Russia-Ukraine case made the whole world go crazy due to gas/oil and price increase in anything that touches fossil fuels.
Imagine what would happen globally by Iran settings mines in Straits of Hormuz or rain missiles on countries that are hosting US bases (Oil producers) in retaliation and pressuring global economy in order to maximize the effect of the war.
The maximum Israel can do is to slow down the progress of whatever Israil think Iran is doing, is to conduct sabotage missions in Iran, killing scientists, military commanders, cyberattacks or lobbying as much as possible in other countries for more sanctions etc and so far that has not been effective. In matter of fact, it has backfired.
It's unlikely that Iran would do that in response to an attack on their nuclear facilities. What would they gain from it? They'd just lick their wounds and move on. Iran is already fighting a proxy war against Saudi in Yemen. Their military would be eroded pretty quickly in an outright direct conflict and that would risk losing power internally. Iraq fired plenty of missiles all over the place during the gulf war and it didn't really do much. Mining the straits will likely just result in the US or some international task force taking control over those and de-mining.
All that said it's very unlikely there will be an attack on Iran. The US would much prefer to see the regime fall. That doesn't seem super likely either but attacking Iran will probably just strengthen the regime.
Yeah let me start lathing. Israel will never,ever, ever attack Iran. They know they can't win and can't overthrow the government. For them it would just be a total waste of money.
Israel couldn't even defeat the Iranian sort-off proxies in Lebanon.
Israel has for 30 years had 1 main strategy in regard to Iran, try to get the US to fight Iran for them. The only reason they agree to the Iraq war was because Bush and friends promised that this was all part of a plan to isolate and pressure Iran.
Israel has been claiming that Iran is '1 year away' from nuclear weapons for literally 30 years now. They have made up fake evidence to prove that Iran had a huge nuclear weapons program (evidence that then was dismissed by the CIA and every other security agency).
> Iran is currently cooperating with Russia so it could only go south for them.
Iran is 'cooperating' with anybody that will talk to them.
Israel does not attack like the US, meaning a full scale campaign aiming for regime change. They harass a regime by conducting repeated strikes on enemy territory (see Syria, Ghaza). What Israel primarily wants is to destroy Iran's nuclear installations.
Syria and Ghaza have no means to strike back. And Israel has no capability of destroying Iran nuclear capability that why they are so obsessed with getting the US to prevent Iranians nuclear projects.
The fact that Rouhani got elected and became a president and JCPOA got signed and so many catastrophic events happening by that administration shows there's a democratic election.
Impossible to think if it was a "dictatorship", such person would be elected in the first place.
The fact that presidents get filtered out is a god send tbh in case of Iran.
Imagine ending up wit people like Masoumeh Alinejad-Ghomi, Reza Pahlavi, Supreme Grandma Maryam Rejavi (_Masoud Rajavi decided to become against the IR since his or his party was filtered out_) or any other weirdo.
Not so great process, but I don't think letting everyone run for presidency has much of its goodies packed with it anyway.
In either case, Iran's constitution keeps the president above so many levels that having impeachment becomes even harder. Whoever president Iran ends up with, it becomes almost impossible to replace or take them down by Majles.
I don't know, probably a role of Prime Minister will be more suited with some changes to law that person can be nailed down in wrongdoing or pressure to step down, but who knows, maybe that backfires too.
I'm Iranian just like the OP above. There is no doubt this narrative is the narrative of Basij which their propaganda outlets constantly put out. For further detail see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basij
However, for those who are not familiar with such jargon, Alir3z4, basically says it's good thing that his Supreme leader filtered out candidates. So then the people can select from "good" choices. Otherwise people would have select X, Y and Z which are bad. The argument needs no counter-argument other than removing the jargon...
I encourage the interested to read his other comments to take a first hand look how the regime internal propaganda put together. For fabrications and their constant strive for western mainstream media propaganda machine, you may look into NIAC and all its delicate network: usually they're commentator or journalists at NYT (e.g. Farnaz Fasihi), Washington post, CNN (Trita Parsi), Independent (Negar Mortazavi), BBC, etc. That's another more fascinating story.
You are correct. These are frequent and I’m not paying attention until something meaningful changes.
The US will resign the Obama-era nuclear treaty as a fuck you to Trump, and the money will reinforce the regime. Little people don’t count in this situation.
The US media (in particular) has a very weird bias in favor of Iran. It's quite disturbing.
Saudi Arabia murdered Khashoggi - one man - and it was a prominent story for years (to be clear, I dislike the theocracies in both Iran and Saudi Arabia, they're both vile authoritarian systems). Iran's government genocided thousands of civilians by shooting them in the streets during the protests right before the pandemic, and it was covered for weeks in the US media and then the media forgot it ever happened. Why doesn't that get the attention of eg Tiananmen Square? Media bias is the sole good explanation.
This is patently false. Iran has been called part of the Axis of Evil since Reagan era. Iran has been reported on as evil for decades. This current set of protests have gotten a lot of media attention.
The reason why Khashoggi gets so much attention is because reporters love nothing more than to report about themselves. There are plenty of other people who were killed by Saudi Arabia that got buried because the media doesn't care.
He was a journalist, but he was also working for the Washington Post in particular, and he was an US resident, and the details of this murder where particularly gruesome. No need for the jab about the media here.
The jab about the media is absolutely warranted. How many women are found dismembered in the US almost every day? There was just a case last week in NYC. The media doesn't pick it up, but with Khashhoggi they did, because they care the most about journalists.
I'm not saying that it wasn't horrific what happened to him, but the question was why was there so much focus on his case, and the reason is because the media loves to report on themselves over anything else.
When a foreign government is suspected of dismembering a US resident it has more geo-political implications. Despite the fact that every grusome crime deserves equal treatment from the justice system.
The reason that is true about Saudi Arabia is because nothing else that Saudi Arabia does gets any reaction except tacit approval from the US, and they paid absolutely no price for Kashoggi, either.
Right now, the US is screaming about the veil right after recriminalizing abortion. Meanwhile:
Saudi woman given 34-year prison sentence for using Twitter
These stories get a little attention from the press ostensibly because they're about speech, but knowing modern journalism it's really because they are about Twitter. Women getting executed for infidelity? Not news.
Was the woman dismembered in NYC allegedly killed by foreign state officials after being lured somewhere?
I agree with your broader point that reports generally like to report on themselves when possible, but pretending the Khashoggi assassination (because that's what it was) isn't particularly newsworthy is kind of silly.
Indeed there's a bias and I promise you, it's not in favor of Iran (particularly Iran)
Any news has a usage for whatever political agenda there is in the US administration.
If country X is going to help the administration, the bad news will fade out, when country x is suppose to be shown in bad light, all the dirt will come back to the surface non stop on every possible news channel.
My wife is Iranian and she says that something people in Iran fail to understand about the US is that the US media is not controlled by the US government. I’ve wondered if it stems from the fact that Iran media is strictly controlled by the Iran government to the point where they are indistinguishable. I can assure you in the US this is not the case.
> Any news has a usage for whatever political agenda there is in the US administration.
If the previous administration was not sufficient proof to you that this is clearly wrong, then what proof could dissuade you?
What if your belief is that “the US administration” is an inertial beaucracy that carries on regardless of who gets elected?
Obama ran on ending wars in Iraq and afghanistan, and then he got in and those options disappeared. Trump did similarly.
So what would it look like if the US had been run for decades primarily by unelected agencies, and the us media served them, not whoever happened to get elected?
> Obama ran on ending wars in Iraq and afghanistan
He mostly ran on ending Iraq, he called Afghanistan 'the good war'.
The reality is that these politicians could do far more but they just don't care enough about it.
For Trump for example the America First people in the administration were pushing that, but those people were kicked out and Trump in order to get along with the party just let them do their thing in Afganistan.
Obama was the same, in order to get out of Iraq he authorized the surge in Afghanistan.
The 'deep state' you are talking about exists, but they are supported by lots of people in congress and lobbies and the president, whatever he ran on has to negotiate with those interests to get anything done.
It isn't controlled overtly but influence is still exerted. This was readily apparent when W shunned any organization that dared question the justification for invading Iraq. News of domestic relevance gets buried all the time by upper management who want to curry favor and stay in good graces with authorities.
Actually your wife is wrong. The American media is controlled but in smart and efficient way, the average Iranian knows this well unless they're the Pro America Iranian who only represents small percentage of the Iranians (and they are seen as traitors even from many opposition parties). The funny thing, the difference between the major American media regarding Iran, is that some want to starve the people until they can make a coup, the other opinion is that Iran should be nuked tomorrow. And People has the nerve to call this "freedom of speech"
>about the US is that the US media is not controlled by the US government.
There is a very infamous book, Manufacturing Consent, that explains this isn't true. Sure the president isn't calling up the CEO of CNN and telling him what to air, but when push comes to shove the media companies will all get in line.
I understand that way of thinking - my take is that Manufacturing Consent is mostly right but practically boils down to “American’s want American media organizations to have a pro-America bias”.
That fact that international media is easily accessible is a good counter-balance to this problem. In addition, you are starting to see the desires of the public changing - e.g. you much more frequently read/hear anti-American articles/opinions from the American progressive news media.
This might be true, but specially about countries that don't have a media presence the main source of news about that country is white house press releases. The same goes for news about civil wars and such.
The way Syria war was reported, outside of a few good journalists who did amazing reports, was basically just standard US government play book.
The reality is journalist are lazy, and its easy to just pick up the narrative pushed by the US government and the associated standard think thanks.
The only difference is that in the U.S. it's the media that controls the government and not the other way around. There is still a hegemony between the media and the government, quite similar to an authoritarian one.
The only time in history the media didn't control the government was Trump's presidency.
Non hegemony between media and government isn't stable. Free press in democratic countries practically means control of the media over the government.
There isn't a single politician who got elected without extensive media coverage. There exist very few politicians that can withstand hostile media coverage, and that hostility can be completely debased from reality and it wouldn't matter.
There are biases depending on the 'side' of US political spectrum a given medium happens to be supporting. In this case, the best you can do is to account for inherent bias and ingest the information accordingly.
> Saudi Arabia murdered Khashoggi - one man - and it was a prominent story for years
If your country dismembers a Washington Post reporter inside a consulate in Turkey, and Turkey releases audio of the murder, you're probably going to wind up with some press coverage of this in the United States, at least in the Washington Post.
The idea that the US media is biased toward Iran is kind of bonkers. The US media may be biased about the importance of US issues in US/Iran relations. Iran is less threatening to the US than it may be for other countries.
> Why doesn't that get the attention of eg Tiananmen Square?
Tianamen Square would have been forgotten if immediately followed by a global pandemic. With respect to Riyadh vs. Tehran, the former has political relevance in America. Horrible things happening in Iran isn’t domestically relevant in the same way since there aren’t any pro-Tehran public figures who would face pressure from that news.
> genocided thousands of civilians by shooting them in the streets during the protests right before the pandemic,
I'm going to ignore the word "genocide" here, because I'm assuming you're just using this to mean that they were killings that you really disapprove of. But are you saying that Iran murdered thousands of protestors without providing a link? And is everybody else just going with that?
Iran gets the short end of the stick in the media. Just look at how the nuclear treaty was covered. Its was tragic.
Or how Iran involvement in Syrian civil war and ISIS war got covered. Depending on US media you would think ISIS and Iran worked together when in effect Iran was fighting ISIS when the US was still mostly ignoring it or was broadly supportive of the trends they represented.
I'm not a pro-NRA gun nut, and I hate to say it, but this shows you the dangers of when only the government has the guns. I'm pretty sure that if guns were available to regular people, there would have been a transition to a different government decades ago. The fact that this backwards, misogynistic government can remain in power for the better part of a century despite Iran being filled with highly educated people with a rich culture is a crime against humanity. And yes, I'm fully aware that this was caused by the US and the CIA, my point is that it should be taken down by its citizens but it has no power to do so.
A woman in Iran would not be allowed to own a gun. Maybe men, if any people. We have cops cuffing you, throwing you in the back of their car, and leaving said car on train tracks to be hit by an on coming train (see Colorado police video gaining traction in the news). The cops (morality police) in Iran killed the poor woman for indecency. The cops in the US still act egregiously and we have guns. Guns will not help.
A woman in Iran would not be allowed to own a gun only because of the fascist regime in place today. Back pre-Ayatollah, Iran wasn't as misogynistic as it is today. It was one of the most forward Muslim nations in the world. I imagine that if Iran were liberated, they would be similar to Israel in the sense that men and women would all be mobilized into an army and trained such that something like the Ayatollah could never happen again.
That would be civil war for sure. Syria/Libya/etc 2.0
There are enough separatist groups in Iran backed up by many foreign countries, already armed and they do their share of evil on civilians and law enforcement and military.
Replacing any government by any means usually ends up with power vacuum, breeds terrorists and unleash demons from hell.
Iran is itself a nation-state, and one that imposes its culture (and esp. religious norms) on the minorities. Pushing back against that may itself be nationalism, but even then it would be lesser evil.
Afghanistan is drowning in guns - I don't see a liberal democracy emerging there anytime this century (please let this be my "Dropbox is a weekend project" comment - I'd love to be wrong.)
Afghanistan is different from Iran. Even today, Iranians are highly educated and they have historically been highly educated. Most of Afghanistan that the US was trying to mobilized was uneducated and living in tiny villages with no real stake as to who won or lost. With Iran's highly educated population and militarized, they have a much better chance of standing up to the fascist government and enacting change.
Iran is very good at oppressing and subduing its citizens. There won’t be any change without foreign military intervention, either outright or by arming minorities and the populace to wage an internal civil war. A USA which is preoccupied with Russia and China and still licking its wounds from Iraq and Afghanistan isn’t going to do any of those; they’d rather just pay up to keep Iran on the right side of the nuclear brink.
I hope I’m wrong on all these counts, but so far the Mullahs have been going strong.
Iran in particular is very good to keep those foreign military intervention checked on their place without even having any deterrent like Nuclear bomb capabilities.
After Iran-Iraq and being sanctioned to hell while even being invaded, Iran went into the process of independent military complex and so far has mastered to become almost fully self-sustaining (except military fighter jets, which they're trying to replace with Drones)
Guerrilla and asymmetrical warfare is up to many levels
Among other is the missile capabilities which changes the game dramatically as well.
Another factor, is the mix of regular Army and IRGC which is a full topic how they differ and operate.
_above just top of my head and very brief, there so many other factors that with good research can be found_
Ofc, not saying Iran is DA GREATEST and MOST POWERFUL, but for sure is able to keep up a bloody fight that causes damage to the enemy so high that no country after Iraq has dared to start one.
Regardless, let's hope no country decides to attack another country, there's enough bloodshed
Lots of leverage through armed proxies like Hezbollah in Lebanon, Houthis in Yemen, Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria and so on. They can exact a price from anyone in the Middle East, and interfere with the global energy market (like their cruise missile attack on Aramco or sabotaging and kidnapping tankers in the Persian Gulf). It makes dealing with them quite geopolitically expensive and a nuisance.
The only guy who would fight them, Saddam, wasn’t so good at it. Even with our help.
KSA, Kuwait, Oman, UAE, Turkey and Israel’s battle hymn is “Onward Christian Soldiers” and so far we haven’t elected someone that dumb again. The Shia have the upper hand in Iraq now, so they’ve got no motivation.
> There won’t be any change without foreign military intervention
That's what people said about many places, like the Soviet Union and many others. People always believe all structures are eternal but a look at history shows that this mostly isn't the case.
> either outright or by arming minorities and the populace to wage an internal civil war
That's a great way to get those people mass murdered and make the situation worse for everybody.
And of course after this large scale mass slaughter of people I'm sure a democracy will just jump up and solve all problems.
IANAL, but how are Instagram and WhatsApp allowed to operate in Iran? Do embargoes not apply to online services?
I'd love to see companies such as Google and Apple implement optional mesh networking as an over-the-air update to their phones in order to help people communicate during times like this.
> IANAL, but how are Instagram and WhatsApp allowed to operate in Iran? Do embargoes not apply to online services?
That's a pretty good point, actually.
> I'd love to see companies such as Google and Apple implement optional mesh networking as an over-the-air update to their phones in order to help people communicate during times like this.
The tech isn't really there yet. It's both a hardware (BT doesn't reach far enough) and a software problem.
You don't just "casually" implement a global mesh-based network without a careful and quite explicit system design involving HW and SW in tandem.
Nevermind the largest problem: How do you prioritize traffic in a distributed, fair and and scalable way, on nodes that you can't trust, once the mesh network gets really popular?
In general, sanctions are notoriously complicated ( sometimes with seemingly -- or actually -- contradictory notes ). And just to complicate it even further, it uses a system of waivers ( licenses ), which allow you to ask OFAC to engage in some ( usually explicitly listed ) of the otherwise prohibited activity. Due to their size and reach, it is not unlikely that both entities secured such a license.
Naturally, there is a compliance cost that they incur as a result, but I am sure there is an interest in US government to keep those lines of communications open for one reason or another.
There's a general license for personal communications services in sanctioned countries. There's no required user payments, although phone number verification necessarily involves payments to the destination telephone company.
Something I noticed once is that in AdWords geo-targeting, Iran is missing. Does that mean Google search is totally not available in Iran? Alternatively, if google search is available, are there any ads displayed?
We need better news outlets than Wired to cover stuff like this. Frankly, after the last few years I don't trust a word they say about freedom of speech on the Internet. I don't have any reliable knowledge about Iran, so there is no easy way for me to double-check anything without spending hundreds of hours on research, and even then the results will be uncertain. We live in a kind of dark age of news media, while simultaneously suffering from information overflow.
> The blocks against WhatsApp also appear to have impacted people outside of Iran. People using Iranian +98 telephone numbers have complained that WhatsApp has been slow to work or not functioning at all. WhatsApp has denied it is doing anything to block Iranian phone numbers.
I doubt that Zuck would help the Iranian govt, which would suggest technical reason or an attack, which makes me curious.
It's likely that +98 numbers outside Iran are connected to those inside that are blocked, but could that cause some bottleneck in whatsapp infra? Or could the Iranian govt be running some ddos style attack on certain phone numbers over whatsapp?
Iran is only topped by North Korea in its backwards oppression of Iranians (at least those would did not manage to flee and join the huge world-wide diaspora).
I saw a series of photos with descriptions published by the AP. Each photo was labeled "sourced from a person with no affiliation with the AP" before its caption. They are trying hard not to make their reporters targets.
Having read this I now presume they were sourced from 1500tasvir.
They apparently executed a 21 year old woman. Six bullets to the face, chest and neck. Her name is Hadis Najafi. Family was apparently pressured by IRI security services to accept "heart attack" as cause of death. They refused. What an amazing family!
Hussein Ronaghi (who must be some sort of superhero in unassuming human attire) left a video testament before presenting himself at the judiciary. Where he was promptly set upon by government agents to administer initial justice right in front the building. Last heard from, according to his mother, he is in hospital with a broken legs. Beaten after his arrest. His lawyers are apparently also under arrest for good measure.
Btw, NYTimes neglected to devote a single sentence to the fact that the reporter (female) and photojournalist (male) team that reported the murder of 22 year old Mahsa Amini. US and EU are negotiating with the Islamic Republic and actually covering this may be bad for business, right NYTimes?
I am an Iranian and I am with you. I have seen what this tyrannical government is capable of. We as Iranian living abroad 1) can sent letter to our representative to make sure we cut the funding to this government 2) keep protesting and keep the momentum going. They can't win.
There are a lot of these radical ideologue supporters of IR working in USA. They need to go back to Karbala. Let's give them a push. Let's give these hard working IR agent a bright shining spotlight of 'publicity'.
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[ 4.4 ms ] story [ 226 ms ] threadAre there any (for the lack of a better word) "western" (I mean, I'd also trust, for example NHK, SBS, ABC Australia, etc) journalists from credible journalistic institutions on the ground in Iran?
I admit I'm ignorant to the limits of independent reporting I'm certain the government of Iran mandates.
edit: we definitely do this. Also as grad students. Be upset about it, but not with me. The fact that we do this means that US journalists are limited in where they can go. Just like the fact that we're totally willing to send spies as NGO doctors administering vaccinations means that we can't do vaccination campaigns in countries that need help, or the fact that we send spies embedded with weapons/nuclear inspectors means that inspectors can't get access to things.
The public has reasons not to believe the government story. You have to understand that the "morality police" has nothing to do with morality and it's a result of the power structures making the current Iranian society. In a way, the "morality police" makes the Iranian government weaker and not stronger but it's a ruling tool. This day-to-day ruling tool and its resulting stability comes at the cost of the possible revolution when the general population have had enough.
Will this time be the one? Who knows but at this time the sanctions can come in very handy. (if not for making this successful, they'd be used as leverage of the next negotiations round)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GE_SfNVNyqk
As Iranian, I usually watch with good amounts of doubts such reports with their Iran correspondence. The last time, the anchor said: "It's very good that we have you over there, let me ask...". For me, it was Nope! It actually worse than we have you over there. It means you need to conform!
It was even more surprising later for me that even in the western main stream media, the regime propaganda is the main voice that I hear, believe it or not you can research the NIAC network (Iran under-cover lobbyists) and see how often they're consulted as journalists/commentators on Iran issue in those medias.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Iranian_American_Coun...
I agree, there is a lack of resources here and Iranian journalists are responsible in part. But in defense there are not much hope/resources for independent journalism overall not only on this matter but almost any other. Simply money talks and sifting through that needs focus and great deal of time!
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It?
The reality is, unless the Iranians themselves replace the Ayatollahs, it would require a foreign sponsored coup or outright invasion to meaningfully change the status quo there.
And I doubt those folks are going to change their mind over what’s going on.
>I am worried this tyrannical government succeeds in putting down this movement and then the western governments sign another nuclear treaty which means sanction relief and more money for the regime
Iran trades with Turkey, Pakistan, the U.A.E., Germany, India, Kuwait and Qatar [1].
[1] https://oec.world/en/profile/country/irn/?flowSelector1=flow...
A deal between this dictatorship and the west will only strengthen them, leading to more oppression. A weakened dictatorship due to foreign pressure will make it easier for the people of Iran to replace them.
Look no further than Afghanistan to see how resilient they can be. They even withstood decades of occupation.
Hard power alone wouldn't have worked and who knows whether soft power could have worked either since there were so many saboteurs both internal and external like Saudis/Israeli lobbies killing the project in its infancy.
They had widespread and growing internal rebellion for a long time, with independent internal discussions and controversies going on about the unsustainability of Apartheid - both from a moral and economic perspective. Hell, they even tried Mandela for Treason in '56 and spent 27 years in prison after he started the revolutionary group in '61.
Apartheid didn't end until the early '90's.
Saying external sanctions caused it, is a bit like saying the USSR collapsed because of embargos.
They definitely weren't helping make it stay, but it's hard to say those where why it collapsed.
Yet, when there are riots, they blame the West for not sanctioning enough...
One thing I do not understand - and if journalists are reading this, I hope this gets picked up, is that many of the Iranian elite's sons and daughters are actually living in the US. They try to hide that from both the American public, and the Iranian one (complete hypocrisy).
Your arguments go against the research on this topic I have seen.
The Supreme Ayatollah has a flexible user interface (UI) for the "West". When he wants to retreats: It wears the so called moderate president (Khatami, Rohani) and when the business is as usual he shows his teeth (Ahmadinejad, Raisi). The so called "president" is a joke. The last one (Raisi) has basically no self-agency, he is all ears for his leader and openly is proud about it! The previous ones weren't much different but at least they put up a show or a fuss when they told to do something. But this last one is perfect pawn (A soldier of leader as he puts it): "Sarbaze Velayat". The show was such a joke that in the last presidential selection: The supreme leader even eliminated his own long time friends and allies such as Larijani* and played Qalibaf to reduce the chance of any uncertainty (+). Note even with those eliminated in the run, it was still selection between potato vs potato...
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Iranian_American_Coun...
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Larijani
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Bagher_Ghalibaf
+ Uncertainty because previously people have tried to select the least favorable one for the grand Ayatollah, this time he didn't want to tolerate even that level of surprise! He has no fun!
Won't be the first time
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAVAK
1. Sanctions: check
2. International isolation: ~check
3. freezing foreign assets: check
4. Bringing freedom to Iran by liberating them (successful operations like Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, ....): LOL, never gonna happen
i.e. it would not be a Israeli mission, it would have to be a joint mission. Or in other words America would not be able to say "Israel did it", America would have to be fully on board - and perhaps help.
And that's not something small, that's why it hasn't happened yet.
Russia-Ukraine case made the whole world go crazy due to gas/oil and price increase in anything that touches fossil fuels.
Imagine what would happen globally by Iran settings mines in Straits of Hormuz or rain missiles on countries that are hosting US bases (Oil producers) in retaliation and pressuring global economy in order to maximize the effect of the war.
The maximum Israel can do is to slow down the progress of whatever Israil think Iran is doing, is to conduct sabotage missions in Iran, killing scientists, military commanders, cyberattacks or lobbying as much as possible in other countries for more sanctions etc and so far that has not been effective. In matter of fact, it has backfired.
All that said it's very unlikely there will be an attack on Iran. The US would much prefer to see the regime fall. That doesn't seem super likely either but attacking Iran will probably just strengthen the regime.
Yeah let me start lathing. Israel will never,ever, ever attack Iran. They know they can't win and can't overthrow the government. For them it would just be a total waste of money.
Israel couldn't even defeat the Iranian sort-off proxies in Lebanon.
Israel has for 30 years had 1 main strategy in regard to Iran, try to get the US to fight Iran for them. The only reason they agree to the Iraq war was because Bush and friends promised that this was all part of a plan to isolate and pressure Iran.
Israel has been claiming that Iran is '1 year away' from nuclear weapons for literally 30 years now. They have made up fake evidence to prove that Iran had a huge nuclear weapons program (evidence that then was dismissed by the CIA and every other security agency).
> Iran is currently cooperating with Russia so it could only go south for them.
Iran is 'cooperating' with anybody that will talk to them.
I’m not sure Iraq is far enough away in the collective US memory for your comment to be received positively.
The Israel lobby and the Neocons had at least 3 major 'War with Iran' campaigns since 2003.
Impossible to think if it was a "dictatorship", such person would be elected in the first place.
The _election_ in which you can choose between 2 people who have already been filtered out by the regime is not really a democratic election.
As someone voted for Rouhani (and would do so again), in a democratic situation he would've been my last choice.
Imagine ending up wit people like Masoumeh Alinejad-Ghomi, Reza Pahlavi, Supreme Grandma Maryam Rejavi (_Masoud Rajavi decided to become against the IR since his or his party was filtered out_) or any other weirdo.
Not so great process, but I don't think letting everyone run for presidency has much of its goodies packed with it anyway.
In either case, Iran's constitution keeps the president above so many levels that having impeachment becomes even harder. Whoever president Iran ends up with, it becomes almost impossible to replace or take them down by Majles.
I don't know, probably a role of Prime Minister will be more suited with some changes to law that person can be nailed down in wrongdoing or pressure to step down, but who knows, maybe that backfires too.
yuck, so complicated :p
edit: some typos
However, for those who are not familiar with such jargon, Alir3z4, basically says it's good thing that his Supreme leader filtered out candidates. So then the people can select from "good" choices. Otherwise people would have select X, Y and Z which are bad. The argument needs no counter-argument other than removing the jargon...
I encourage the interested to read his other comments to take a first hand look how the regime internal propaganda put together. For fabrications and their constant strive for western mainstream media propaganda machine, you may look into NIAC and all its delicate network: usually they're commentator or journalists at NYT (e.g. Farnaz Fasihi), Washington post, CNN (Trita Parsi), Independent (Negar Mortazavi), BBC, etc. That's another more fascinating story.
The US will resign the Obama-era nuclear treaty as a fuck you to Trump, and the money will reinforce the regime. Little people don’t count in this situation.
Saudi Arabia murdered Khashoggi - one man - and it was a prominent story for years (to be clear, I dislike the theocracies in both Iran and Saudi Arabia, they're both vile authoritarian systems). Iran's government genocided thousands of civilians by shooting them in the streets during the protests right before the pandemic, and it was covered for weeks in the US media and then the media forgot it ever happened. Why doesn't that get the attention of eg Tiananmen Square? Media bias is the sole good explanation.
The reason why Khashoggi gets so much attention is because reporters love nothing more than to report about themselves. There are plenty of other people who were killed by Saudi Arabia that got buried because the media doesn't care.
I'm not saying that it wasn't horrific what happened to him, but the question was why was there so much focus on his case, and the reason is because the media loves to report on themselves over anything else.
Right now, the US is screaming about the veil right after recriminalizing abortion. Meanwhile:
Saudi woman given 34-year prison sentence for using Twitter
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/16/saudi-woman-gi...
Saudi woman jailed for 45 years over social media use, says group
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/aug/30/saudi-woman-gi...
Saudi Arabia is imprisoning women while the rest of the world is not paying attention
https://theconversation.com/saudi-arabia-is-imprisoning-wome...
These stories get a little attention from the press ostensibly because they're about speech, but knowing modern journalism it's really because they are about Twitter. Women getting executed for infidelity? Not news.
I agree with your broader point that reports generally like to report on themselves when possible, but pretending the Khashoggi assassination (because that's what it was) isn't particularly newsworthy is kind of silly.
Any news has a usage for whatever political agenda there is in the US administration.
If country X is going to help the administration, the bad news will fade out, when country x is suppose to be shown in bad light, all the dirt will come back to the surface non stop on every possible news channel.
> Any news has a usage for whatever political agenda there is in the US administration.
If the previous administration was not sufficient proof to you that this is clearly wrong, then what proof could dissuade you?
Obama ran on ending wars in Iraq and afghanistan, and then he got in and those options disappeared. Trump did similarly.
So what would it look like if the US had been run for decades primarily by unelected agencies, and the us media served them, not whoever happened to get elected?
He mostly ran on ending Iraq, he called Afghanistan 'the good war'.
The reality is that these politicians could do far more but they just don't care enough about it.
For Trump for example the America First people in the administration were pushing that, but those people were kicked out and Trump in order to get along with the party just let them do their thing in Afganistan.
Obama was the same, in order to get out of Iraq he authorized the surge in Afghanistan.
The 'deep state' you are talking about exists, but they are supported by lots of people in congress and lobbies and the president, whatever he ran on has to negotiate with those interests to get anything done.
There is a very infamous book, Manufacturing Consent, that explains this isn't true. Sure the president isn't calling up the CEO of CNN and telling him what to air, but when push comes to shove the media companies will all get in line.
That fact that international media is easily accessible is a good counter-balance to this problem. In addition, you are starting to see the desires of the public changing - e.g. you much more frequently read/hear anti-American articles/opinions from the American progressive news media.
This might be true, but specially about countries that don't have a media presence the main source of news about that country is white house press releases. The same goes for news about civil wars and such.
The way Syria war was reported, outside of a few good journalists who did amazing reports, was basically just standard US government play book.
The reality is journalist are lazy, and its easy to just pick up the narrative pushed by the US government and the associated standard think thanks.
The only time in history the media didn't control the government was Trump's presidency.
Non hegemony between media and government isn't stable. Free press in democratic countries practically means control of the media over the government.
There isn't a single politician who got elected without extensive media coverage. There exist very few politicians that can withstand hostile media coverage, and that hostility can be completely debased from reality and it wouldn't matter.
If your country dismembers a Washington Post reporter inside a consulate in Turkey, and Turkey releases audio of the murder, you're probably going to wind up with some press coverage of this in the United States, at least in the Washington Post.
The idea that the US media is biased toward Iran is kind of bonkers. The US media may be biased about the importance of US issues in US/Iran relations. Iran is less threatening to the US than it may be for other countries.
Tianamen Square would have been forgotten if immediately followed by a global pandemic. With respect to Riyadh vs. Tehran, the former has political relevance in America. Horrible things happening in Iran isn’t domestically relevant in the same way since there aren’t any pro-Tehran public figures who would face pressure from that news.
I'm going to ignore the word "genocide" here, because I'm assuming you're just using this to mean that they were killings that you really disapprove of. But are you saying that Iran murdered thousands of protestors without providing a link? And is everybody else just going with that?
Iran gets the short end of the stick in the media. Just look at how the nuclear treaty was covered. Its was tragic.
Or how Iran involvement in Syrian civil war and ISIS war got covered. Depending on US media you would think ISIS and Iran worked together when in effect Iran was fighting ISIS when the US was still mostly ignoring it or was broadly supportive of the trends they represented.
There are enough separatist groups in Iran backed up by many foreign countries, already armed and they do their share of evil on civilians and law enforcement and military.
Replacing any government by any means usually ends up with power vacuum, breeds terrorists and unleash demons from hell.
I hope I’m wrong on all these counts, but so far the Mullahs have been going strong.
The geography of Iran is Afghanistan 100x when it comes to moving military equipments as well due to mountains and deserts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Eagle_Claw just one of them)
Guerrilla and asymmetrical warfare is up to many levels
Among other is the missile capabilities which changes the game dramatically as well.
Another factor, is the mix of regular Army and IRGC which is a full topic how they differ and operate.
_above just top of my head and very brief, there so many other factors that with good research can be found_
Ofc, not saying Iran is DA GREATEST and MOST POWERFUL, but for sure is able to keep up a bloody fight that causes damage to the enemy so high that no country after Iraq has dared to start one.
Regardless, let's hope no country decides to attack another country, there's enough bloodshed
KSA, Kuwait, Oman, UAE, Turkey and Israel’s battle hymn is “Onward Christian Soldiers” and so far we haven’t elected someone that dumb again. The Shia have the upper hand in Iraq now, so they’ve got no motivation.
That's what people said about many places, like the Soviet Union and many others. People always believe all structures are eternal but a look at history shows that this mostly isn't the case.
> either outright or by arming minorities and the populace to wage an internal civil war
That's a great way to get those people mass murdered and make the situation worse for everybody.
And of course after this large scale mass slaughter of people I'm sure a democracy will just jump up and solve all problems.
> isn’t going to do any of those
Thank the lord.
I'd love to see companies such as Google and Apple implement optional mesh networking as an over-the-air update to their phones in order to help people communicate during times like this.
That's a pretty good point, actually.
> I'd love to see companies such as Google and Apple implement optional mesh networking as an over-the-air update to their phones in order to help people communicate during times like this.
The tech isn't really there yet. It's both a hardware (BT doesn't reach far enough) and a software problem.
You don't just "casually" implement a global mesh-based network without a careful and quite explicit system design involving HW and SW in tandem.
Nevermind the largest problem: How do you prioritize traffic in a distributed, fair and and scalable way, on nodes that you can't trust, once the mesh network gets really popular?
Naturally, there is a compliance cost that they incur as a result, but I am sure there is an interest in US government to keep those lines of communications open for one reason or another.
Something I noticed once is that in AdWords geo-targeting, Iran is missing. Does that mean Google search is totally not available in Iran? Alternatively, if google search is available, are there any ads displayed?
I doubt that Zuck would help the Iranian govt, which would suggest technical reason or an attack, which makes me curious.
It's likely that +98 numbers outside Iran are connected to those inside that are blocked, but could that cause some bottleneck in whatsapp infra? Or could the Iranian govt be running some ddos style attack on certain phone numbers over whatsapp?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tf-mtjEF4t0
Iran is only topped by North Korea in its backwards oppression of Iranians (at least those would did not manage to flee and join the huge world-wide diaspora).
Having read this I now presume they were sourced from 1500tasvir.
[One picture is post-execution - forewarned] https://nitter.net/pic/orig/media%2FFdgROQUX0AAHqrn.jpg
#hadis_najafi #حدیث_نجفی
Hussein Ronaghi (who must be some sort of superhero in unassuming human attire) left a video testament before presenting himself at the judiciary. Where he was promptly set upon by government agents to administer initial justice right in front the building. Last heard from, according to his mother, he is in hospital with a broken legs. Beaten after his arrest. His lawyers are apparently also under arrest for good measure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hossein_Ronaghi
If you are an Iranian, you must listen to what this exceptional man has to say: https://nitter.net/masoudkazemi81/status/1573719903835668482...
#حسین_رونقی #hussein_ronaghi
Btw, NYTimes neglected to devote a single sentence to the fact that the reporter (female) and photojournalist (male) team that reported the murder of 22 year old Mahsa Amini. US and EU are negotiating with the Islamic Republic and actually covering this may be bad for business, right NYTimes?
#مهسا_امینی #mahsa_amini
Also, AnonymousOpIran has been 'busy' and have lots of hacking stories to share: https://nitter.net/anonymousopiran
#opIran
There are a lot of these radical ideologue supporters of IR working in USA. They need to go back to Karbala. Let's give them a push. Let's give these hard working IR agent a bright shining spotlight of 'publicity'.