alt Hacker NewsIn fact, I believe if the U.S. wanted to really help the Iranians, they should have lifted the sanctions in exchange for Iranian government easing some of the domestic laws.
I don't think sanctions are that helpful in establishing democracy, and even if they were, taking the population hostage in order to instigate an uprising is morally quite dubious.
In any case, U.S. has recently proven to be a dishonest actor, so even if above was correct I would still not want them to do it.
P.S. I was born in communist Czechoslovakia. So I have seen an organic regime change, and the Iranian one is IMHO too violent to be the moment.
> they should have lifted the sanctions in exchange for Iranian government easing some of the domestic laws...
No authoritarian regime wants to go down the same way Gorbachev, Husak, and Honecker did by meeting the opposition halfway.
Most regimes learnt from how China cracked down in Tiananmen and how SK cracked down in Gwangju, especially countries like Iran that are much more structurally similar to Maoist China than the 1980s Eastern Bloc, as much of the Iranian economy is owned by the Bonyads (Islamic charities), State Owned Enterprises, and regime affiliated conglomerates who wouldn't expect to retain economic control if Iran didn't remain an Islamic Republic, and the footsoldiers of the Cultural Revolution (yes, Iran had one too called the Inqilab e Firangi or "Revolution against the West") are the ones in charge.
The current violent crackdown is similar to that which the Iranian regime used during the Green Movement back in 2009-10.
The IRGC has a headcount of around 100k, the Police 300k, the PMF in Iraq (which have now been mobilized across Iran) have 200k, the Liwa Fateymoun (Shia Afghan militia) have around 3k-10k, and Liwa Zainabiyoun (Shia Pakistani/Pakhtun militia) have around 5k-8k personnel.
That's around 600k personnel who are ideologically aligned with the regime, have seen combat in Syria or Yemen, have had experience cracking down on anti-regime protests on multiple occasions, and have the means for a violent crackdown in a country of 90 million people. And that's ignoring personnel that the Houthis or Hezbollah can send despite being battered by Israeli strikes.
On the other hand, the SAVAK during the Iranian Revolution only had 5K personnel in a country of 40 million.
A lot of people will refer to Syria as an example of a counter-revolution, but the Syria's population was significantly better armed during the Assad regime compared to Iranians today. Before the Arab Spring it was common for the then Syrian government to send disaffected Sunni troublemakers across the border to Iraq to take potshots at the Americans and let them solve the problem [0][1][2][3]. This was how Jolani/al-Sharaa and a number of anti-Assad revolutionaries got their start as well.
I sincerely hope the Iranian people get the ability to choose the government that is right for them, but based on the lived experiences of my friends and family in authoritarian states, I sadly think the Iranian regime will stand.
[0] - https://jamestown.org/a-mujahideen-bleed-through-from-iraq-a...
[1] - https://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/07/world/africa/07iht-syria....
[2] - https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/03/05/the-redirectio...
[3] - https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2008/10/30/...