alt Hacker News> And I do want to stress that. There is a frequent mistake, often from folks who deal in economics, to assume that countries will give up on wars when the economics turn bad. But countries are often very willing to throw good money after bad even on distant wars of choice.
On the other hand isn't this how the russian revolution happened? An economic crisis due to a prolonged war leading to a revolution? While i wouldn't bet money on it, it seems at least possible that something similar could happen to Iran.
Replies
While I agree that a revolution in Iran is not impossible, I rather doubt that whoever comes next will be western friendly and moderate; after the indscriminate military action of the past few weeks they are probably more likely to get ayatollah'd again.
>On the other hand isn't this how the russian revolution happened?
It happened because Russian empire (and German empire) lacked state security apparatus adequate to the threat. It was fixed by most authoritarian states after that, so e.g. Soviet Union survived for 70 years despite many popular uprisings, which happened almost the whole time of its existence. It went down only when elites in Moscow destroyed it from within.
Actually, there are lots of revolutions in Europe after WWI, but keep in mind that in this case the populations were blaming their governments for starting or participating in an unnecessary war with monumental casualties. In this case, the Iran government has two useful scapegoats and any casualties could be easily ascribed to the idiots bombing girl schools and not to the idiots sending millions to their deaths under artillery fire.
Are we talking about Iran or US?
> While i wouldn't bet money on it, it seems at least possible that something similar could happen to the USA.
Fixed that for you.
I would not wager money on a revolution coming from this war, either. But if a revolution does come as a result of the war, it seems at least as likely to be in the United States as in Iran.