Really hard to know. The political and economic cracks were already there, and they hadn't "overextended" in the sense that there was no money for extension.



We might as well have said this about the Soviet Union. "We can't let them collapse, after all, think of what would happen to the international order!"

It's hard to see how the collapse of the regime hurts our interests in any way whatsoever. What exactly are we afraid of? Proxy warfare? Terrorism? The current regime is guilty of all of that and more.

What we're afraid of is Syria or Libya 2.0, just this time with a country of 80m and infinitely stronger military forces around.

I don't think it makes a whole lot of sense to compare the situations.

It's not a matter of "what happens to international order", it's a matter of destabilizing the region. Iran isn't a confederacy of several previously independent states that can all take up their own government actions after the fall, and they're not a serious military threat the way the soviet union was. They're one country where violent revolution would basically turn them into a new Syria but on a much larger scale and with much larger spillover. The power vacuum would almost definitely spawn more radical groups like ISIS that can't be controlled as easily with traditional military tactics. If Iran devolves into civil war the mass migration to Europe caused by the Syrian revolution will look like peanuts. There are a lot pretty obvious reasons why we would handle the situation differently than how the soviet union was handled, and I know you know that but you're too busy licking Trump's baby carrot to think for yourself anymore.

Saddam managed it in iraq easily.

It's a mistake to compare Iranian/Persian Shia to Sunni Arabs.

Syria was a classic case of strong-man rule. Iran, by contrast, has more durable political institutions. They have elections that matter in some sense of the word. They have professional politicians that aren't just lackeys of the Assad family or in rebellion against it. The public is far better educated and has a voice that those in power need to mind (see the governments repeated apologies for shooting down the plane). There are a lot of reasons to believe that political change in Iran would not take the same path as Syria.

it’s no surprise a coward like you believes this. lmfao when you pm’d me asking for approval on your personal life like im supposed be your father figure i no joke cracked up irl on my way to the office, you traitorous small-time anti-American leech of a scumbag.

you lose arguments to a flat-earther just get off subsidy and stop wasting our resources already you petri-dish licking sponge




yeah lmfao. funny a pale pasty privileged lefty reliant on the state is warning against the downfall of a regime that shoots down commercial airplanes for “fun”

This post was edited by excellence on Jan 19 2020 09:24pm

Those are good points, and they describe the upside of a revolution in Iran. But the "Syria 2.0"-scenario is still a realistic worst-case scenario.



Iraq basically consists of 3 big cities, large swaths of uninhabitated desert, and some settlements along two rivers. It's much easier to control a country with this geography/settlement structure than a country like Iran, which is 5 times as large, mountainous and with a more fragmented settlement structure. In this regard, Iran is comparable to Afghanistan. And we all know how effective the fight against the Taliban has been in Afghanistan.

suspended for this post lmfao!!!
the one i quoted had violence-filled wishes with a homophobic rant at the end by that user, but somehow telling the truth about said user is too mean

*LAUGH OUT LOUD*

looks like skinned and i trigger too many people