Twitter is filled with videos showing these protests in Iran - no mention on CNN.

IRAN - 28 Dec. 2017: Thousand protest chanting “Death to Dictator”

I've done some underground MMORPG online and encountered some Iranian players. Upon finding out I'm from the U.S., they apologize about their leaders. I don't care where they are from, but they go out of their way to explain their situation, while risking being online.
When we think of Iranians, we need to separate their gov. from the mainstream people who are taking on western values.

Yes, there are many religious fanatics but I'm it seems, like here w/ the far left, they have a bigger voice.

I’m playing loose with the facts. But from what I understand the majority of Iranians are under thirty and want a more Western way of life. The arc of history will bend to democracy.

For a couple of decades now, I've wondered why the CIA hasn't been behind the scenes fomenting a counter-fundamentalist revolution in Iran (or at least doing so successfully.) We've had allies there left over from the Shah era, and there seem to be plenty of Iranians who are sick of the iyatollahs.

quote:

I've wondered why the CIA hasn't been behind the scenes fomenting a counter-fundamentalist revolution in Iran (or at least doing so successfully.)

Other than that previous POTUS actively sided with the mullahs?

Unlike Obama who refused to support the pro-Western, democracy forces in Iran, President Trump stepped right in:

"Many reports of peaceful protests by Iranian citizens fed up with regime’s corruption & its squandering of the nation’s wealth to fund terrorism abroad. Iranian govt should respect their people’s rights, including right to express themselves. The world is watching! #IranProtests
7:42 PM - 29 Dec 2017"

Under our new leadership, Iran won't find it hard to investigate U.S. meddling in Iranian affairs - biggly.

It astonishes me how we pretend that countries do not tamper within other nations.

^^^^^^. That’s why the Democrat faux outrage over this Russian collusion bullshit irritates the crap out of me. It’s not new. Look how Barry tried to swing the Israeli elections a couple years back.

Glad to see DJT on board with the Iranian people. Maybe this Arab spring can actually produce a western friendly government this time. FBHO and his ilk.

quote:

Originally posted by Tubetone:
Unlike Obama who refused to support the pro-Western, democracy forces in Iran

The iranian student protests in 2008 were a gift from God and obama didn't use it.

Trumps previous statements over the years put iran and north korea on notice. Trump has surprisingly delivered what he promised.

In other news, Iran's parliament recognizes Jerusalem as the "everlasting capital of Palestine".

Just as much as Palestine is also everlasting. It actually predates the big bang.

Who's students are they going to take hostage this time?

Iranians Shatter a New York Times Myth
The people haven't closed ranks behind the regime.

So much for the New York Times theory that, thanks to Trumpian and Saudi bellicosity, the Iranian people have closed ranks behind their rulers. In November, the paper’s Tehran bureau chief, Thomas Erdbrink, devoted an extended feature to making this case, and it proved wildly popular with the pro-nuclear deal crowd in Washington.

“After years of cynicism, sneering or simply tuning out all things political,” wrote Erdbrink, “Iran’s urban middle classes have been swept up in a wave of nationalist fervor.” He went on: “Mr. Trump and the Saudis have helped the government achieve what years of repression could never accomplish: widespread public support for the hard-line view that the United States and Riyadh cannot be trusted.”

Erdbrink’s argument echoed rhetoric from Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif. Responding to October’s announcement of new U.S. sanctions against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Zarif tweeted: “Today, Iranians–boys, girls, men, women–are ALL IRGC.”

Or not.

This week, tens of thousands of Iranians took to the streets to register their anger, not at Donald Trump or the House of Saud, but at the mullahs and their security apparatus. It was economic grievances that initially ignited the protests in the northeastern city of Mashhad. But soon the uprising grew and spread to at least 18 cities nationwide. And the slogans shifted from joblessness and corruption to opposition to the Islamic Republic in toto. These included:

“Death to [Supreme Leader Ali] Khamenei!”

“Death to Hezbollah!”

“Not Gaza, Not Lebanon, Our Life Only for Iran!”

“We Will Die to Get Our Iran Back!”

“Clerics Out of Our Country!”

The outcome of the protests is hard to predict. So far, the movement is leaderless and appears to lack serious organization. The protesters face a regime that spends much of its energy and resources on ensuring its own survival and won’t hesitate to crack down viciously, as it did in 1999 and 2009. But whatever comes next, Iranians have already shattered one liberal myth: namely, that Donald Trump has revived the regime’s popularity at home.

This goes well back before Obama. Why didn't either or both Bush's do this?

quote:

Originally posted by sjtill:

quote:

I've wondered why the CIA hasn't been behind the scenes fomenting a counter-fundamentalist revolution in Iran (or at least doing so successfully.)

Other than that previous POTUS actively sided with the mullahs?

quote:

So far, the movement is leaderless and appears to lack serious organization. The protesters face a regime that spends much of its energy and resources on ensuring its own survival and won’t hesitate to crack down viciously, as it did in 1999 and 2009.

Ah, someone's not paying attention - or at least as much attention as the protesters themselves are. If there are no leaders or "serious organization" (if thousands come out into the street at the same time, do you really need leadership or organizing committees?) then the only way to "crack down" on the protests is individual by individual. IOW, this is the most effective way to take on a totalitarian state.

This is also, IIRC, how the Tiananmen movement got started and grew to the point that the kids were willing to take over Red Square in the Forbidden City.

Sep 2017 President Trump speech to UN

http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/...f-trumps-u-n-speech/

A note about the Iran section of President Donald Trump’s speech to the U.N. General Assembly. While his lambasting of the nuclear deal garnered the greatest attention, it would be a mistake to overlook his extended focus on the plight of the Iranian people.

the regime “masks a corrupt dictatorship behind the false guise of democracy.” It “has turned a wealthy country with a rich history and culture into an economically depleted rogue state” whose “longest-suffering victims … are, in fact, its own people.”

Rather than using Iran’s vast oil profits to “improve Iranian lives,” the regime wastes this wealth — “which rightly belongs to the Iranian people” — on foreign adventures, from “fund[ing] Hezbollah and other terrorists that kill innocent Muslims” to “shor[ing] up Bashar al-Assad’s criminal dictatorship, fuel[ing] Yemen’s civil war, and undermin[ing] peace throughout the Middle East.”

The entire world knows, Trump concluded, that “the good people of Iran want change” and that “Iran’s people are what their leaders fear the most.” That is why the mullahs “restrict internet access, tear down satellite dishes, shoot unarmed student protesters, and imprison political reformers.”

Trump finished with the provocative prediction that “oppressive regimes cannot endure forever” and that the day will come when Iran’s people face a choice: “To continue down the path of poverty, bloodshed and terror” or “return to the nation’s proud roots as a center of civilization, culture and wealth where their people can be happy and prosperous once again?”


It is worth noting that Trump’s focus on the Iranian people was matched by a powerful statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In his speech at the U.N., Netanyahu directed his message directly at the Iranian people. “You are our friends,” he said — and then he said it again in Farsi. He went on: “One day, my Iranian friends, you will be free from the evil regime that terrorizes you, hangs gays, jails journalists, tortures political prisoners, and shoots innocent women like Neda Soltan [a Green Revolution protester], leaving her choking on her own blood in the streets of Tehran…. And when that day of liberation finally comes, the friendship between our two ancient peoples will surely flourish once again.”



*************

perhaps we now have a CIA more interested in dealing w terror supporting nations rather than taking down a duly elected U.S. president

^^^^^^^^^^^

Wow. Just. Wow.

There are so many levels to this.

*OUR* President Trump is truly here at a critical time in not only our history, but also that of this world.

Got shivers of realization, reading this.

Whew

quote:

Originally posted by ersatzknarf:
^^^^^^^^^^^

Wow. Just. Wow.

There are so many levels to this.

*OUR* President Trump is truly here at a critical time in not only our history, but also that of this world.

Got shivers of realization, reading this.

Whew

I wonder if the world is also taking notice? Trump definitely seems like the right person at the right time.

There was a video from 30 years ago where Trump was saying we should of done more when Iran took the hostages. The world would respect our actions.

Then another of video of Trump from 20 years ago saying how we needed to do something then about North Korea before they had nuclear missiles painting at everyone.

Hopefully this is the start of the Iranian people taking back their society. I knew a lot of Iranians at school back during the Shah era, they were mostly pretty nice folk and definitely not fundamentalists.

C-130s loaded with guns and ammo. Lots of guns, lots of ammo.

I'll even give a gun and ammo to this effort.

Send'em, President Trump

Air drop captured ISIS weapons.