The reason Iran wants people to talk about the war and not the protests, is that they themselves are much better at killing their own citizens, with 10-30k dead and 300k injured during the January protests.

Compared to what Israel did to Palestinians, those horrible figures are rookie numbers.

Same thing if compared with the numbers of deaths in Iraq as direct and indirect result of the American Invasion (estimates I’ve seen were of over 100k directly and over 1.2 million indirectly) as well as in countries were Western nations imposed “Regime change” like Libya were people are still dying due to the chaoes and infighting between the warlords that took over when Kadhafi was killed.

Even a murderous regime such as the one of the Ayatollahs is nothing next to what countries like America and Israel do when they succeeded in Regime Change in the Middle East, and especially when they get control of a country there.

Certainly given the raging racism of its population and what it has done to merelly the 2 million people in Gaza, the Israelis gaining control of a muslim country of 90 million people would likely result in a Genocide of such incredible proportions that it would push the Holocaust itself into a minor footnote in the history of mass murder.

The US and Israel would be way worse for Iranians than even that murderous theocratic regime.

I think it’s also worth pointing out all the involvement the USA (and others, such as the UK) have had in radicalising Iran. All the meddling with their internal politics, plus international sanctions, only serve as fodder for the anti-western sentiment. This sentiment often comes with anti-lgbt sentiment too, as the western world is seen as a promoter of lgbt acceptance.

My point is leaving Iran alone is the best option for the Iranian people to achieve their own freedom, and all the outside meddling only hinders that progress.

Exactly.

The “foreign bogeyman” is the single most common way for those holding to power they do not deserve, to keep holding it.

In fact this is so common that it doesn’t just apply to the authoritarian regime in Iran, but also both of “couldn’t care less about common people” parties in the US (“immigrants” being the Republican bogeyman and “Russia” being the Democrats’) and even Bibi’s desperatelly holding to power in order to avoid jail time for Corruption in Israel.

So nations willingly playing that bogeyman role towards Iran actually strengthen the regime.

And this is just the side of “utility for sociopaths in power”. There are also the genuine believers who think they’re doing what they have to do for their country and whose belief that “we have to remain in power no matter what or this country will be destroyed” is also reinforced by foreign countries acting against their country, the worse those actions the stronger that believe and the more extreme actions they will accept to “protect my country”.

Given the long history of foreign intervention in Iran and how this regime rose to power as on the back of a popular uprising following the spark of democracy in Iran being crushed and the dictatorship of the Shah restored by foreign powers, I suspect both of these dynamics are strongly at play there.

For sure, this illegal agression by the USA and Israel will only serve to destroy any leverage the protestors might have built over the regime. And that’s exactly what Israel wants, they have no interest in a stable, democratic Iran.

I’m not from the USA, I don’t exactly know if the Democrats use Russia as a foreign boogeyman. That said, Russia (unlike immigrants) has recently given the western world, or at least Europe, reasons to see it as a boogeyman. The invasion of Ukraine and all the hybrid warfare it wages against the EU are good examples.

While I fully agree with you that the foreign policy of western nations, mostly led by the US, has had terrible consequences for the global south, I don’t think Russia’s actions have had a positive impact either. It takes two to tango, and Russia has been the other side of many proxy wars around the globe.

The only silver lining I see in all this is the potential for a new world order, led by middle powers, focused on human rights and international law. I’m not too optimistic about this, though…