re: Didn’t have this on my bingo card: pro-shah protest

Good summary

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Economic Protests or Something Bigger?

What we are witnessing in Iran right now is not an isolated economic protest. It is another deep and serious challenge to the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic.

Yes, the immediate trigger is economic collapse. Iran’s currency has lost nearly 90 percent of its value since 2018.

When money collapses, lies collapse too.

Currency collapse.
Crushing inflation.
A destroyed middle class.
This is what a corrupt regime like the Islamic Republic has produced.

Youth unemployment is staggering. Even Iranians with university degrees cannot find jobs and are now living in poverty. The middle class has essentially collapsed.

While ordinary people struggle to buy bread, families of senior officials control oil terminals, oil tankers, and massive financial empires. The gap between the rulers and the ruled has become unbearable.

That is why shopkeepers and producers, bazaaris and factory owners, understand that their economic suffering is not accidental. It is the result of decades of systemic corruption.

That is also why protesters inside Iran are very clear: this crisis has a root cause, and that cause is the Islamic Republic itself.

People are not just demanding lower prices, they are chanting against the entire regime.

That’s why I see this as part of a much longer trajectory. Since 2009, Iran has experienced six major nationwide uprisings took place across Iran. Each one has been broader, more radical, and more direct than the last. The most recent was “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising, which the regime crushed with extreme violence. But repression did not erase the anger.

This time, in response to these protests, the regime, including the president of the Islamic Republic says it is “ready to talk to protesters.”
Iranians call this speech therapy: empty promises that have failed for decades.

At the same time, security forces are using tear gas and violence and arresting protesters to suppress the uprising. The protests are not only in Tehran; they are taking place across Iran and continue to spread.

We are also seeing powerful scenes from the streets.

Protesters are directly addressing security forces. In one exchange, a protester tells a security officer: you are also suffering from inflation; your salary is worthless too, so why are you shooting at us?

We have even seen some security forces running away from protesters. That matters. Protesters are chanting for security forces to join them. So far, we have not seen a break.

The regime has failed on every front. It has delivered neither economic stability nor security. It has prioritized ideology, regional wars, repression and funding its proxies over the lives of its own people.

How this unfolds will depend on how brutal the crackdown becomes and whether the international community finally stops treating this regime as normal.

Stupid people would want that specific outcome. Dude's basically a playboy......but then I realized it was you.