Kragdar

As always I am talking to myself and an audience of maybe 4 other people. This is mostly self-soothing diaspora nonsense. People in Iran are dealing with real problems.

What seems hard for Iranians to accept is that some of us are in fact quite conservative, religious, and Muslim. Is it a majority—especially now—and should this majority impose their personal beliefs through violence? Obviously not. But denying their existence is not a path forward for Iran.

I think it makes a lot of Iranians feel better to blame foreigners. Iran has been subject to repeated foreign intervention, after all. But the people in charge of us are Iranians, backed by various foreign powers at various points in time.

There is a long history of Iranians pretending the Islamic Republic is some kind of foreign force. My grandma used to say that Khomeini came from India. Others say ‘79 was Russia or the CIA. It is true France sheltered him and he flew in on Air France. But the IRI is Iranian!

هموطن های عزیز
The foreign intervention you want to sign up for will likely mean decades of foreigners controlling and commenting on your affairs. It will not be limited to foreigners who agree with you.

Iranians inviting foreign intervention and then getting mad when foreigners comment on their affairs <<<<<

I am in the position of having family in Iran and family in the military and I do not find this article particularly sympathetic.

Missed Funerals and Blocked Toilets: Iran Deployment Takes a Toll on U.S. Sailors The lengthy mission of the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford is causing strains for the crew members and their families.

Not sure this country is ready for a war if people in the military are upset about missing trips to Disney World and Busch Gardens

What if it works? The Trump administration has been steadily assembling a vast armada of airpower in the Gulf, ostensibly to apply pressure on Iran during negotiations.  While the administration has been urging Iranian...

“I would like to not see the region dragged further into the hellmouth…After the videos for the administration's social media has been posted and victory declared, Trump will move on to the next thing. But [we] will be living with the carnage for years.”

abuaardvarkghost.ghost.io/what-if-it-w...

🔴 NEW: Citing sources in direct contact with military planners, Jeremy Scahill told Democracy Now the U.S. is weighing two military scenarios for Iran: a “Libya scenario,” using U.S. airpower for regime change and allowing chaos and civil war to follow, or a “Venezuela scenario,” seeking to decapitate Iran’s leadership and make deals with lower echelons within the Iranian state. Scahill also discussed how Trump, who is amassing major naval and air power in striking distance, including the USS Gerald Ford joining the USS Abraham Lincoln, is pressing Iran toward sweeping concessions on its missile program and regional alliances. Iranian officials are signaling retaliation would no longer be calibrated, with tens of thousands of U.S. troops in the region potentially within range. @jeremyscahill | @democracynow

🔴 NEW: Citing sources in direct contact w/ military planners, Jeremy Scahill told Democracy Now the US is weighing 2 military scenarios for Iran: a “Libya scenario,” using US airpower for regime change & allowing chaos & civil war to follow, or a “Venezuela scenario,” seeking to decapite Iran's...

“why do you lock replies” people don’t realize that the kind of entitlement they have towards interacting with a stranger is a new phenomenon and the internet incentivizes a certain level of anti social behavior one should have the agency to spare oneself from

خانم مونه از قلب آمریکا معتقده بعد از نجات ایران از راه دور، مادر داغدار دانیال برکتی دیگه در اون سرزمین جایی نداره. همین‌قدر پلشت…
کاش پای هیچکدوم‌تون هیچ وقت به ایران نرسه. کاش این آرزوهای کثیف‌تون رو با خودتون به گور ببرید.

وضعیت مردم ایران: پدر صدرا سلطانی می‌گه هفت ماه پیش خونه‌شون رو اسراییل زده و صدرا به طرز معجزه‌واری خونه نبوده و نجات پیدا کرده ولی در اعتراضات دی ماه توسط جمهوری اسلامی کشته شده‌. اینها رو اگه در کتاب می‌خواندیم می‌گفتیم اینهمه ستم ممکن نیست و تخیلیه‌.

Why am I on Bluesky when I could just talk to my uncle. It’s too bad they banned the other Iranian voices on here, but luckily I have other uncles with clashing perspectives so I get to hear it all in real life too.

The predictable Iranian diaspora responses to the original post so far have been personal insults, accusing them of being an Islamic Republic agent, and claims the IRI is not even Iranian anyways so destroying refineries, which are also worthless (?), doesn’t matter.

I agree most non-Iranians won’t have Iranian interests at heart, that’s why I don’t want them there in the first place

Beast mode as @diplomatofnight.com would say

Iranians inviting foreign intervention and then getting mad when foreigners comment on their affairs <<<<<

I wish as Iranians we had a better understanding of our neighbors if only for self-interest to understand how similarly they felt to us now in 2001-2003.

Worse, it's really SMART.
When/if Trump gets knocked out of power, the tech billionaires behind him will still keep theirs. Because they are also bankrolling Trump's opposition. In early 2026, they have the California Democratic Party on retainer.

I only listen to his MENA/foreign policy episodes so idk. But it also strikes me that he seems to have a genuine moral belief about the whole matter and people being killed, a fear of hell, that sets him apart. At least he is good at pretending he does. Don’t see that on the left or right either.

And YouTube I think? Idk

It’s also on regular podcast platforms

Agreed. I’ve listened to multiple of his interviews, with the leaders of Iran, Qatar, Francesca Albanese, the latest with the Palestinian pastor, etc. He asks good questions, listens, follows up. There’s no equivalent on the left at all. He knows what he’s doing and it’s done well.

Yeah

im going to give credit where credit is due: through his incredulity at this point, trump has really brought crystalline clarity to the disease at the center of our american system. well put sir

It is also ironic because these Iranians who see themselves as so Western mostly haven’t bothered to learn and campaign in English, which is why MEK remains Western countries’ preferred proxy.

And they are also obviously extremely secular, which explains the Mahdi Reza Pahlavi.

Like literally they say we are civilized, we have a civilization, unlike those people (our neighbors, with whom much of this “civilization” is shared but whatever). I wish more of it was in English so it could be subject to additional challenge. This is mostly a diaspora psychosis.

Literally many unhinged posts of people giving flowers to police at Munich and other protests with commentary like: see, we are different. We clean the streets. We are peaceful. Unlike those barbaric Arabs. So they think Israel, UAE, etc. will spare Iran or help rebuild ASAP.

The real answer to this that I have seen many monarchist diaspora Iranians saying is simply that we are built different (racially superior from) than Arabs and Afghans. So obviously that means we can make do without refineries or fix them quickly.