Opinion of Iran?

[All Along The Watchtower]

Ditto what Al, KaiserDave et al have said.

[All Along The Watchtower]

A highly civilised and utterly fascinating country that has had the misfortune to be ruled for so long by a gang of ultra-reactionary lunatic murderers who hate everything about the country that has made it so great and for so very, very long.

And one of the sadder and most infuriating aspects of this is that the country's current rulers co-opted a much broader popular uprising against the previous reactionary authoritarian regime as their own -- after murdering all of their rivals in that uprising, of course. I suppose this is an all-too common story in regard to revolutions.

[All Along The Watchtower]

A highly civilised and utterly fascinating country that has had the misfortune to be ruled for so long by a gang of ultra-reactionary lunatic murderers who hate everything about the country that has made it so great and for so very, very long.

And one of the sadder and most infuriating aspects of this is that the country's current rulers co-opted a much broader popular uprising against the previous reactionary authoritarian regime as their own -- after murdering all of their rivals in that uprising, of course. I suppose this is an all-too common story in regard to revolutions.

The Shah was intensely modernizing Iran before he was overthrown. Calling him “reactionary” is unfair- in fact, many people thought that his modernizing efforts were too intense which is why there was such strong backlash, and how the revolutionaries managed to rise up and cause the current state of Iran- as revolutionaries tend to do.

Who said that modernization can’t be reactionary? Have you heard of Dubai? Have you been been paying attention to Saudi Arabia recently?!

[All Along The Watchtower]

If Dubai or NEOM represent “conservatism” then all hope is lost.

[All Along The Watchtower]

The Iranian government is mainly a threat to its own people, of course.

Absolutely, but not only to them. A lot of the ongoing drama in Iraq relates to public irritation at Iranian influence over government.

Not to mention Lebanon and Syria. Iran has absolutely been a malevolent—dare I say, counterrevolutionary—actor in those countries too.

And let’s not forget where a lot of the funding for terrorist groups in that area between “the river and the sea” comes from.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Like 30-40% of Iranian Jews hide their ancestry for social climbing reasons and write down Muslim on the census. Same with other religious minorities.

You're not helping your case here.

[All Along The Watchtower]

The pre-1979 regime in Iran was *incredibly* bad in almost all respects, and anyone who tries to say otherwise is not to be trusted. There are good reasons why the Revolution had the support of maybe 75-80% (if not more) of the population initially.

Sure, but there are also good reasons for why certain people of the older generation--, say, Jewish people and other religious minorities, and people who were more secular or even traditionally Muslim (read: not Khomeini-approved) in Iran (and in the region in general, indirectly)---might feel just a tad nostalgic for the pre-1979 era.

[All Along The Watchtower]

A highly civilised and utterly fascinating country that has had the misfortune to be ruled for so long by a gang of ultra-reactionary lunatic murderers who hate everything about the country that has made it so great and for so very, very long.

*Revolutionaries. The people who led the Iranian Revolution were Revolutionaries.

Yes and then Khomenei and his faction murdered them and established a brutal Islamist theocracy.