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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   8888 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026

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This is generally true. I think you're underestimating how much the IRGC dominates the economy, but very accurate overall.

You're missing a few key variables:

  • Everyone knows the regime is defenseless against US/Israel aircraft, and that Israel believes it has unfinished business
  • Everyone knows Trump has made noises about the regime killing protestors
  • The rial is approaching ~0 value, as part of a general economic deterioration
  • Estimates are now that 10k plus people have been killed
  • The regime has said its giving the death penalty to most/all protestors it arrests

Absent external support or a preference cascade among security forces to stand down/switch sides, the regime might just simply kill its way out of this.

But if it does, it will still be weaker than it ever was before.

Estimates are now that 10k plus people have been killed

very likely bullshit to drown out eventual losses from the US/Israeli intervention. It's really hard to kill 10K people in days without heavy military operation with airstrikes and such.

Actually, no.

It's very, very fucking easy to kill 10k massed, unarmed people in mere hours with machine guns.

Reportedly, a regime official told Reuters it's 2k.

It’s certainly possible, but I would have expected the protests to disappear if the regime was willing to mow-down crowds of civilians like this.

That is what the regime hopes, yeah.

The protestors are, at a minimum, holding out for promised US support. That does seem to be what Trump has done at this point.

The protestors are, at a minimum, holding out for promised US support.

Evidently they are unfamiliar with the US record in this regard.

Can you think of reasons why this is not very much like the Bay of Pigs at all?

Support would be more difficult? We're no longer in a cold war? We have an even more mercurial President?

We engineered the Bay of Pigs and then didn't provide air support.

Presently, there are organic mass uprisings where we could provide air support. In the 1950s, we didn't have precision-guided munitions and stealth aircraft.

It's not remotely the same situation at all.

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