Yeah florida is filled with former cubans who want the USA to destroy cuba. The issue is what do actual iranians think? What people who used to live in iran or never lived in iran think is not that relevant really.

Does anybody else remember "we will be greeted as liberators" from a previous debacle in the region?

I'd frame it as the biggest mistake was underestimating the work required to facilitate a successful rebellion - you have to be ready to go to support the people rebelling. Form support networks ahead of time, airdrop supplies, supplement with small but crucial boots on the ground, etc - all things the domain experts of the "deep state" would classically do [0] before it got smashed under the banner of doggie, anti-woke, juche, or whatever the rallying cry is this month. These chuds thought success and praise would just automatically occur by virtue of them having some innate special quality, like every one of their "plans".

[0] note that I'm having to suppress a bit of a gag here writing sympathetically about the military-industrial complex that foments regime change in other countries. but if we're being honest about what it took to pull off the American-exceptionalist thing we've become accustomed to, this is what it took.

I assume you don't live in iran and don't converse with iranians who live in iran and have bombs fall on their homes. If you asked yugoslav people in argentina in 1945, they'd be very anti-communist too... the situation in yugoslavia was a lot different (just giving an example from home).

The statistics are well... just statistics, if you collected the stats on trump support in san francisco near colleges, you'd get a drastically different result then on the elections. Same thing is happening in eg. serbia, where "everyone hates vucic", but the second you leave urban areas or ask anyone above 50yo, the situation is much different.

Didn’t we just see in Syria that’s not the case. It is supremely hard to nation build a large failing state no matter who’s attempting it. Having the guns to challenge the internal security forces seems like a necessary first step.

Also, a good majority of Iranian people might despise the regime, but also have long enough memories (or their parents do) of what happened the last time the West tried to intervene in their internal affairs.

There is absolutely no way to know if it's true or not