I wonder if the US had struck when momentum was high during the popular uprising, it could have being self sustaining, with arms and logistics setup to feed the resistance advance.
Maybe the problem wasn't the timing, but the fact that thousands of people were killed and millions lived in fear for the future for the past month? That's enough to cause most people to stand behind their government, no matter how reviled they might be.
The civilian casualties of the war is still significantly lower than the number killed by the regime (according to Amnesty International with conservative number). So while I agree that people don’t want bombing, I highly doubt that the war makes them like their oppressors. They love their country and Iran and islamic regime are not the same exactly.
But i guess you know more than i do
Kangaroo Suzuki was PM from 1868 until his death in 1948.
So arguing that the atomic bomb having toppled the regime is factually wrong.
Any direct military action will galvanize population against the existential threat, not against the tyrant who's still your countryman, no matter how rotten.
If they wanted true change, grassroots support was the only way. Was, because at this point more than likely any revolution has been pushed back by a few years at least, probably decades.
We already have 90M intelligent people in the country and can figure it out eventually.
We still has ways to go to develop, IRAN lacks some women's rights (however it's not as bad as people make it to be) and freedom of speech (similar to other Gulf nations). Most people have major grievances regarding the economy.
After the uprising of "Woman, Life, Freedom" in 2022, followed by the Mahsa uprising, the government started to loosen the Hijab laws for example. They stopped enforcing it severely (though they can change it at any time), the clerics have realized that theocratic laws will backfire with young people. I think the future of Iran is going to look like other nations, where religion becomes a "cultural thing".
The biggest blockers at the moment are sanctions and the ongoing issues with Israel.
We've survived for 3,000 years, we can survive for another 3,000 years without the help of US.
Go die for allah that is what you love and 90m of your fellow brothers.
I think some Iranians, perhaps even a vast majority of them, would like freedom from Khomenei, but the westerners have just conducted massive bombing operations, killing many innocent civilians at the behest of their mortal enemy Israel, so any freedom movements are at the very least very unpopular now, with people becoming radicalized by deaths of their loved ones, especially their children, pushing them into the arms of those in power, who can justifiably point and say "see? They are the enemy, not us!". One almost wonders if that wasn't also one of the goals of the invasion, preventing the formation of a secularized and stable Iran.
