this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2026
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I'm no fan of American imperialism either but the regime in Iran is actively massacring their civilians on a scale never before seen during protests, I have Iranian friends and they know full well that America and Israel don't have their best interests at heart, and yet they still want them to intervene because they don't see any other way for change to happen. My Iranian friends don't even really like Reza Pahlavi but he's the most significant figure in these protests and so they're supporting him purely in solidarity with the people.
It's a very complicated and nuanced situation and it can't really be reduced to a meme like this without losing important context.
You don't need to know much about Iran at all to know for a fact that US intervention will make it worse, you just need to look at Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Palestine, and every other "repressive dictatorship liberated by US efforts" to see the consequences of invasion.
The protests in Iran are happening because people are literally dying due to impoverishment caused by western sanctions causing the local currency to implode. Focusing only on the government reaction during a period of military buildup Against Iran amounts to atrocity propaganda, however well-meaning your intentions are. It's meant to create mixed feelings about the invasion amongst progressives "look at how dictatorial they are"
Nobody here is claiming that a US intervention would make things better, I think the point here that lying about the situation in Iran and Eastern Ukraine only helps the violent fascists in power in those places.
The nuance is that workers are being slaughtered by Putin and Khamenei and defending them just because the US doesn't like them is only helping the fascists.
Looking at history, it's western intervention leading to far right in both though. Ukraine saved itself from Nazism thanks to communism, and only after western-style capitalism took control have far-right movements taken place. As for Iran, I wish Mosaddeq hadn't been ousted by the west too, but alas it's again not "tankie lies" leading to violent regimes, it's western meddling. The tankies you hate have advocated since the past century against the ending of the USSR (which would have saved Ukraine from the demographic and humanitarian disaster it's suffering for the past 25 years) and against intervention against Mosaddeq. If you had listened to the tankies 70 years ago, there would be no far right.