The Iran war and Poland

....is there so much difference between Islamism and Communism?

Islamism allows capitalism. Communism does not accept any faith other than itself.

Islam like its brother religion Christianity has moral rules devotees should follow that would impact on economic policy.

Christian countries ditched the restrictions long ago but Islam tends to stick to scripture. Its only the dictatorial slave states of the gulf who are now beginning to follow their Christian brothers in ignoring scripture when it comes to economic matters.

Communism is an economic policy. There is a big difference between them.

This is why I said the elected civilian governments run "99% of day to day life".

Things like garbage collection, policing, healthcare, education, and so on.

The Supreme Leader legitimates this entire rule through his person. He sets and shapes the whole ideological climate - through his Friday sermons, and through his power to control key appointments in the judiciary and the media.

Technically - he is able to intervene in every corner of Iranian life. He can overrule the president. He can directly intervene in the lawmaking process. He can nullify or allow nuclear agreements. In practice - however - this has been an increasingly rare occurrence.

His meddling in Iranian domestic life is probably at its lowest level since the late 1990s.

What he and his IRGC buddies are obsessed with is their Axis of Resistance - which is all outside the country, and completely unaccountable to the civilian government of Iran. But all these machinations with Hezbollahs, Houthis, and Hamas' has no bearing on life in Iran itself. There's a huge Chinese wall between these things. In fact, there's a great deal of hypocrisy where Iran promotes much more aggressive strains of thought abroad, in comparison to what it is prepared to tolerate at home.

Russian involvement in Iran is probably one of the biggest blunders of Western foreign policy.

Iranians hate, hate, hate Russians. We carved off a good third of their country. All of modern Georgia, modern Azerbaijan, modern Armenia, parts of Dagestan and of Chechnya.

It's their equivalent of China's "Unequal Treaties", and a source of deep national humiliation.

Then we invaded them twice during the 20th century (last time in 1941). We supported Azeri and Kurdish separatism. Ran campaigns aimed at undermining the idea of an Iranian national state. And then finally acted as the primary supplier of weapons for Saddam during the Iran-Iraq War.

Like the Turks, they have a genetic mistrust towards Russians - and view it always as a potential enemy.

To mistreat Iran to such a degree that it runs into Russia's embrace, you need to be a real stable genius, or just Israel's lapdog.

I had rather the living conditions in mind....the fear of an allpowerful rulership.....which just kills any dissenters if they didn't already left the country.....the strict following of a holy book....the worshipping of declared "saints", the demonization of any other opinion...etc....such things....the real-day life of the common people under it, their forced lack of choices!

Regimes with initial popular support can lose that over time... just about all the available data suggests that has happened in Iran.

Though despite that, trying to force regime change from outside is a stupid mistake...

If they do, they do. What does it have to do with outsiders?

An isolated population is alot easier to control than one with access to the wider world!

Hence the Berlin Wall....or North Korea....Afghanistan....there is a system, a reason behind. Outsiders, other ideas, choices, possibilities....not at last contact to the opposition, which may gathering and organizing the resistance....

The international terminals in Istanbul, in Doha, and in Dubai will tell you that Iranians are anything but "isolated".

Their women enter the lavatory in modest dress and scarves, and then come out wearing designer jeans and shoes.

You can see them shopping in Moscow too. They are like anybody else. They like cosmetics, clothes, cars, and gadgets.

There are Ferraris and Maseratis in Tehran, and they can watch any tv show they want using a vpn.

Netanyahu has done a great job painting a caricature of Iran that the rest of the West has swallowed.

Saudi Arabia is 50 times more repressive religiously, than Iran. How many people did Iran publicly behead last year? How many did the Saudis behead? How many people's hands have the Saudi's chopped off? How many journalists did they execute? Doesn't matter. Saudis are good, because they are retards that can't even wipe their own butt without American or English help - and so they are found to be cute and harmless.

They are forced to wear that.


This is what the more secular urban middle class want to wear.

Even in the ultra-religious Saudi, the hijab comes off some of the women or is at least relaxed with the veil off on the flight to Dubai as soon as the seatbelt sign pings off.


That's how it is. A massively repressive theocracy with tens of thousands of political prisoners and mass executions. Some things may be less rigorously enforced than Saudi however they are very different places. One was mostly Iron Age apart from the north west bit round Mecca, Medina and Jeddah until the 60s and even that was apparently like stepping back centuries.

Iran is far more established and had the monarchy period. Just as oppressive in some ways and that has continued in a toxic combination with the Ayatollahs.

....and that doesn't tell you anything?

I would conclude from this image that they want to do away with the Mullahs the same way as they do away with the Abaya the moment they can!

Great. So Anglo racism explains why Saudi Arabia is treated like the child with Down's Syndrome, and Iran instead like a delinquent teenager.


Certainly not by their husbands. Meanwhile, most Saudi men treat their wives like cattle.

Did you know that women in Iran can drive automobiles since the 1930s, but in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia only since 2018 - and even then only with permission from their male guardian.

How about that Paulina? Wanna ask your husband for permission to drive?

How about this: women in KSA cannot leave prison or shelters without a male guardian's approval, even if they were jailed for "disobedience" or fleeing abuse. Haha!

Your husband can send you to prison, and not call you back home until he's ready!

Did you know that women value safety more over freedom? Just count amount women vs men in freedom related groups versus aknowledged and "safer" groups. You will get the picture

There are rarely official mass marches with burning US flags....neither the Saudis nor the UAE plan to destroy the West with self made nukes...quite the contrary, both are also hard core enemies of Iran!

Teheran is not known for clever foreign policies...making enemies left and right....I guess that will be their downfall, sooner or later.
The one "friend", Putin's Russia, has been also astoundigly quiet during the last days, not helping much. I guess Putin knows also more than we do!

Putin's Russia is a little bit busy with something called the Ukraine War, but I'm still sure that advisers are being sent to help.

Iran's biggest friend is China - the main buyer of its oil exports. It buys approximately 2 million barrels a day from Iran, or about 90% of all it exports.

If Israel and America manage to bring Iranian oil off the market, the biggest loser will be China. Russia will actually gain tremendously, as will Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and other big oil exporters.

It's China's silence that is more surprising - since this a critical part of their energy supply chain.

If that had a meaning, it would be worth reading.


Have you met most Saudi men then?

The state has rules in both countries about women's dress and customs differ in each country by region. People differ in their individual tastes too.. Many of the thousands of Saudis who go to Bahrain, Kuwait, Dubai etc at the weekend are happy to relax and behave differently from home.

In Saudi, hair covering isn't mandatory however it is a tradition for Arab women in conservative societies. Some people are stricter than others. Saudi has now removed the requirement for a flowing overdress though most wear it in public by choice. They've come from the dark ages to the modern world in less than half a century. So what if their society is conservative?

Moan about it more, why don'cha?

And even if KSA were as repressive as you suggest or can drag up from the internet, so what? Does that excuse anything that happens in Iran?

....or he is clever enough to cut his losses?


I just read that the Saudis raised their oil production shortly before it all started....they surely got a call!

PS: Doesn't look good for Russia and China....having bet on a soon-to-be-dead-horse....

People who matter.


Thank you, Iron. You always know how to amuse me.


Cattle, or walking digestive tracts, yes - you explained their dilemmas rather accurately. I was, however, talking about people (i.e. thinking human beings).


It is much more than just that. It is a repressive and criminal system of government, and even if it's not inherently repressive and criminal, then it invariably turns into exactly such political system anywhere in the world where its applied.

....the one attribute of all these 'isms, even when starting out with so much hope and promises, they NEVER deliver!

I wish people would learn from all that painful history for once....

Exactly!


People don't really seem to learn from history. There are always those who claim that "the real communism" is oh-so-great, and that there "never was a real communism anywhere in the world" and that "next time it will definitely work" etc. etc. Half-wits, yes, but dangerous half-wits.

Not only Saudi. Several of the countries in a position to do so have increased production recently. Maybe they got a call, maybe they're just doing it because the deteriorating world situation makes that a good course of action.

Oh elitism. You are discussing your narrow group of friends and those who impress you. I'm sure that the so-called right-wing elites in Poland do not share this infatuation with a warmongering state.
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I'm impressed that you're not paying attention. It seems like you're focusing on propaganda instead of reality.
It certainly satisfies a deeper need within your psyche, so I won't pass any judgment.

Join them...

My father once said that everybody should become a member of PZPR.

The same in the US...Everybody should be in a union of some sort...to destroy their ability to blackmail the rest of society for higher wages...economy being a zero-sum thing...

Of course.

It looks like more bombing today, and Israel running low on weapons.

This is worrying.

"The Americans should know that any US military intervention will undoubtedly be accompanied by irreparable damage."

Do they have the capacity to do this or are they just sabre rattling since they know the end is near.
theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/18/iran-threatens-us-with-irreparable-damage-if-trump-joins-war

.....I thought it to be sure and accepted between everybody and their grandmom that Trump keeps out of it (but also doesn't constrain Netanjahu).....

What they can do:

1) Block the straights with the hulls of scuttled ships, necessitating potentially weeks or months of salvage and clearance work.

2) Attack Saudi, Qatari, and Emirati oil terminals on the Western coast of the Gulf.

3) Use some of the thousands of short range missiles they have to strike American military bases in the region - the same way they struck an American air base in Iraq in response to the killing of Suleimani.

4) Reignite the sectarian war in Iraq, by unleashing Sadr once again.

5) Provide weapons and aid to Saudi Arabia's oppressed Shia minority - which happens to live on top of all of Saudi's oil reserves

6) Remove any prior restrictions on aid to the Houthis

7) Use the limited fissile material they have to set off a dirty bomb in Israel, potentially rendering large parts of it dangerous for human habitation

8) It could go the full terrorism route and start responding directly on NYC, Washington - it has infinitely more resources at its disposal compared to non-state actors like Al Qaeda and ISIS.

That all needs longterm, excessive planning...but Iran is about to lose all these heads and deciders.....

Since the beginning of Israel's military campaign against Iran's nuclear and military infrastructure, the Israeli military has targeted and eliminated key figures belonging to the Islamic Republic of Iran's (IRI) military apparatus.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched Operation Rising Lion just after midnight on June 13, targeting key nuclear and military facilities inside Iran. The operation began with a wave of precision airstrikes carried out by Israeli Air Force fighter jets guided by intelligence from the IDF's Military Intelligence Directorate and the Mossad. Besides Iran's military leadership, the IDF targeted scientists working on the regime's nuclear program, air defense systems, and other infrastructure.....

A little list:

longwarjournal.org/archives/2025/06/israeli-airstrikes-eliminate-senior-iranian-military-officials.php