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On December 18 2025 03:41 Ze'ev wrote:
Were definitely in for some dark times. It feels like we could either bring down the billionaire class and usher in a golden age, or be crushed beneath them, bringing in a dark age worse than any in history. That+racial conflict and war.
You're right, we need to step up and do something! But wait, first look at this super cute cat video on Instagram. Isn't it adorable? And my cousin shared this new dance on TikTok. Are you ready?
Oh, and I saw this video that claimed it wasn't Russians/Israel in Ukraine/Gaza, but aliens. I mean, wild. But he pointed out some things in the official timeline that just don't make sense if it's Russia/Israel, so I think we should consider it!
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Northern Ireland27464 Posts
On December 18 2025 17:15 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On December 18 2025 03:41 Ze'ev wrote:
Were definitely in for some dark times. It feels like we could either bring down the billionaire class and usher in a golden age, or be crushed beneath them, bringing in a dark age worse than any in history. That+racial conflict and war. You're right, we need to step up and do something! But wait, first look at this super cute cat video on Instagram. Isn't it adorable? And my cousin shared this new dance on TikTok. Are you ready? Oh, and I saw this video that claimed it wasn't Russians/Israel in Ukraine/Gaza, but aliens. I mean, wild. But he pointed out some things in the official timeline that just don't make sense if it's Russia/Israel, so I think we should consider it!
Aliens is a new one on me!
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Unfortunately there is a high risk of conflict in Syria in about 9 days.
That's the deadline for the agreement between the government and the SDF for when the SDF is supposed to integrate both their forces into the army and the territory into the country.
It's kind of obvious they don't want to do this and there has been some provocative actions (they sniped two white helmets in Aleppo and in the following clashes shelled civilian neighbourhoods).
Most Syrians seem to think that they want an escalation so they have an excuse to postpone the deal indefinitely.
Turkey supports the new Syrian government (and their pet Syrian militia SNA would do some bad stuff to kurds if they could). Israel seems to support the SDF in order to keep Syria fragmented.
The US used to back the SDF, now it's a lot more unclear and I doubt they would intervene.
I hope nothing bad happens but it's a pretty serious time for Syria. On the other hand if they do manage to integrate the northern parts of the country more or less peacefully things should be pretty stable after that.
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On December 17 2025 05:07 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:
Trump announced last week all visa holders looking to enter USA must hand over 5 years worth of social media history to enter that country.Wouldn't surprise me if Australia did the same thing with gun license holders, AI will look through the history and pull up any red flags.That is the way the world is moving.
So if you manage to stay off the grid with this absolute poison that is social media, you get punished and can’t travel.
Just great.
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Is this the end of one of the most repressive regimes in the world? It is starting to look like it. Trying not to get ahead of myself as Iran has had protests before, but this seems different and the Regime is as weak as it has ever been.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgm4y0ewe93o
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I’m pessimistic until and unless segments of Iranian security forces and the military defect from the regime.
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Rumored massacre in Tehran. If true, it's either the end of the protests or start of the civil war. No in-between. Edit: not a Tehran, but Karad.
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My colleague went to Iran with his sister because his mom died a few months ago and they were going to finish up some paperwork and sell her apartment.
Worst timing ever. 
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On an unrelated note I predicted conflict in Syria about 17 days ago.
There has been fighting between SDF and the government in Aleppo now for about 2 days.
It seems the government is winning pretty decisively.
So took a little over a week after the agreement ended.
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So it seems like the death tool keeps rising, obviously information is not really coming out due to the blackout imposed by the regime, Trump is puffing his chest up again threatening strikes, and the way that propaganda winds are blowing it seems like the desired successor from the Israel-USA axis is the Shah's son, but it doesn't seem like there is a lot of support for them on the ground, and the protests are clearly motivated by the Iranian people being sick of the theocratic regime spectacularly fucking up the country, mismanaging it's resources which lead to historic droughts.
The ideal outcome would be that the revolution drives the Ayatollah and his band of religious nutjobs the fuck out of the country along with the IRGC pieces of shit, which is not really realistic, so the alternative would be that IRGC finally turns on the Ayatollah and some sort of elections are held.
The outcome that I'm most afraid is another intervention from the Trump regime, supported by Israel where they assassinate a bunch of the leadership and name the Shah's son as the one in charge. Of course, this, most likely wouldn't really be accepted by the majority of the population and definitely not by IRGC, which could cause the other authoritarians to double down and start bombing some more.
On one hand, stopping this slaughter is a good outcome, but just like I was absolutely against the first attack on Iran, how I think that the operation to capture Maduro was reckless and stupid, I think that going and trying to meddle with Iran now is the same, however, knowing how Trump and Nethyanahu work, they'll go ahead because they can justify it by "stopping the violence", which they might be able to sell at home, but, long term it's going to be just as catastrophic as the previous interventions in Iran.
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Might be a wrong thread, but since we discussed Syria here and we also talked (quite a bit) about Iran when Israel and USA bombed them last year, seems like the most logical place, so I guess I'll stick to here instead of opening a new thread.
Seems like the death tool numbers vary wildly, I've seen estimates from 500 to 12.000 which is absolutely insane, especially as compared to the first Iranian revolution where over 5 years roughly 10.000 people were killed on the streets or tried and executed.
Trump is babbling on about Tariffs, like anyone cares, everyone else is writing strongly worded letters, this is pretty grim, and generally it seems like most sentiment I see online is attacking "the left" for not caring enough as compared to the Palestine.
In a just world that still makes sense, UN would be convening and a coalition of countries would be forming and sending out clear messages including "if this shit doesn't stop intervention is coming".
Unfortunately, because it's Muslims killing other Muslims, and Shia Muslims at that, no one really gives a fuck, it's tragic and horrible, fuck.
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On January 13 2026 22:42 Jankisa wrote:
Might be a wrong thread, but since we discussed Syria here and we also talked (quite a bit) about Iran when Israel and USA bombed them last year, seems like the most logical place, so I guess I'll stick to here instead of opening a new thread.
Seems like the death tool numbers vary wildly, I've seen estimates from 500 to 12.000 which is absolutely insane, especially as compared to the first Iranian revolution where over 5 years roughly 10.000 people were killed on the streets or tried and executed.
Trump is babbling on about Tariffs, like anyone cares, everyone else is writing strongly worded letters, this is pretty grim, and generally it seems like most sentiment I see online is attacking "the left" for not caring enough as compared to the Palestine.
In a just world that still makes sense, UN would be convening and a coalition of countries would be forming and sending out clear messages including "if this shit doesn't stop intervention is coming".
Unfortunately, because it's Muslims killing other Muslims, and Shia Muslims at that, no one really gives a fuck, it's tragic and horrible, fuck.
I mean... look at Rwanda. There was a genocide where hundreds of thousands died, in terrifying ways. People were hacked to death with machetes, and at sundown, some remainders were just crippled so they could kill them the next day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darfur_genocide_(2003–2005)
Promised "Never Again"
Guess what. Couple decades later, same story:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudanese_civil_war_(2023–present)
Probably 100k+ dead, Africans killing Africans, so the world watches. It's honestly still a little surprising to me that Gaza got as much attention as it did.
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Jews were involved and people love to hate on the Jews.
The one thing if you’re looking for a shred of hope is there is very little info coming out. Once the blackout gets lifted/defeated maybe the world will wake up. But what do we want? It is not like people trust the regional powers to do right by the Iranians. The Americans are hard to even pretend they are “good guys” at this point.
It’s been a long time since a dictatorship was toppled and it worked out better for the people, especially in the Middle East.
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I mean, there are things that were at least attempted, from the same link(s):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations–African_Union_Mission_in_Darfur
In the case of Sudan it's more fucked up countries using this as a proxy war:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudanese_civil_war_(2023–present)#Foreign_involvement
And of course the richest man on Earth took away the little help they were getting via USAID for shits and giggles.
UN had a mission there before, unfortunately, since USA and Israel have spent the last few years (and Trump regime even more so over the last year) systematically making sure that UN is as toothless as possible, and since so many of other authoritarian axis countries are involved in supporting either side something like this will never happen again.
Gaza was and is incredibly well documented and it's been a conflict that has been kicked off by an unprecedented massacre on October 7th, followed closely by indiscriminate bombing and destroying incredible numbers of buildings and lives, plus US and EU are incredibly intertwined with Israel so of course people naturally pay more attention to it.
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On January 13 2026 22:42 Jankisa wrote:
Might be a wrong thread, but since we discussed Syria here and we also talked (quite a bit) about Iran when Israel and USA bombed them last year, seems like the most logical place, so I guess I'll stick to here instead of opening a new thread.
Seems like the death tool numbers vary wildly, I've seen estimates from 500 to 12.000 which is absolutely insane, especially as compared to the first Iranian revolution where over 5 years roughly 10.000 people were killed on the streets or tried and executed.
Trump is babbling on about Tariffs, like anyone cares, everyone else is writing strongly worded letters, this is pretty grim, and generally it seems like most sentiment I see online is attacking "the left" for not caring enough as compared to the Palestine.
In a just world that still makes sense, UN would be convening and a coalition of countries would be forming and sending out clear messages including "if this shit doesn't stop intervention is coming".
Unfortunately, because it's Muslims killing other Muslims, and Shia Muslims at that, no one really gives a fuck, it's tragic and horrible, fuck.
We have a really poor track record of intervention during protests in the middle east.
Look at the arab spring:
Countries involved
- Tunisia. No intervention. Did not get fucked and changed government. Democracy slided back into dictatorship 2025. Not fucked today.
- Libya. Intervention. Completely fucked.
- Egypt. Reverse intervention (military supported, Egypt is not allowed to get fucked because it would be to bad). Backslide into coup.
- Syria. Protesters got some support, devolved into 14 years of civil war. Completely fucked but working on it.
- Bahrain. Reverse intervention (support for the government).
It's really hard to do a "good" intervention. If the support for the protests are overwhelming the revolution tends to be successful quite fast. A couple of hundred dead perhaps.
If the support for the protests is not overwhelming compared to strength and loyalty of the security forces the protests tend to be put down quite fast. A couple of thousands might die.
If it's more balanced and the revolutionaries have guns there is a big chance of it turning into civil war. The problem is intervention quite easily tips it into civil war territory but seldom seems to tip it into a quick overwhelming win. Often because you give some weapons/intel early on and do some airstrikes but it's not even close to enough. And probably because foreign intervention tends to galvanize the country around the government.
I would like to see a democratic Iran but I'm really worried it would turn into Syria 2.0 but on a much larger scale if there was some kind of intervention. Naturally Israel and the US probably see that as a decent outcome if quick democracy doesn't work out.
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United States44393 Posts
I think the comparisons to Palestine miss the point. We're not actively propping up the oppressors in Iran, there's less to protest about. The perpetual "Why do you protest American policy in America but not <civil war> in <place>? Antisemitism" is and always will be dumb.
Trump is playing the Iran situation about as badly as he could. The threat of secondary sanctions is meaningless, the regime is fighting for its life and the economy has already collapsed under the existing sanctions. They have hyperinflation, fighting on the streets, buildings ablaze, and no water. Nobody in the Iranian regime is thinking about the long term economic impacts of secondary sanctions at this point.
Trump offered direct support. He threatened the regime with direct intervention to remove the theocracy from power if they massacred civilians. That has not materialized which means that protestors who expected American help are now going to be mad as hell that it didn't come. It would have cost absolutely nothing to say nothing, to express deep concern over events, to say that they were monitoring the situation, to say that they wanted the best for the people of Iran. Saying that the protestors were under American protection and that if the regime massacred them then the regime would be toppled was a spectacular own goal, he's taken something that had absolutely nothing to do with him and made it his fault.
In terms of what America can do, that we don't actually know. We know the Russian alliance with Iran wasn't worth shit when Israel/America bombed them last year. But we don't know if they have communicated that an actual boots on the ground attack leading to regime change would be a red line. Similarly we don't know what China has communicated. China operates at a substantial energy deficit and their major non US aligned sources of oil were Venezuela, Iran, and Russia. They're justifiably very concerned about their energy security situation in a year in which both Venezuela and Iran fall under US control in the first week of January.
I would favour US intervention at this point though, even if it's just in the form of precision munitions against IRGC bases. Leave the regular Iranian army alone insomuch as it is possible. Leave the police alone. IRGC are the regime internal security forces, they're the zealots, they're the ones who would have no place in a secular Iran. Iranians won't mourn them.
At this point it is clear that Iranian theocracy will not survive. It may survive this crisis but this is the fifth popular uprising in the last few years and each has been substantially larger than the last. The forces of repression were sufficient in previous uprisings and may be sufficient this time, but we'll just see a next one. The regime is unable to provide its people with drinking water, consumer goods, even secure food. The collapse of the currency has destroyed the savings of the Iranians, they cannot import anything, they cannot afford anything, and the regime is not self sufficient. Failing some kind of NK transition the theocracy will fall, it's just a question of when.
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The whole situation is especially heartbreaking to me because just like in many other parts of the world, we are at a point where the situation would tremendously benefit from the protest movement having a leader, someone who can be backed and supported, unfortunately, these repressive regimes actively work on making this impossible due to decades of spying and arresting anyone who seems like they could be such a leader.
I agree with both takes above, I do think that all of the interventions in ME have been disastrous and that any one led by USA is more likely to have an even worse outcome then letting things play out, but, as a human being knowing that hundreds of people are being killed for fighting for their freedom it goes against every fiber of my being to say nothing should be done, so I do think that the most logical and measured response is to try and do precision strikes to take out IRGC and Islamist leadership.
This, however, could also backfire because these ghouls have intentionally embedded themselves amongst the civilian population, and given that Trump is not famous for his restraint or care for civilian life the likelihood that these strikes would be done without a heavy civilian death toll is very low, which would, especially in case of botched strikes give at least some rally around the flag effect to the regime and draw attention away from the protests and back to "us against the world" mentality.
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United States44393 Posts
On January 14 2026 05:28 KwarK wrote:
Trump offered direct support. He threatened the regime with direct intervention to remove the theocracy from power if they massacred civilians. That has not materialized which means that protestors who expected American help are now going to be mad as hell that it didn't come. It would have cost absolutely nothing to say nothing, to express deep concern over events, to say that they were monitoring the situation, to say that they wanted the best for the people of Iran. Saying that the protestors were under American protection and that if the regime massacred them then the regime would be toppled was a spectacular own goal, he's taken something that had absolutely nothing to do with him and made it his fault.
https://time.com/7347090/iran-protesters-trump-help/
Trump made an explicit promise on Truth Social: “If Iran shots [sic] and violently kills peaceful protestors, the United States of America will come to their rescue. We are locked and loaded and ready to go.”
“After he said the Iranian authorities had told him there won’t be any more killings and executions, everyone was just stunned,” said an Iranian interviewed Friday, after traveling out of the country. “Everyone was enraged; they just kept saying this bastard used us as cannon fodder. Iranians feel that they were played, that he fooled them, deceived them.”
While the Iranian regime ordered the attacks, “Trump is also responsible for the death of these 15,000,” he said, quoting one estimate of the dead. “Because many of the protesters took to the streets when they saw his post that the US is locked and loaded.” He said that the U.S. must have made a deal with the Islamic Republic “to betray Iranians like this."
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So after the Syrian government took the enclave in Aleppo in about 48 hours (most of that was waiting to see if SDF took one of the various truce deals) it became obvious that the SDF is really just a bunch of fractured factions where everyone except the die hard PKK guys really doesn't want to fight the government.
So after more skirmishes the government decided to take all the land west of the river, which they did in hours.
Problem is the tribes took that as a challenge and they first folded SDF in Deir ez-Zor like a lawn chair (and in about the same time). Government forces entering got a participation trophy and control of the oil fields.
Then the tribes in Raqqa governorate decided they didn't want to be worse and just took the city in a few hours.
Current situation is that the pace of the government's advance is mostly depending on how many red lights they have to stop at because everything is just being captured in front of them and then turned over.
Edit: And Al-Shara has just published an edict granting full citizenship to all Kurds in Syria (even the ones not born there), guaranteed the right to their language, made Nowruz a national holiday and guaranteed their protection.
I wonder if the offer of making the SDF political leader governor of Hasakah governorate still stands (probably, most Syrians seem to think that's a good idea).
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On January 18 2026 21:41 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:
So after the Syrian government took the enclave in Aleppo in about 48 hours (most of that was waiting to see if SDF took one of the various truce deals) it became obvious that the SDF is really just a bunch of fractured factions where everyone except the die hard PKK guys really doesn't want to fight the government.
So after more skirmishes the government decided to take all the land west of the river, which they did in hours.
Problem is the tribes took that as a challenge and they first folded SDF in Deir ez-Zor like a lawn chair (and in about the same time). Government forces entering got a participation trophy and control of the oil fields.
Then the tribes in Raqqa governorate decided they didn't want to be worse and just took the city in a few hours.
Current situation is that the pace of the government's advance is mostly depending on how many red lights they have to stop at because everything is just being captured in front of them and then turned over.
Edit: And Al-Shara has just published an edict granting full citizenship to all Kurds in Syria (even the ones not born there), guaranteed the right to their language, made Nowruz a national holiday and guaranteed their protection.
I wonder if the offer of making the SDF political leader governor of Hasakah governorate still stands (probably, most Syrians seem to think that's a good idea).
Seems to be in line with what Turkey wants as well? Getting the most unhappy Kurds out of Turkey without there being a Kurdish state to unbalance Turkey itself.
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EPT
