Navid

Born too late to witness the Persian Empire,
Born too early to witness the SIMORGH-02 base on Mars,
Born just in time to witness Ayatollah Jannati turn 145

[Navid @DooghMerchant]

@_Arv1n @mahpishooni23 Not sure! Hopefully nothing serious

[Navid @DooghMerchant]

RIP Marjane Satrapi

[Navid @DooghMerchant]

Getting mad at Marjane Satrapi on the day she dies because she didn’t stop the revolution when she was 9 years old:

[𝐍𝐢𝐨𝐡 𝐁𝐞𝐫𝐠 🇮🇷 ✡︎ @NiohBerg]

@zriboua Her family literally participated in the 1979 revolution and LITERALLY created their own misery.

And I'm supposed to sympathise with them for the suffering their own horrible decisions brought upon all of us? No thanks.

My family have never been traitors, thankfully.

[Vincent Alexander @NonsenseIsland]

RIP Marjane Satrapi, the great cartoonist and film director, best known for PERSEPOLIS. She was only 56. A great talent. She will be missed.

[Navid @DooghMerchant]

@karaokecomputer Me when I find a loophole to mock the death of a Middle Eastern woman:

[Navid @DooghMerchant]

@NazaninNour Was his original tweet aimed at HRANA? They’ve documented war casualties pretty thoroughly lol

[Navid @DooghMerchant]

@howardbasker @Rflohv2 @mahpishooni23 We both agree that a lot of the 2026 outreach has been to certain groups (I call them far-right, you prob won't). You think that's fine, I think we need to diversify our outreach. We can disagree on that

[Navid @DooghMerchant]

Where did the idea that “Europeans think Iranians don’t deserve democracy” come from?

Are people not able to separate geopolitical considerations from normative ones

[Zoe 🇮🇷 @sillymeikoplush]

Oh but it's Iranians who don't deserve democracy according to the rest of Europe, fuck you

[Navid @DooghMerchant]

@howardbasker @Rflohv2 @mahpishooni23 Most of my feed is about the regime's crimes and the plight of protestors and prisoners. You may not like some of the people I RT, but you need to recognize that that's *your* view and that not everyone has that same view

You're creating a strawman of me that doesn't exist lol

[Navid @DooghMerchant]

The hilarious "TRIGGER WARNING" aside, who is this aimed at?

Even the most hardcore monarchists aren't arguing that every Iranian is an Islamist in a turban/burqa. In fact, I don't know who is

[Borzou Daragahi 🖊🗒 @borzou]

TRIGGER WARNING: Another video shows ordinary Iranians doing ordinary things in Iran, this time by a tour guide visiting an antiques market and a park. Don’t watch if you believe the country is nothing more than an evil cesspool of terrorists in burqas and turbans forced to chant, “death to America”

[Navid @DooghMerchant]

@howardbasker @Rflohv2 @mahpishooni23 What exact point do you disagree with from my original post that I'm not addressing? Yes, I think the Iranian resistance in 2026 focused too heavily on networking with far-right parties at the cost of alienating more mainstream political actors

[Navid @DooghMerchant]

The last sentence sums it up very well (writing by @yjtorbati & @bozorgmehr)

[Navid @DooghMerchant]

Very insightful Atlantic article illustrating the IRGC's playbook for taking over domestic tech companies

I've heard this countless times, you might *start* a successful business without them but get big enough and eventually the IRGC comes knocking

https://t.co/csRewiuIVS

[Navid @DooghMerchant]

@howardbasker @Rflohv2 @mahpishooni23 That's why I said "essentially", one incident where they potentially diverged doesn't negate decades of diplomatic alignment

I am responding directly to your words, idk what the issue is

[Navid @DooghMerchant]

A good point of clarification below, it's unclear how much of this is a genuine messaging "struggle" vs (more likely) diverging PR approaches for different audiences, but the trend is still noticeable
https://t.co/SKUrGTL3D6

[S @mrsy1x]

@DooghMerchant I don’t think there is a messaging struggle. 1 is posting these messages for international consumption and propaganda. 2 is continuing the engrained philosophy adapted in 79. The assumption is the people that see 1 never see 2. The message is curated for the intended audience.

[Navid @DooghMerchant]

There seems to be a messaging struggle in the regime between:
1) a new integrationist camp pretending to embrace ancient Persian history + presenting the IR as a continuation of the Empire
2) the old guard following in Khalkhali’s steps spitting on anything pre-1979

[Throwback Iran @Tarikh_Eran]

“Yes we are Arab worshippers! Cyrus is NOT ‘great’! Great is the name of Ali!”

Khamenei supporters are back at it with disrespecting Iranian people’s heritage

[Navid @DooghMerchant]

Another example:

[IRAN EMBASSY in KENYA @IRANinKENYA]

About 2,500 years ago, Cyrus, the great—founder of the Persian Achaemenid Empire—conquered Babylon in 539 BCE. After this event, he issued a decree allowing exiled peoples, including the Jews, to be free and enjoy of their rights as human beings and rebuild their temples.
They will be free once more from the same Zionism who conducted a heinious millitary attack on a Synagogue in the heart of Tehran two days ago.

Images caption: Jewish sacred texts among the remains of the Rafinia Synagogue in Tehran, destroyed in an Israeli airstrike.

[Navid @DooghMerchant]

@howardbasker @Rflohv2 @mahpishooni23 If you genuinely think that the European political establishment has always been "fully in with Islamists" then I don't think you'll ever be convinced by my points

The EU and the US were essentially in lock-step pre-Trump

[Navid @DooghMerchant]

@TajimK70157

[Navid @DooghMerchant]

@mrsy1x Good point, perhaps diverging messaging approaches is a better way to describe it