@sethjlevy I’m not an expert in their ideology, but their claim to power has to be weaker than before. The twelfth imam didn’t climb out of the well to save them.
I think this is right, although Ida Turan has more direct knowledge than I do. The old regime is dead and can’t be put back together again.
The fragments of the IRGC and the mullahs that remain all hate each other and are trying to backstab each other.
President Trump is cooking the Islamic regime from the inside, deepening the fractures by pressing it from outside.
Those who don’t know the regime don’t know where to look for the cracks, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there.
Since Trump reposted Foreign Minister Araghchi’s post, I’ve been waiting for exactly these:
+ In Mashhad, regime hardliners, Khamenei’s loyal ‘orcs’, gathered in front of the Foreign Ministry chanting “Death to the infiltrator Araghchi!”, “Death to the dishonorable traitor!”, and openly calling for his execution.
+ Regime’s hardliner’s chat groups are flooded with calls for more protests nationwide.
+ In reaction, Police Chief Radan has already warned that anyone demonstrating against “national unity” and the deal will be crushed. Now you see why Radan is still alive?
Here is what you need to know: In his final years, Khamenei had become extremely paranoid. He had built the IRGC to protect the regime, yet he feared it more than anything. So he deliberately fragmented power inside the IRGC so no single person or faction could concentrate money and control. He played different “gangs” against each other, constantly managing their rivalries.
At the same time, he bred a special layer of extremely brutal, loyal orcs recruited from the poor, marginalized, and mentally unstable underclass, people loyal only to him personally. These were his ultimate tool to keep the rest in check.
Now that he is gone, the power vacuum has triggered open war. These orcs answer to no one else. A cartel inside the regime had already surrounded Khamenei, eliminated serious rivals (the 2024 helicopter crash that killed Raisi, his only real successor, and the hardline Foreign Minister Abdollahian), and effectively sold him out to the US.
Khamenei’s orcs are not stupid. They can clearly see what happened, which is why they call Araghchi exactly what he is: an infiltrator and traitor. They know they are being sold out.
After the ceasefire they needed time to reorganize. Trump is now pressuring them to sort it out. The bloody “pigs’ war” for the top seat and the billions in oil money, smuggling, and sanctions-busting is approaching.
And it will hopefully mean they eliminate and weaken each other without a single American or Israeli soldier being put at risk, and without Iranian protesters having to bleed in the streets.
It’s slow, but it works.
Trump said it again: he wants Americans to go inside Iran to take the uranium. If that happens in non-war conditions, it’s game over for the regime. They won’t be able to suppress the population with Americans watching, and arming Iranians becomes far easier, no need for treacherous middlemen like the Kurds anymore.
Let Trump cook. Hopefully these terrorists finish each other off.
P.S. The hardliner women are wearing kafan on top of their Chador, the white burial shrouds Muslims use to wrap corpses before burial. By wearing it themselves, they signal they are ready for martyrdom and death in defense of the regime.
I think this Iran "deal" stuff is all kayfabe. There's no true deal actually in the works, nothing real will be signed, and Trump's playing good cop to Israel's bad cop in an elaborate intelligence game. Something might get signed, but it's bullshit and Trump knows it. Keep calm.
@McFaul He’s not spending it and it’s more leprechaun gold than real money.
The moment your buddies start taxing it he has to sell stock to pay the taxes. Stock value drops and he’s not worth anything close to a trillion dollars.
Just calm down. It’s paper money.
@bonniejean47@mattvanswol We owe the British band invasion of the mid 60s to the lower tax rates (70% instead of 95%. Read the lyrics of Beatle Harrison’s “Taxman” to get a flavor. “One for you nineteen for me.”
@bonniejean47@mattvanswol Income tax not wealth tax. There has never been a wealth tax which is really just theft,
The high income tax rates up until 1964 were only possible because the manufacturing base in the rest of the world was destroyed. When those high rates became unworkable we lowered them.
@clary262@SteveKornacki Have you ever lived in a dictatorship? In a dictatorship secret police would be making their way to your home now and you would disappear.