Defiant Khamenei says Iran will ‘never surrender’ to the US
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said Iran will “never surrender” to the United States, striking a defiant tone in his first remarks since a ceasefire with Israel took hold. "The American president indicated in one of his statements that Iran must surrender. Surrender! It is no longer a question of enrichment, nor of the nuclear industry, but of the surrender of Iran,” said Khamenei in a statement and televised speech carried by state media on Thursday. “Such an event (surrender) will never happen. It will never happen.”
The speech also comes amid conflicting accounts in the US over the extent of the damage inflicted by US strikes on key Iranian nuclear sites at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan during the conflict. US President Donald Trump said the strikes “obliterated” the nuclear facilities. But Khamenei said Trump had “exaggerated” the impact of the attacks and said the US “gained nothing from this war,” claiming the US strikes “did nothing significant” to Iran’s nuclear facilities.
While Iranians who fled Tehran during the war have been gradually returning to the city, “there is a common anxiety among the Iranian people here as well because they believe this was only the first wave of the war,” said Serdar. “Many are questioning the efficiency of Iran’s air defence systems” and feel that Iran could be more vulnerable to a potential future attack from the US and Israel, added Serdar.
Hopefully people read this and believe them when they say this.
The only people who hold any meaningful cards in all this are the Iranian people. Lasting change comes if they rise up. Otherwise it's just a waiting game and Iran has all the time in the world.
Well, the USA would likely not exist if it wasn't for the French and Native Americans helping us out. And other nations occupying the Birts time in other parts of the world. Or at least it would have taken us a lot longer. It doesn't matter what the colonists wanted. Sometimes a culture/people need a little boost to help them out. Imagine if the French had just dropped a couple of cannonballs on British ships and gone back home. It would be a nice battle, but the war might have gone very different. That's what we just did. Dropped some cannonballs. Trump f*ed this up, and I'm a supporter. He made the right first move, then called off the dogs. He should have let Israel finish the job
There's a difference between "helping" and "leading". In our example, those countries/tribes were there in support of us to help. Not to do it for us. Afghanistan is the perfect example of what I am talking about. The people there and the "new government" wanted the US to DO it for them. They didn't want us there in a support role. It was clear that once the US left, things would revert because a majority of those who wanted to affect change, didn't want to change. For anything meaningful and lasting to happen in Iran, the people there need to talk the talk and walk the walk. As long as they do, I have no problem supporting them. We do NOT need to be part of Afghanistan part 2.
We can't know for sure, but I get the impression this crave for a regime change is heavily exaggerated and propogandized in western media.
We all see the memes of Iranian women dressed in regular clothes and skirts and talking about how great it used to be, but that really wasn't popular in Iran even when it was happening. That was forced on them and overthrowing that puppet government was popular.
I don't think there is any scenario where the Iranian people rise up to overthrow their government on their own. I don't think it's really even remotely in the cards. The type of people in Iran that tend to be more western and progressive tend to end up immigrating to western places, which colors our perceptions of Iranian feelings in a biased light.
Inside the country, it seems to be a lot more similar to most other countries. Yes there are a lot of people that don't "support" the current government, but not to the extent of wanting a military coup, especially with foreign involvement. Sort of the way in the US that generally there are huge percentages of the population that don't "support" current leadership, but that doesn't mean they want Canada to blow up the white house so we can install a new government. That would only rally us around that leadership, which is probably what is happening in Iran.
We can either continue to make sure they don't get nukes, or forcibly install a new government again (the former seems to be the way to go and they way we're sticking with). I don't think hoping the Iranian people rise up on their own and overthrow the government is even remotely a possibility.