In fact, I believe if the U.S. wanted to really help the Iranians, they should have lifted the sanctions in exchange for Iranian government easing some of the domestic laws.
I don't think sanctions are that helpful in establishing democracy, and even if they were, taking the population hostage in order to instigate an uprising is morally quite dubious.
In any case, U.S. has recently proven to be a dishonest actor, so even if above was correct I would still not want them to do it.
P.S. I was born in communist Czechoslovakia. So I have seen an organic regime change, and the Iranian one is IMHO too violent to be the moment.
> they should have lifted the sanctions in exchange for Iranian government easing some of the domestic laws...
No authoritarian regime wants to go down the same way Gorbachev, Husak, and Honecker did by meeting the opposition halfway.
Most regimes learnt from how China cracked down in Tiananmen and how SK cracked down in Gwangju, especially countries like Iran that are much more structurally similar to Maoist China than the 1980s Eastern Bloc, as much of the Iranian economy is owned by the Bonyads (Islamic charities), State Owned Enterprises, and regime affiliated conglomerates who wouldn't expect to retain economic control if Iran didn't remain an Islamic Republic, and the footsoldiers of the Cultural Revolution (yes, Iran had one too called the Inqilab e Firangi or "Revolution against the West") are the ones in charge.
The current violent crackdown is similar to that which the Iranian regime used during the Green Movement back in 2009-10.
The IRGC has a headcount of around 100k, the Police 300k, the PMF in Iraq (which have now been mobilized across Iran) have 200k, the Liwa Fateymoun (Shia Afghan militia) have around 3k-10k, and Liwa Zainabiyoun (Shia Pakistani/Pakhtun militia) have around 5k-8k personnel.
That's around 600k personnel who are ideologically aligned with the regime, have seen combat in Syria or Yemen, have had experience cracking down on anti-regime protests on multiple occasions, and have the means for a violent crackdown in a country of 90 million people. And that's ignoring personnel that the Houthis or Hezbollah can send despite being battered by Israeli strikes.
On the other hand, the SAVAK during the Iranian Revolution only had 5K personnel in a country of 40 million.
A lot of people will refer to Syria as an example of a counter-revolution, but the Syria's population was significantly better armed during the Assad regime compared to Iranians today. Before the Arab Spring it was common for the then Syrian government to send disaffected Sunni troublemakers across the border to Iraq to take potshots at the Americans and let them solve the problem [0][1][2][3]. This was how Jolani/al-Sharaa and a number of anti-Assad revolutionaries got their start as well.
I sincerely hope the Iranian people get the ability to choose the government that is right for them, but based on the lived experiences of my friends and family in authoritarian states, I sadly think the Iranian regime will stand.
> No authoritarian regime wants to go down the same way Gorbachev, Husak, and Honecker did by meeting the opposition halfway.
What "regime wants" is irrelevant. "Regime" is a collective construct, and people can collectively change it. Which is what happened there, and I think it shows that peaceful transition is possible. The way these regimes have changed was by people collectively realizing they don't want it, without foreign interference.
In this case, authoritarian U.S. (and possibly also Russia) projecting power into Iran is making things worse. (Czechoslovakia was in that situation - on the way to peaceful transition - in 1968, but it was externally interrupted from Russia.)
> I sincerely hope the Iranian people get the ability to choose the government that is right for them, but based on the lived experiences of my friends and family in authoritarian states, I sadly think the Iranian regime will stand.
I agree with you, and I said above that I believe it is too violent (and you confirm that). There is decent amount of research that shows that nonviolence is a more reliable way to change regimes towards democracy.
> The way these regimes have changed was by people collectively realizing they don't want it, without foreign interference
Not really.
Every single regime change has happened because a veto player decided to withdraw support for the incumbent regime. This has been documented for decades by Kuran, Karelian & Peterson, Ulfelder, and Hummel.
Once the incumbent regime begins shooting, they have no choice but to double down because statistically incumbents in an authoritarian regime will not continue to retain their positions if they back down.
For incumbents, you either do a managed transition (eg. Pinochet) or you double down on repression (eg. Deng). Vacillating in the middle ends up leading to mass mobilization and shows internal stakeholders that there is little downside to defecting to the protesters side. And that was the mistake Gorbachev, Husak, and Honecker made.
I have family in VN and go there fairly often, and given the nature of business in Asia have often bumped into their decisionmakers often. Much of their leadership was in Czechoslovakia, GDR, and Poland from 1986-91 on internal security or military scholarships, and the primary takeaway they took was to
1. Sustain economic growth to buy support and increase the revolutionary threshold by adding an increased economic cost
2. Dramatically expand the size of internal security bureaus (most Warsaw Pact members had 0.01-0.25% of their population be members of internal security organizations, but states like Iran and Vietnam are trying to maintain a 0.5-1% population ratio instead)
3. Double down on repression once the bullets start flying. My SO grew up in the Central Highlands during the ethnic tensions turned protests in the 2000s [0]. Once two protesters died after arrest, the BCA decided to double down. They began summarily executing protesters on the street, ambushed protesters in side streets and opened fire, hunting protestors using unfed dogs, and openly distributing small arms and ammunition to trusted party members and US-Vietnam and/or Sino-Vietnam War veterans, and giving them a blank check to enforce "discipline". That said, she was from a Bac 76 family so they were in a better position.
I guarantee you Iran's leadership thinks the same way. And from the looks of what is happening in Iran, their leadership is using the exact same playbook.
> There is decent amount of research that shows that nonviolence is a more reliable way to change regimes towards democracy.
Yes, but this is because an authoritarian regime allowing non-violent protest to occur means they have lost control, becuase the revolutionary threshold has been hit such that mass mobilization by civil society has happened and does not have a high cost - thus implying their grip on power and monopoly on violence has decreased. This is what Kuran highlights.
I don't think sanctions are that helpful in establishing democracy, and even if they were, taking the population hostage in order to instigate an uprising is morally quite dubious.
In any case, U.S. has recently proven to be a dishonest actor, so even if above was correct I would still not want them to do it.
P.S. I was born in communist Czechoslovakia. So I have seen an organic regime change, and the Iranian one is IMHO too violent to be the moment.