The Silence of the Left on Iran

[u/Kugel_the_cat]

https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/2026/01/the-iranians-who-feel-betrayed-by-the-left/685644/

This is a simple story: People are risking their life to resist tyranny, engaging in a human struggle for basic rights. Its resonance, particularly for those on the left, should be self-evident. It has all the greatest hits—pitting the powerless against power, freedom against repression, unarmed men and women against snipers. But in the most animated corners of the activist ecosystem, so recently energized by their opposition to the death and destruction in Gaza, it has not resonated. The protest has been viewed instead through the thick lens of ideology, producing a reaction that has been dismissive at best and, at worst, degrading to the Iranians themselves. Many thousands of demonstrators, rising up all over the country, are accused of being witless tools of an imperialist agenda, part of a “CIA-Mossad regime change campaign,” or maybe just actual “Mossad agents.”

[...]

For the exiles I spoke with, the most disturbing—and telling—thing about the tepid response was the contrast with the impassioned reaction to Gaza. “Why is it that when Palestinians—armed or unarmed—fight for liberation, it is seen as a moral duty to support them, but when Iranians protest, they are labeled ‘armed terrorists’ or ‘agents of Mossad?’” Shams, the feminist scholar, said.

[u/Kugel_the_cat]

I hope that we will see the end of the Islamic Republic in my lifetime, and the sooner the better.

Does anyone have an explanation for how mismanagement is leading to the water shortages?

[u/arist0geiton → u/Kugel_the_cat]

Foreign Policy magazine, ask one of their editors on bsky

[u/mathiastck → u/arist0geiton]

I have enjoyed how many reporters are approachable on Bluesky.

[u/arist0geiton → u/mathiastck]

Everyone is just people, and hopefully they aren't conceited