We're Always Told That Everyone In The Empire-Targeted Nation Hates Their Government
And Other Notes
The regime change supporter’s favorite trick is to pretend the people in the targeted country are an ideological monolith. All Iranians hate their government, all Venezuelans wanted freedom from Maduro, etc. They do this constantly.
Thing is, it requires them to dehumanize the very population they’re claiming to care about. They need to pretend the people in the empire-targeted nation are these weird creatures with some kind of Pluribus-style alien brain virus that makes them all think the same as each other, unlike any other human population they themselves have ever encountered.
You have never been to a country where everyone has the same attitude toward their government. Neither have I. That would be freakish and abnormal. That’s not how humans are. But whenever the warmongers are trying to make the case for US regime change interventionism in a given nation, suddenly “the people” of that nation all have the exact same political opinion, and they know what that opinion is, and they presume to speak for all of them.
Of course there are people in Iran who want their government gone. There are also people in Iran who want their government to stay. That’s normal. That’s how humans work. But whenever there’s a regime change intervention to manufacture consent for we’re asked to believe the people have stopped acting like humans and are now operating more like robots, or ants in an ant colony.
That’s what they’re saying when they tell you “Talk to Iranians”, you know. They’re actually telling you to speak to a very specific faction of Iranians, and are generally referring to the English-speaking diaspora whose family left the country for a reason, who stand nothing to lose from American bombs landing on Tehran. They frame it like it’s the unanimous consensus of all Iranians, but in actuality they’re only talking about one specific political faction in one specific demographic.
Unlike the regime change fanatics, I personally do not presume to speak for all Iranians. I see it as none of my business what they do in their own country with regard to their own government, and trust them to sort out their own affairs. I absolutely do see it as my business when my fellow westerners start clapping along with the war drums and regurgitating justifications for western bombs to land on a foreign country, however. That is who I am addressing in these posts. That is where my criticisms are directed.
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CNN’s Van Jones is on Twitter claiming that a “free, democratic Iran” would almost certainly “normalize ties with Israel”. This is the same empire propagandist who recently came under fire for cracking jokes about dead babies in Gaza.
It’s so crazy to see imperial spinmeisters going with this narrative. They’re trying to argue that Israel is actually quite popular among the Iranian people, so when democracy comes to Iran they’d use their votes to elect a government that wants to be Israel’s friend.
I don’t think anyone honestly believes that’s going to happen. I think we all know that all this talk about freedom and democracy is just a ruse, and the actual plan is for the US and Israel to back the overthrow of the Iranian government and then install a puppet regime which subverts the will of the people, just like we’ve seen happen in all those other monarchies and dictatorships in the region.
They can’t allow democracy to flourish in the middle east because the genocidal apartheid state of Israel is very unpopular among the people who live there. All this talk about bringing freedom and democracy to the Iranian people is a performance to manufacture consent for more aggressive regime change interventionism, with no intention to actually allow such a thing to emerge.
It’s such an insult to our intelligence. But that really is the claim underlying their entire argument.
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Whenever I oppose US/Israeli regime change interventionism in Iran I get sleazy warmongers accusing me of telling Iranians they should not protest. They need to lie and manipulate like this because their position is not based on truth and morality.
It’s none of my business what Iranians do in their own country. It’s none of my business whether they oppose their government or support it. When I say it’s wrong to cheerlead regime change in Iran I am obviously addressing westerners and western states; if I was addressing Iranians my posts would be in Persian.
In our current situation it is impossible for westerners to advocate regime change in Iran without feeding into the extremely aggressive war propaganda campaign manufacturing support for US interventionism in that country. You might claim you’re just “expressing solidarity” with Iranian protesters or whatever phrasing makes you feel good about yourself, but what you are actually doing is greasing the wheels of a propaganda campaign for military action of potentially catastrophic consequence. There is no getting around this. Them’s the facts, cupcake.
You don’t get to uncouple your actions from their inevitable results just because you don’t personally identify as a neoconservative warmonger. You don’t get to separate your personal pro-regime change sentiments from the regime change interventionism of your own government and its allies just because it makes you feel like you’re a nice person. You’re a westerner, so your job is to oppose the western interventionism that you know for a fact is in the works in Iran. That is what truth and morality call us to do at this point in history.
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I don't know about any of THEM. I can only assure everyone that I hate MY current government, and haven't really liked one until back before I was 16 and they assassinated JFK.
1. "That’s what they’re saying when they tell you “Talk to Iranians”, you know. They’re actually telling you to speak to a very specific faction of Iranians, and are generally referring to the English-speaking diaspora whose family left the country for a reason, who stand nothing to lose from American bombs landing on Tehran."
Machiavelli warned us to beware of tales told by exiles.
2. 'CNN’s Van Jones is on Twitter claiming that a “free, democratic Iran” would almost certainly “normalize ties with Israel”. This is the same empire propagandist who recently came under fire for cracking jokes about dead babies in Gaza."
This was one of the justifications used in the runup to the War On Iraq. The neocons got the war they so crave, and once Iraq was a failed state, it didn't matter whether or not they normalized ties with anyone.