People were out on the streets in capital today, despite the threat of being hung.
And Iran just got eliminated from the World Cup, adding to the regime’s humiliation.
The Trump curse has been laid upon the Mullahs. Bend the knee like lil’ Kim.....or else.
LOL!
Rock the Casbah!!
“death to Palestine”
Yowzah! Won’t see that reported in our MSM.
Worse than in Zimbabwae and Vietnam, and Vietnam tries to make its currency terrible to boost exports.
BBC: Shops were shut and thousands of people took to the streets of the capital. Riot police later fired tear gas to disperse the demonstrators as they marched towards parliament. It was the biggest protest in Tehran since 2012, when international sanctions related to Iran's nuclear activities were crippling its economy. The BBC's Kasra Naji says those protests led ultimately to a change in government and to Iran agreeing to substantive talks on a nuclear deal with world powers.
A dollar is currently worth as much as 90,000 rials, compared with 65,000 rials just before Mr Trump's announcement and 42,890 at the end of 2017.
Last line in the NY Post article.
Here’s a Cold War lesson: Realists can’t easily envision it, but dictators can suddenly fall. And then realities change very quickly.
I have a great friend in Amsterdam, an Iranian. He is not Muslim, he is secular. His family moved to Germany when he was 16 just before the fall of the Shah.
He loves American football and played halfback as a young man for the European Football League which is an American style football league in Europe. Europe really loves American style football, so much so that the NFL is going to open a franchise in London. He had to quit when he hurt his back.
My friend has an amazing knowledge and experience with the oil and gas industry. His office is a stone’s throw from the HQ of Royal Dutch Sheel in Amsterdam.
For whatever reason we hit it off years ago and our friendship grew mostly because of our affinity for honesty and integrity. His English was perfect and I learned a lot from him.
When Obama was elected, he asked me “Is America sick?”. He was so well-tuned with global events and with American politics. He had traveled and lived in America. He loved America and thought it was the only nation that could keep the world from devolving into a chaos of dictatorships.
So he told me about Iran during the time of the Shah and why people rejected the Shah.
During the time of the Shah, Iran was a very prosperous nation. It had one of the highest living standards on Earth. And its industries were diversified and its educational institutions were quite respectable. The Iranian population enjoyed everything that Americans are accustomed to and had very little need to import anything. It had very productive farming, the people had plenty to eat. Most families owned a car and a home. Kids studied and went to college, law and medical schools, and those that didn’t go to college became highly skilled at crafts and arts. And the country was stable, politically and economically. There was virtually no crime, women felt safe and could walk the avenues with short skirts if they desired.
The Shah had some state police that went too far with a vigilante type of justice. They reacted to religious extremists who protested against Iran’s secular culture. For many reasons, the affluent Iranian society reacted negatively against the harsh actions of the Shah’s police agents, many who acted without authority of the Shah. The Iranian society wanted Iran to accept religious leaders and better integrate them into Iranian society. The problem was that Iranian Mullahs had zero tolerance for the Westernized values that Iranian society had adopted.
My friend said when the Mullahs took over, they controlled everything, from who had what job, who was allowed to marry who, to what was worn in public and what behavior was expected. He still had contacts back in Iran who told him the farms had come to a halt, there was very little food, that most things had to be imported, and young men and women caught necking on a bench would be arrested and punished or jailed. There was no freedom, only misery.
My friend wanted the US to go and kick the crap out of the Mullahs and throw out the regime. So he was quite confused when Hussein Obama was elected. He could never understand how Americans let that happen.
So this gives a bit more of the picture of what Iranians on the ground suffer. The older generation longs for the past, the new generations are miserable.
It’s possible our President and his Administration can turn Iran around and bring it back to the prosperous nation it once was. My sense is that Iran’s return to prosperity will be quicker than Korea’s path to prosperity.
Just the prospect of both North Korea and Iran becoming stable prosperous countries seems unreal. No one could have thought it possible just two years ago. And yet here we are, thinking it, witnessing it take form, shifting our outlook. What an amazing turnaround in such little time. There’s a ways to go yet but we can see it is possible now. That in itself is amazing.
Why do we want to starve the Iranian people?
This never works, will drive up the price of oil which will hurt us & the rest of the world, and lead to more conflict. Trump was not elected for neocon games.
“with chants of death to dictator and death to Palestine.”
Music to my eyes. If they can just withstand the murderers on motorcycles this time, maybe give as good as they get, things will really start moving.
Iran played in a World Cup match yesterday. They frequently showed Iranian fans. The women are beautiful and none of them were wearing hijab. Some had on a bandana or some very slight head covering.
It’s outrageous what the mullahs are doing to these people. It’s time to really apply some pressure to the Iranian government and to voice our support for the right of their people to live in freedom.
