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Cake day: June 4th, 2025

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  • Regarding the Troubles, it was a low-level civil war with the military involved with very limited rules of engagement. The UK military essentially served a police function, though it was institutionally biased in favor of the Unionists. There was no bombing, no artillery fire, none of that (though there were targeted assassinations, largely done by the UVF based on intel fed to them by the UK military). The UK establishment’s goal was to contain the problem, not to eliminate it. The Good Friday accord came after a generation-long stalemate. So that’s probably not a meaningful model of what might happen in the US.

    And people-power revolutions have occurred in many countries in the world, often without much violence (except for some perpetrated by the authoritarian states against their citizens, and even those tend to be limited). Many have succeeded. On the other hand, there have also been popular movements that have failed (for example, most of the Arab Spring revolutions). Even so, there is no reason to assume that resistance would inevitably lead to a Civil War 2.0 scenario. That would be a worst case; and considering that the pro-dictatorship faction is at most 40% of the population, and largely from the most economically irrelevant parts of the country, the most they could reasonably achieve would be unstable minority rule.

















  • They should be drawn in, they’ve been colluding with Israel to destroy Iran for at least a decade.

    The Gulf states are controlled by Sunnis who are fanatically bigoted against Shi’a Muslims and other minority sects, and persecute those groups mercilessly. Iran is the center of Shi’a power.

    Also, the Gulfies and the Israelis have a common interest in preventing democracy from being established in Arab countries. The Israelis know that despots are easier to buy off. The Gulfies despise groups with democratic aspirations since they oppose reactionary theocracy and corruption.