In this first (and maybe last?) Basiji Soup, we’ll look at… the Islamic Republic of Iran, its disinformation operations, its hypocrisy, how it sells its atrocities as virtue and its repression as morality, how it serves the Kremlin, and the current protests against it. 1/20
Basijis are members of the most fanatical part of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). In a broader sense: Iranian regime loyalists & propagandists. They may be fewer than vatniks or wumaos, but the goal is the same: destabilize the West to protect a brutal regime. 2/20
The regime oppressing Iran is a “theocratic” authoritarian state around a “Supreme Leader” hiding behind religion to justify its crimes: censorship, repression, executions, torture and terror — similar to Russia and its “holy war” against Ukraine. 3/20 bsky.app
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll start a new series titled “Degenerate Russia”. In it, we look behind the Kremlin propaganda and see the real Russia – an authoritarian country that doesn’t care about its people and desperately tries to hold on to its imperialistic past. 1/22
Ethnic and religious minorities like Kurds, Baluchis, Baháʼís, Sunnis, etc. are repressed. Christians get sentenced to years in prison just for owning a Bible. Converting to Christianity can mean execution, and harsh sentences are often based on mere “personal intuition”. 4/20
Elections in Iran are neither free nor fair. Candidates are filtered by the regime, dissent is criminalized, and any real opposition is jailed, tortured, or killed. Women in Iran are systematically oppressed. Mandatory hijab laws are brutally enforced. 5/20
Protests like those after Mahsa Amini’s death are met with mass arrests, killings, sexual abuse, and maimings. The Islamic Republic jails people for dancing and executes them for dissent, protests, or homosexuality. It’s the world’s top executioner per capita. 6/20
While hiding behind “virtue” and “morality”, one of the very first acts of the regime was basically to legalize pedophilia. A natural ally for Putin, who recently praised child marriage too: extreme depravity hiding behind the hypocrisy of fighting “degeneracy” or “vice”. 7/20
Iran is now a key military partner of Russia, supplying Shahed drones used to murder Ukrainian civilians, and even provided Russia with the technology to mass-produce them domestically. While Iranians struggle with inflation, unemployment, and collapsing infrastructure… 8/20
… the regime obsesses over countries it doesn’t even border like Israel and pours enormous resources into foreign operations it can’t afford, such as supporting Assad in Syria, hurting both the local populations and Iranians. As Assad and Maduro have learned the hard way… 9/20
… there is nothing to gain in working with Russia against the West. Only the Kremlin with its well-planned global operations sowing chaos and running over decades profits in the long run. Russia has no real interest in a strong Iran. 10/20 bsky.app
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll explore how Russia is working with Iran, and how the recent Israel–US strikes on Iran could affect the war in Ukraine. Iran has been one of Russia’s key allies in their genocidal war, but in reality the partnership is deeply one-sided. 1/21
Like Russia, Iran is also behind a lot of terrorism in the world, whether directly, through the IRGC, or through its terror proxies like Hezbollah and Hamas: the 1979 US embassy attack, the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing, the 1994 AMIA bombing in Argentina, etc. etc. 11/20
Despite all this, the murdered US citizens and the Iranian parliament chanting “death to America”, useful idiots from the US will still defend the terror regime. Just like Russia has RT and its army of vatniks, whether openly affiliated or not, working against the West… 12/20
… Iran has its own “Iran state-affiliated media”, PressTV. And it’s often the same anti-Western useful idiots helping both terror regimes with the same falsehoods: terrorism as “resistance”, chaos as “multipolarity”, and the usual denial of the regime’s atrocities. 13/20
Iran’s influence operations are smaller than Russia’s or China’s, but they pursue similar goals. One example: an Iran-linked troll farm targeted Scottish independence, pushing divisive narratives to weaken the UK and distract Western governments. 14/20
As is tradition, anti-Western propagandists blame everything on “CIA coups”, as if neither the people nor the regime had any agency, often with completely absurd pretexts like the Euromaidan cookies. What will they come up with for the current protests? 15/20 tabletmag.com
www.tabletmag.com
Indeed, despite the risks and the repression, Iranians have often courageously protested the terror regime. The current protests started two weeks ago, sparked by hyper-inflation and the government’s failing economic policies, but are now turning into an actual revolution. 16/20
Exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi (son of the last Shah) has now been making regular appeals to Iranians to protest every evening. The regime has responded with some small handouts, an Internet blackout, and a violent crackdown, as it always does. 17/20 bsky.app
هم میهنان شجاع و سلحشورم من اولین فراخوان خود را امروز با شما در میان میگذارم و از شما دعوت میکنم که این پنجشنبه و جمعه، ۱۸ و ۱۹ دیماه، همزمان سر ساعت ۸ شب، همگی چه در خیابانها یا حتی از منازل خودتان شروع به سردادن شعار کنید. درنتیجه بازخورد این حرکت، من فراخوانهای بعدی را به شما اعلام خواهم کرد.
Internet access is still possible using smuggled Starlink terminals (it’s illegal of course), but the regime has been jamming that as well. The violent response has even prompted a warning from Trump, who just took down Maduro, a key ally of Iran. 18/20 bsky.app
In today’s Vatnik Soup, I’ll introduce a Venezuelan bus driver, politician and dictator, Nicolás Maduro. He’s best-known for ruining Venezuela, turning it into a dictatorship, and for collaborating with other authoritarian regimes like Russia, Iran and Belarus. 1/21
Basijis’ main role is to ensure support for the Islamic republic. In this, they fail spectacularly, as the protests are growing across the whole country and more and more policemen, soldiers and even IRGC members are joining the revolution. As the protests against the terror regime intensify… 19/20
… Ayatollah Khamenei is already planning to flee to… Moscow, plundering the nation’s gold. A popular destination for oppressive and corrupt dictators, he’ll end up in the company of Yanukovych, Assad, and all the other losers, traitors and Russia’s useful idiots. 20/20
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