Originally Posted By atavistic:

Why would France give them passports?

Originally Posted By Federov:
Apparently a lot of the protesters still have internet available because StarLinks were smuggled in.

Originally Posted By wspe1:
I doubt anything will change in fact Iran will become more authoritative.

Originally Posted By Swoosh101:

Dang we can't bet on this in the US?

@BabakTaghvaee 1h
#Breaking: Video recorded in the Sattar Khan neighborhood of #Tehran, capital city of #Iran, shows the aftermath of a successful attack by protesters on an Imam Ali battalion of the #Basij paramilitary forces of the #IRGC. Basij vehicles can be seen on fire, with their food supplies left scattered on the ground. #IranProtests

Watch this footage to understand why security forces of the #Iran Islamic regime abandoned the streets and retreated to their bases across many cities tonight, as protesters vastly outnumbered them. The video shows a captured Basij terrorist from an Imam Ali battalion after protesters overpowered, disarmed, and dispersed the unit. He can be seen injured following the confrontation.

Iran is now a prison of 90 million hostages.

Originally Posted By ricky_45:
I have a friend who was IRG and escaped from Iran.  He was also a Muslim but was converted to Christ.  He lives in the US now.  He says the young Iranians and most of the nation actually can't stand Islam or the ayatollah.  They want freedom.

My friend Mohamad Faridi

https://www.ar15.com/media/mediaFiles/54873/IMG_6734_jpeg-3690179.JPG

Originally Posted By wingnutx:
Regime television is running Tucker Carlson dubbed into Persian.

...The protests have so far spread to 111 cities and towns across all 31 provinces, according to the US-based Human Rights Activist News Agency (HRANA)...

Originally Posted By sabre_kc:
I’ve got a bottle of 18 year Scotch that will be opened tomorrow night if this thing is still going.

Originally Posted By GunLvrPHD:
We might get to re-open our embassy there after over 46 years.

Originally Posted By NachoDip:

What's left of it anyway.

Originally Posted By atavistic:
Sun should be coming up. If it cooks over, still a few days away. For now, seems dicey, not yet ragged. Big prayer day tomorrow (today). Next 72 hours is pivotal.

You know it's fucked up when the people are asking for a no talent shah to take over. FM bugging out to Lebanon is Big, IMO.

Originally Posted By NachoDip:

What’s left of it anyway.

Iran’s supreme leader vowed on Friday that the government “will not back down” in the face of protests that have rocked the country in recent weeks, accusing demonstrators of being vandals who were trying to “please” President Trump.

“There are people whose job is only about destruction,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a defiant, televised speech in Tehran, the capital.

On Thursday, Iran was plunged into an internet blackout as demonstrations demanding the ouster of the government spread and grew in size. The protests, which began in late December, have turned deadly.

On Thursday, Amnesty International, a rights group, said at least 28 protesters and bystanders, including children, had been killed between Dec. 31 and Jan. 3. Three other groups that document and track human rights — HRANA, based in Washington, Iran Human Rights based in Norway and the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights — put the toll at more than 40.

Videos filmed on Thursday night and verified by The New York Times showed government buildings on fire across the country, including in Tehran. One of the videos showed fires in the streets of Kaj Square in the capital, with thousands of protesters flooding the area.

Mr. Khamenei struck a more aggressive tone than Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, who this week called for tolerance and dialogue, saying “any violent and coercive behavior” should be avoided.

“Last night in Tehran and in some other places, a group of vandals came and damaged buildings belonging to their own country just to please the president of the United States,” Mr. Khamenei said.

Mr. Trump said last week that the United States would come to the aid of protesters in Iran if the government used lethal force against them.

“He wants to side with the rioters and harmful individuals,” Mr. Khamenei said of Mr. Trump. “If he can, he should go and run his own country.”

The initial demonstrations were led by merchants protesting the plummeting value of the Iranian rial, but they have since spread to cities across the country amid broader anger against Iran’s theocratic government.

Mr. Khamenei, 86, has ruled over Iran for three decades as supreme leader. He sits above all other branches of government and has sweeping control of Iran’s theocratic system.

A crowd of supporters chanted “Death to America” during his speech on Friday, in which he said Mr. Trump’s hands were “stained with the blood” of Iranians who were killed in a 12-day war with Israel last June.

The war further weakened the country’s economy, which has been under sustained pressure for years, largely because of U.S. and European sanctions tied to Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

“We will not tolerate serving foreign powers,” Mr. Khamenei said. “Whoever you may be, if you work for foreigners, the people and the Islamic system will reject you.”

Mr. Khamenei urged young people to “preserve” their religion, their “political thought” and their “readiness,” adding that “a united nation will overcome any enemy.”

Mr. Trump has recently touted his ability to use military might to strike, invade or coerce nations around the world — most recently by capturing the president of Venezuela. But in an interview on Thursday with Hugh Hewitt, a conservative American commentator, Mr. Trump was evasive when asked if he now intended to force regime change in Iran.

“I don’t want to say it, but I will tell you they’re not doing well,” Mr. Trump said, referring to Iran’s government. He reiterated that “if they start killing people, which they tend to do during their riots,” the United States would “hit them very hard.”

When asked about the dozens reportedly killed in the protests so far, Mr. Trump said that some had died in crowd stampedes, adding “I’m not sure I can necessarily hold somebody responsible for that.”

Death to the dictator,” “This is the final battle,” and “Long live the king,” are the slogans Iranians have been shouting in the streets since December. They have returned to the streets in force, with the protests on January 8 involving enormous crowds around the country. While the latest wave of demonstrations began in the bazaars in response to the sharp devaluation of the national currency, these are not merely economic protests. Iranians are exhausted by a deepening impasse across political, social, environmental, and economic spheres, with crises compounding by the day. Under the status quo, the regime, the government, and society as a whole have proven incapable of resolving any of these challenges, leaving lives interrrupted and livelihoods diminished.

The Islamic Republic’s veneer of invincibility was repeatedly shattered during 2025 and continues to break in 2026. For the first time since the end of the Iran–Iraq War in 1988, missiles struck Tehran and cities across Iran during the twelve-day war between Israel and Iran in June. Ever since, the U.S. president has repeatedly threatened action against the country.

One of the core bargains the Islamic Republic offered in exchange authoritarian rule after the end of the Iran-Iraq War—that it could shield Iran from further conflict—has collapsed. Its strategies, investments, slogans, and its so-called Axis of Resistance have unraveled alongside its nuclear ambitions. From Syria to Lebanon, Palestine to Yemen, and as far as Venezuela, the regime’s purported allies are either dead, exiled, or imprisoned. The Islamic Republic has reached an impasse. It now waits only for the departure of one man: Ali Khamenei.

In the early days of these protests, Donald Trump declared that the United States was “locked and loaded” and would come to the “rescue” of protesters should the regime violently suppress them. Trump’s intervention reflects the priority Iran has assumed in his foreign policy agenda and the opportunity he sees in making history as the president who could end Iran’s impasse after more than four decades. His messages followed a year of contradictory signaling: a preference for negotiations in the spring, calls for “unconditional surrender” during the June war, and renewed openness to talks in December. Strategic or not, these inconsistencies intensified pressure on the decision-making calculus of regime officials, further destabilizing an already brittle system.

For Trump, the Iran file is unresolved. The fate of enriched uranium and the future of the nuclear program remain pressing concerns. The Iranian nuclear issue—one of the most consequential global challenges of the past two decades—still requires a comprehensive agreement, with or without the Islamic Republic. Trump appears unwilling to allow the issue to linger for much longer.

Despite mounting losses, Khamenei has remained defiant, vowing never to negotiate with the United States. In doing so, he has chosen to sacrifice any last shreds of legitimacy. But Khamenei’s decision to hide in a bunker as Israeli missiles struck the country above him in June was more than symbolic. His political isolation—cornered by arch enemies in Washington and Tel Aviv—is equally consequential. What is unfolding is not merely the humiliation of a man who ruled through repression and archaic fantasies, but the embarrassment of a system that claimed to defend Iran’s independence and dignity while crushing the hopes, aspirations, and futures of its people. Those who justified decades of brutality in the name of sovereignty and deterrence now have nothing left to offer. The events of the past year have pierced the foundational myths of the Islamic Republic.

Iran has reached a moment that generations imagined but never believed would arrive. For decades, Iranians were divided into competing camps—monarchists, reformists, abolitionists, loyalists—yet largely united by a shared sense of patriotic nationalism. Inside the country and across the diaspora, demands often contradicted one another. Some pushed for democracy from the early post-revolutionary years and more forcefully after the 2009 Green Movement. Some called for sanctions, others fought to lift them. Some opposed the 2015 nuclear agreement, others defended it. Some marched against war, others called for targeted strikes. Even the national flag—and the notion of rallying around it—became contested, with some rejecting the regime’s symbols and others embracing ancient ones.

These divisions often drowned out a shared longing for a free Iran because regime collapse seemed impossible. That assumption no longer holds. Given the pace of developments inside Iran and globally, the country has entered the realm of the previously unimaginable. For the first time, Iranians at home and abroad are moving beyond articulating what they reject toward debating what must come next.

A political transition is now inevitable, though its form remains uncertain. The central questions of the transitional period are unavoidable: who will lead it, how the military will be unified, when a referendum will take place, and who will contest elections. These are monumental challenges, inseparable from any credible path toward a free, secular, and independent Iran.

Some view a renewed agreement between Trump and the regime as possible, however small the probability; such a deal would nonetheless trigger significant internal change. Another possibility is the regime’s survival beyond Khamenei and the elevation of figures such as Hassan Khomeini or Hassan Rouhani. Yet this outcome, too, would mark irreversible transformation. Incremental reform within a theological system fundamentally disconnected from society has reached its limits.

A third—and more likely—scenario is a takeover by the Revolutionary Guards, a path that could lead to war with the United States and Israel, or result in a political bargain for their survival that would dramatically change Iran’s foreign policy and security doctrine. Over decades, segments of society repeatedly engaged the system—through elections, reformist platforms, and tactical participation—in the hope of averting hardline consolidation. Those efforts failed. The regime was never structurally accountable and grew more distant from ordinary Iranians’ aspirations. Supporting the protesters today therefore requires acknowledging their central demand: the end of the Islamic Republic and its theocratic rule. While Khamenei’s death appears a prerequisite for any scenario to advance, all actors are already positioning themselves for that moment, including the Revolutionary Guard.

A fourth scenario has therefore gained momentum—one that moves beyond the regime altogether. Rather than emerging from negotiations, succession, or military takeover, this path centers on a transition initiated outside the Islamic Republic’s institutional framework. Since December, this possibility has shifted from abstraction to political reality. Leadership of the transition has become central, not as a matter of preference, but of necessity. Many capable figures remain unknown to the public, denied any platform to speak to their compatriots. Numerous political prisoners, exiled activists, and professionals have long prepared to serve their country. Among those widely recognized, Reza Pahlavi remains polarizing yet singular. For some, he represents an autocratic past; for many, he has come to symbolize a rupture with the present system. In an environment where institutional opposition is banned and leadership absent, legitimacy has shifted to the streets—and no alternative figure commands comparable recognition. State-controlled media failed to persuade post-revolutionary generations, while satellite networks and online platforms revived memories of pre-1979 Iran, reshaping public perception. Millions have consumed cable-quality programming highlighting the successes, progress, and modernity of the Pahlavi period on a daily basis for the past decade, if not longer.

Opposition to Reza Pahlavi largely reflects resistance to the idea of monarchy itself rather than to him personally, though some cite contested actions, including his meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu. While a core group of his supporters seek coronation, Pahlavi has repeatedly rejected that role. He has stated that he seeks to lead a transitional process, not return as monarch, arguing that ceremonial kingship would silence him politically. What is instead proposed is a transitional period of twenty-four to thirty-six months, during which a decision council is established, a constitutional committee formed, political parties legalized, civil society revived, independent national media emerge, and urgent economic and environmental challenges addressed. Pahlavi remains the most widely recognized Iranian figure who has openly expressed interest in leading such a process. Other imprisoned figures, such as Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi and former parliamentarian Mostafa Tajzadeh, also have significant support and will be active players in any political transition.

Iran’s capacity for a smooth transition rests on institutional foundations, many of which predate the Islamic Republic. Core institutions remain largely apolitical and resilient, preventing the collapse of public services. Iran is not lacking in human capital. Millions of professionals inside the country can and will rebuild it.

Iran is not Iraq, Libya, or Syria, but it faces comparable risks. Secessionist movements on its periphery—from Kurdish and Azeri groups to the Ahwazi movement and Jaish al-Adl—pose serious challenges. These threats are compounded by instability beyond Iran’s borders, including by the Taliban and the Islamic State, as well as the influence of major powers such as Russia, China, Israel, and the United States. The violation of Iran’s sovereignty by Israeli and U.S. strikes must not be obscured. Framing those attacks as targeting the regime and its officials was crucial in minimizing their impact on Iran as a state. Nonetheless, innocent lives were lost and civilian infrastructure was targeted. Any further escalation would endanger Iran’s territorial integrity and undermine the legitimacy of any future government.

To avoid a historic betrayal of the Iranian people, Trump and Netanyahu now carry the burden of their own promises: that they seek to support and rescue the people of Iran, not to destroy the country but to see it flourish. U.S. efforts must therefore include protecting Iran’s sovereignty and territorial integrity during a fragile transition. Territory—the map of Iran—is sacred to Iranians. No Iranian, regardless of political orientation, would accept the loss of a single inch of land. A future government will be responsible for safeguarding sovereignty while reintegrating Iran into the international community with dignity.

The Islamic Republic is over, at least as a political force. The greatest danger now is not collapse itself, but the failure to protect the transition from forces—internal and external—that would prefer chaos to a sovereign, democratic Iran

Originally Posted By geegee:
In the past two weeks both my neurologist and dentist have cancelled my appointments with them. Both are attractive Persian women and I'm sure they both have more on their minds than seeing their patients right now. I hope they get some good news soon to begin this new year.

Originally Posted By HitomiYoshi:
It’s amazing how this is being ignored.

Originally Posted By HitomiYoshi:
It’s amazing how this is being ignored.

Originally Posted By BM1455:

\uD83D\uDEA8\uD83C\uDDEE\uD83C\uDDF7 ÚLTIMA HORA: Los manifestantes iraníes están quemando la tumba de Jomeini, el fundador de la revolución islámica en Irán en el 79.

¡¡Esto es INCREÍBLE!! pic.twitter.com/J7CoZfNgFB

Isaac  (@isaacrrr7) January 9, 2026

BREAKING NEWS: Iranian protesters are burning the tomb of Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic revolution in Iran in '79.

Originally Posted By atavistic:
Ayatollah sitting there, knowing at any second, fire and shrapnel could engulf everything within 200 feet of him.

Virgins could be in his near term future.

Originally Posted By MrHold:



light them up if you got them

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Fez5j8npAc