Iran : thoughts

Thoughts?

Iran Following a Very Destructive Path to Regional Supremacy
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Iran of the time of Shah was a regional super power, it had a strong economy and the most powerful armed forces in the region with a modern air-force and navy—and as envisioned by the royal plans of the 70s to have 23 nuclear stations by 2000, Iran might as well have been a nuclear armed nation by now.  Though Shah had his great many serious flaws and he is gone now, he never used Shi’a population in other countries to intimidate regional rivals, and truth be told, he had no regional rivals.  It is thus no great surprise that there was no "jihad" carried out against us anywhere during his forty year rule.
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Today Iran has no economy.  Its currency has lost value in excess of twenty thousand folds and the Iranian government is talking about removing four zeros from its currency and getting rid of riyal in favor of tuman (making one hundred thousand riyals into one tuman).   Tell me about some serious inflation!
Its armed forces are equipped with technology of the 70s left behind by the Shah.  Its air-force is useless for all practical purposes.  Its navy consists of a fleet of speedboats. 
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But Iran is still a regional superpower, despite its economy being in total free-fall collapse and its military and armed forces being underpaid, under armed and very disproportionately outspent by its regional rivals.  How is this possible?  Because Iran uses Shi’a populations in other countries as proxies.  Iran has practically zero logistical ability to deploy and support any of its troops with heavy or even light weaponry beyond its borders.  However, what Iran has enjoyed doing for the last forty years is to recruit and arm groups within the local Shi’a outside its borders and have them fight on its behalf.  This is very bad for the global Shi’a.  Often minorities in other Islamic countries, the Shi’a are commonly detested, subjected to discrimination and acts of terror and violence for the very reason of being suspected of helping Iran in its regional ambitions.  Local governments and the media controlled by them, and the general citizenry of these countries allege Shi’a to be unpatriotic, untrustworthy, traitors and agents of Iran (During the massive bombings of Lebanon by Israel in the Six Day war in 2006, I met a Lebanese Christian, who is quite educated.  He was actually very cheerful as Lebanon was being reduced to ground, saying, “Israel is being very precise in bombing its targets”.  That’s because the non-Shi’a were actually happy that Israelis were bombing the Shi’a).  Don’t forget Bahrain and the massive protests for democracy and elections a few years ago.  It is very obvious that the US and the Europeans would have supported the pro-democracy protests, and Bahrain would have had a different government today, if the protesters had not been Shi’a or if the Shi’a were not perceived as played by Iran. 
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Many local governments who otherwise would have no problem with Shi’a religious activities, restrict or ban Shi’a religious propagation because Shi’a mosques and Shi’a scholars are seen as tools of the Iranian government.  (Azerbaijan is a Shi’a majority country, yet there is a severe restrictions on religious activities for the fear of Iranian influence).  The great wave of takfir against Shi’a, precipitated in the 80s right after the Iranian revolution, with the unlimited funding of Saudi and Gulf oil money behind it, and still continuing to this day, was and continues to be a response to Iranian plans of using local populations for its interests. 
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Iran owns and controls most of the Shi’a clergy, who are often trained and educated in Iran or are educated at schools that are directly or indirectly controlled by Iran.  These religious scholars are often brainwashed to read Islam through Khomeini’s prism of an absurd and overwhelmingly anti-Shi’a ideology.  A few senior and older religious scholars who do not see eye to eye with the Iranian leadership know better than to say anything or else.  There is a super massive global propaganda machine of the minbar and the pulpit, networks of relgious organizations, mosques and Islamic centers, circuits of speakers and religious preachers, who serve the Iranian purpose of brainwashing the Shi’a population to do the following:
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1. Hide the serious deviations of Khomeini and Khamenei from Shi’a beliefs and values,
2. To cover up their heinous crimes against the Shi’a clergy of Iran and Iraq, and their abuses against the Iranians. 
3. To portray the Iranian regime in good light and to convince people to follow Khomeini and Khamenei. 
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Interestingly, those speakers who are not outspoken in support of Iran are more effective in accomplishing these objectives.
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And the result is obvious.  There are die hard volunteers willing to sacrifice themselves for Khomeini Khamenei in India, Pakistan, Iraq, Lebanon and even the western countries.  They see Khamenei as the representative of God on earth and personification of a ma’soom imam in our times.  The Iranian regime uses these brainwashed individuals as proxies to exert pressure on local governments and the west and to pretend to be a superpower. 
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The image attached to this article is the town al-‘Awamiyya.  In 2017, Saudi armed forces stormed this Shi’a town in the Qtif region.  Reports indicate (and local Shi’a have narrated to me personally) that some youth, inspired by Khomeini and Khamenei had used weapons in some protests to demand greater rights.  But those were very few people.  In a very disproportionate use of force, the Saudi regime reduced the entire town to rubles to teach the Shi’a a lesson.  The war and siege of al-Awamiyya did not make much headlines in the news.
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