So here’s the uncomfortable question Australians should ask, especially when our leader Anthony Albanese was so quick to line up behind the strikes: what exactly is the theory of change?

Not the slogan. Not the press release. The real theory. How, precisely, does dropping bombs - or killing a dictator - make Iranian women freer, Iranian prisons emptier, Iranian courts fairer, or Iranian politics more accountable? And how does it secure long-term peace in the Middle East.

If we can’t answer that in plain language, then we are not looking at a pathway to peace and human rights. We’re looking at protracted violence and dysfunction dressed up as virtue.

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[–] flamingleg@lemmy.ml 1 points 5 days ago

their voices probably shouldn't be ignored outright, but certainly they should carry less weight than people who currently live in the country, and their comments should be put within appropriate geopolitical context.

Western media is permitted in iran, and specifically they have channels such as 'iran international' which operate as instruments of psychological conditioning, to soften the domestic population for hybrid warfare, and to inorganically create social disunity within iran. This has the effect of polluting the minds of regular people who maybe lack a degree of historical or geopolitical knowledge, and who blame their economic hardships on their own government rather than on the exogenous unilateral sanctions.

This means that plenty of iranians think in the same crude emotional terms as westerners, because they are products of the same cultural conditioning. Basically it means this diaspora are incredibly biased, and often believe delusional things about their country and the world. Talk to some iranian monarchists if you haven't experienced what i'm talking about. Yes it is something of a stereotype and a generalisation but it describes a very real phenomenon.

What do your 'wide sources' (something other than a government document from a 5-eyes member) tell you about syria and the challenges it faced as it repeatedly fought isis/al qaeda only to eventually be conquered by the rebranded al-qaeda (HTS) and its current head-chopper president?