As I read Iranian.com, I notice that the most prominent focus of the handful of IRI supporters on this site is IRI’s “achievements”, being “scientific”, “industrial”, “military”, etc. So, I decided to open their eyes a little bit and invite them to join the rest of us in the real world. With that in mind, let’s do a little comparison.
IRI supporters’ fantasy: the IRI has a strong military that has scared its opponents, including the United States, into not launching a military attack against it.
Reality: The Iranian air force operates antiquated aircraft from the 1960’s and 1970’s. The most modern aircraft in their service are Mig-29’s, half of which are non operational. Forget about the United States of Russia—any half modern air force such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan or perhaps even the UAE can probably reach air supremacy against Iran in a matter of hours or days.
Its navy is no better. Half of the navy was destroyed in less than a day by the United States back in the 1980’s. What is left for them are a bunch of fast attack boats and antiquated Russian submarines, which can also be taken out in quick operations in a very short period of time. And its ground forces…well, the poor army is still using 1960’s American tanks and 1970’s Russian T-72’s. Almost all of its equipment are either from that era, or are cheap knock-offs from that era. And as far as its missiles go, they are a hunch of North Korean knock offs with no military value. They are only terror weapons, and are not very good at that either. As we saw in 1990, Saddam lobbed a whole arsenal of these missiles at Israel and Saudi Arabia, with very little damage.
Lastly, the best that the rest of its ground forces can do in the face of a strong adversary, such as the U.S., is to become guerilla fighters in the mountains. In sum, in 30 years, the IRI managed to transform the fifth strongest military in the world, and one of the best equipped and most modern, into a force that more resembles the Lebanese Hezbollah than an organized military. But what would one expect when the people put in charge of that military are former Hezbollah members themselves.
IRI supporters’ fantasy: IRI is respected and feared around the world.
Reality: As this report from 2007 shows, Iran is in the top three nations (along with U.S. and Israel) as having the most negative image in the world, even among Muslim nations that it claims are its supporters. It is looked at as a pariah state and is hated, not feared by its neighbors.
IRI supporters’ fantasy: IRI is on the side of the oppressed, especially the Palestinians.
Reality: The IRI is on the side of its own survival, and doesn’t give a rat’s rear end about anyone or anything else, including the Palestinians. As shows, when Israel was occupying Lebanon (IRI’s base of support in the Arab world), the IRI was wheeling and dealing with it and was paying it billions of dollars (many times the normal price) for weapons. It’s “support” for the Palestinian cause is nothing but lip service and propaganda and an excuse for its expansionist goals in the region.
IRI supporters’ fantasy: Iranians are respected around the world because of IRI’s efforts.
Reality: Iranians are looked at with suspicion everywhere they go. We didn’t used to need visas for most countries in the world; now, even third world crap states put us on a “waiting list” for a visa. We are fingerprinted and questioned at airports and are subjected to extra security checks because of IRI’s main export: terrorists.
IRI supporters’ fantasy: IRI is liked by the majority of Iranians.
Reality: They confuse heavy handed and murderous crackdowns with love for the regime. Let there be a referendum and we will see who’s their daddy!
IRI supporters’ fantasy: They know what the people of Iran want.
Reality: most of these characters are out of touch, western residing (mostly in the Great Satanistan) zealous ideologues who have no idea about the struggles of the average Iranian. They travel to Iran may be once every couple of years, spend a couple of weeks there in North Tehran, drink their black market vodka and return to the U.S. to tell us how honky dory everything is in Iran.
Last, but not the least:
IRI supporters’ fantasy: There are real “elections” in Iran, where officials really get “elected”.
Reality: There are illusions of “elections” in Iran, where people are fooled into going to the poles for propaganda purposes, but at the end, pre-selected regime figures are given the job for which they are groomed for.
