Stellar write up and explanation of not just only the situation but also Iran-Taliban relationship. It always seems strange to me that how come Iran and Afghanistan could escalated this quickly, even over crucial thing as water, in matter of literal days. It's impossible, that's not how geopolitic events unfolds.
Turned out this was all propaganda by the terminally online Iranian opposition and liberals. That numbers speaks volume, literally. TBH, any groups that still put that much effort in online campaigns are just wasting their own money. Even both Maidan and Arab Spring requires a lot of legwork on the ground to make it takes off the way it did.
I greatly appreciate your praise. Yes, it was strange to me as well when I first saw the twitter buzz about the Iran-Afghanistan situation since it seemed very out of place considering the recent historical context. After doing some investigative research on last weekend's specific event and drawing in background knowledge, I reached the conclusions you saw in the article.
Iran's opposition from the reformists to Women Life Freedom to MEK etc. have extensive backing from high places and many overlaps (but also some differences). Our next big project (video series on political funding for the Left) might cover it, but it is an entire topic worth its own discussion. The "Women Life Freedom" campaign we have witnessed since last September *had* extensive backing from Saudi Arabia, the UK, France, the US, and others... and it was the culmination of almost 40 years of soft power media development. You had the traditional foreign outlets bombarding propaganda (nothing new) such as BBC Persian, Radio Farda (Voice of America's Persian language outlet), Manoto (a monarchist Pahlavi network), but also relatively newer ones such as Iran International (propped up by Saudi money over the last decade). The only reason the Saudi's came to the negotiating table with Iran for normalization was the direct failure of the Women Life Freedom campaign; years of funding for soft power networks such as Iran Intl failed. Saudi soft power was overmatched by Iran's hard power regionally directly or through its allies in Syria, Yemen, etc. Now without Saudi funding, some networks like Iran Intl are seeing their financial support & network infrastructure dry up lol.
But anyways... long tangent aside, there was a LOT of legwork put into this campaign, and it's amazing that it barely took off inside Iran in spite of the extensive amount and long duration of funding/support for opposition by forces abroad (or even domestically in Iran, in the case of the reformist movement). I'm glad you enjoyed the article, subscribe to stay tuned for more insight on Iran and Afghanistan, as well as other topics written by my colleagues. Please feel free to share and spread the article as well, it helps us a lot. Thanks again.
Wow a long reply that could add more context to the main article itself lmao
I do looking forward for more intimate view on Iran. Afghanistan, or geopolitic in this region in general. Really hard to get one that's not filtered through the lens of Western IR bullshit, let alone from Marxists/historical materialist PoV.
Non-sensational and levelheaded overview 👍
Cool heads win the day
Stellar write up and explanation of not just only the situation but also Iran-Taliban relationship. It always seems strange to me that how come Iran and Afghanistan could escalated this quickly, even over crucial thing as water, in matter of literal days. It's impossible, that's not how geopolitic events unfolds.
Turned out this was all propaganda by the terminally online Iranian opposition and liberals. That numbers speaks volume, literally. TBH, any groups that still put that much effort in online campaigns are just wasting their own money. Even both Maidan and Arab Spring requires a lot of legwork on the ground to make it takes off the way it did.
I greatly appreciate your praise. Yes, it was strange to me as well when I first saw the twitter buzz about the Iran-Afghanistan situation since it seemed very out of place considering the recent historical context. After doing some investigative research on last weekend's specific event and drawing in background knowledge, I reached the conclusions you saw in the article.
Iran's opposition from the reformists to Women Life Freedom to MEK etc. have extensive backing from high places and many overlaps (but also some differences). Our next big project (video series on political funding for the Left) might cover it, but it is an entire topic worth its own discussion. The "Women Life Freedom" campaign we have witnessed since last September *had* extensive backing from Saudi Arabia, the UK, France, the US, and others... and it was the culmination of almost 40 years of soft power media development. You had the traditional foreign outlets bombarding propaganda (nothing new) such as BBC Persian, Radio Farda (Voice of America's Persian language outlet), Manoto (a monarchist Pahlavi network), but also relatively newer ones such as Iran International (propped up by Saudi money over the last decade). The only reason the Saudi's came to the negotiating table with Iran for normalization was the direct failure of the Women Life Freedom campaign; years of funding for soft power networks such as Iran Intl failed. Saudi soft power was overmatched by Iran's hard power regionally directly or through its allies in Syria, Yemen, etc. Now without Saudi funding, some networks like Iran Intl are seeing their financial support & network infrastructure dry up lol.
But anyways... long tangent aside, there was a LOT of legwork put into this campaign, and it's amazing that it barely took off inside Iran in spite of the extensive amount and long duration of funding/support for opposition by forces abroad (or even domestically in Iran, in the case of the reformist movement). I'm glad you enjoyed the article, subscribe to stay tuned for more insight on Iran and Afghanistan, as well as other topics written by my colleagues. Please feel free to share and spread the article as well, it helps us a lot. Thanks again.
Wow a long reply that could add more context to the main article itself lmao
I do looking forward for more intimate view on Iran. Afghanistan, or geopolitic in this region in general. Really hard to get one that's not filtered through the lens of Western IR bullshit, let alone from Marxists/historical materialist PoV.
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