Can We Be Sure the Iranian People Differ Fundamentally from Their Rulers?

Submitted by Gary (United States), Jul 11, 2007 at 13:39

I question the assumption that we can topple the Iranian regime by appealing to the Iranian people. How certain are we that their views, particularly toward Israel, differ enough from those of their rulers so as to ensure that a new government in Iran would not be just as bent upon "wiping Israel off the face of the map?"

I have known Iranians who came to the U.S. during the seventies, some of whom returned to Iran in 1979 to join in the Ayatollah's "revolution." Of those who did (and those who did seem to have made up the majority of then young Iranians who had come here on student visas, as they disappeared from the U.S. to a large extent once the Ayatollah took power), I rather doubt they were imbued with religious fervor for the Ayatollah's Islamic revolution without also being interested, as the Ayatollahs were and still are, in the destruction of Israel. In other words, I doubt that most Iranians are without any ill feelings toward Israel, even absent the current regime. Can we really hope a regime change in Iran would make any real difference?

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