To install Pahlavi as Shah, absolutely.

This was in an effort to keep Iran from selling oil to the USSR.

Removed by mod

Had nothing to do with the overthrow of the Iranian democracy in 1953.

Nobody is pulling this shit on North Korea.

see the evil of the leaders of Iran

I remember when Americans purged Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria of Evil.

whitewash the man responsible for all my misery

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi?

Hong Kong residents have been demanding democratic reforms since British colonial days. A shame Americans only seem to care when protesters start waving MAGA flags. But this has been a failed campaign going on 50 years easy.

I said the USSR wasn’t wel known for respecting the will of the people in the first place

The GDR was a member state of the USSR. And the dissolution of the GDR happened under Gorbachev, in a manner that did respect the public’s rights.

At the same time, Gorbachev’s dismantling of the USSR came in direct opposition to his communist peers, to the point where he was couped by his military leadership in an attempt to stop him.

So my conclusion is that Gorbachev must exist in a state of superposition

I know you’re attempting wit, but its coming at the expense of your expressed understanding of history.

Gorbachev did, in fact, manager to govern in such a manner that he pissed off just about everyone - the Yeltsin reformists on his right flank (who froze him out of office after he survived the coup) and the Communists on his left flank (who joined him in the dust bin of history after Yeltsin sold the country off piecemeal).

Ah Schrödinger’s Gorbachev, both a great respector of the will of the people, as well a traitor who went against the will of the people.

What? Do you believe everyone in a country has identical political views?

That’s a very naive understanding of popular politics.

Then why did you comment on a post that was about the USSR?

The GDR was a member of the USSR.

Gorbachev.

However, its the GDR Communist Chairman Erich Honecker that ultimately changed policy that resulted in reunification.

For hell’s sake have you ever seen the entire video from which the picture was extracted?

Of course not. Nobody actually watches the video. They just see Lego memes of the picture and conclude “Communism Killed 100 Zillion People”

It’s crazy to talk about the US Civil Rights movement as peaceful, given the police / domestic terrorist bloodbath it resulted in.

How many civil rights leaders need to be shot to death before a movement isn’t peaceful anymore?

The end of East Germany was crazy precisely because it was so peaceful. A number of popular outcries in the late 80s instigated civil reforms. And then one of the defense ministers was asked on national TV in '89 “hey, does this mean we don’t need the Berlin Wall anymore”. He shrugged and confessed it was no longer needed. And the military took that as a signal to step aside and let the wall get torn down.

In less than six months, the country was holding free elections. And by the following year, they’d reunified.

No shots fired. A purely popular and peaceful revolution that happened practically overnight, by historical standards.

US during the civil rights movement era: yes

I gotta ask, how the hell was the US in the 1960s a safe place to nonviolently protest? Police violence aimed at colored protesters during that era was notorious. Plus the church bombings, the lynchings, the assassinations…

Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution was one instance, assuming you squint and ignore all the NATO soft power involved.

The 2018 and 2024 Armenian Revolutions also technically qualify. Although, the fact that they had two in six years raises questions of their effectiveness.

BBC tier neoliberalism.

“Real victory is when you stop trying to resist” might as well be the Keir Starmer campaign slogan

Outside and touch grass?

Wait till this guy finds out about cell phones

Those are successful, yes. But then you have Arbenz’s Guatamala and the FARC in Columbia and the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka and democratic revolts in Hong Kong and Kashmir and the French Revolution and the Polish Resistance and the failures of socialist revolts across Africa and the Middle East.

I think part of the problem is how we define “successful”. Because it’s easy to see how the Spanish Anarchists failed to defeat Franco. Meanwhile, we largely consider the Civil Rights Era in the United States a success, despite many of its leaders being assassinated and its efforts quashed and undo under the Nixon/Reagan Era.

Militant insurgencies end when they are crushed by police/military. Peaceful protests don’t “fail” nearly so dramatically, they just fade away.

Similarly, people who speak and read chinese struggle to read entire sentences written in pinyin.

Because pinyin was implemented by the Russians to teach Chinese to people who use Cyrillic characters. Would make as much sense to call out people who can’t use Katakana.

Israel doing a 9/11 every day and the UN’s only response is “Please Iran, don’t hit back”.