u/Choice_Lettuce2544

Recently I stumbled across someone's post where they were venting about living in Iran. She was a Turk from a small town in West Azerbaijan province and said it was a super religious and backwards area (ex: child marriage being normalized by locals) and it got me wondering how religious parts of Iran still are, given that most of our info comes from the bigger, secular urban centres like Tehran.

Overall, It seems like there are definitely areas of Iran that have still held on to religious customs/way of life.

For example, I think the entirety of the Azerbaijan/Turkish region of Iran is quite conservative, especially compared to Turks in the neighbouring republic of Azerbaijan.

For the larger cities, it seems to me that the further East you go, the more traditional the people get. For example, Yazdis and Mashaadis are more religious than Shirazis and Esfahanis.

I find that most Sunni groups like Turkmens, Balochis and Kurmanjis in West Azerbaijan tend to hold their religion as an integral piece of their identity. It's really only the Sunni Kurds in Kurdistan province that seem more focused on Kurdish nationalism over Sunni religious nationalism.

As for least religious groups, I feel that Shomalis are mostly secular/culturally religious. Also, I've heard Bandari Iranians tend to prioritize their cultural culture/music over religious adherence.

Especially compared to how she views the other moms nowadays:

Christi: Abby, still to this day, despises her and I also felt like Chloe was the only girl that Abby genuinely grew to despise over the course of the show (S4 treatment of Chloe was absolutely awful). It's clear from her recent interviews/videos that her hatred for them still lingers.

Melissa: Probably rivals Christi in how much Abby hates her these days, which is crazy thinking back to how close they were on the show. I don't think Abby has said one good thing about the Zieglers since the show ended. And to be honest, if Abby wants to hate anyone, it SHOULD be Melissa given how she brutally backstabbed her.

Holly: I feel like Abby never really got close enough with Holly to form a strong opinion of her. She still makes snide remarks about Holly's education and Nia's career, but it seems like she doesn't really hold any grudges against them. Christi revealed on the latest podcast ep that Abby had seen Nia and Holly at an event and tried to shake their hand, but when Mackenzie had approached her at another event, she had pretended not to know who she was.

Jill: Prob the only one with any sort of relationship with Abby these days, but I would still say it's still fairly strained. Kendall seems to still admire Abby, but their relationship nowhere near the level that Kalani and Jojo's are with Abby.

Going back to Kelly, Abby seems to be the most hurt that she lost her connection with the Hylands (Brooke in particular). She still speaks highly of Brooke & Paige and even Kelly at times (but only when she talks about Kelly as a young dancer). Even on the show, the only time (I believe) we saw Abby break down in tears because of a mom fight was when Kelly started crying about their deteriorating relationship. Kelly has even said that they were very close throughout their life (which we glimpses of in season 1) and that their relationship only began sliding as the show went on.

Idk but I could definitely see Brooke or even Paige rekindling their relationship with Abby in the years to come.

I know everyone's sad because of the US turning their backs on this war, as am I, but if there's anything we have learned out from this war, it's that Iran is a powerful country, at least, much more powerful than the vast majority of the world thought.

I would say if things continue in their current direction, the US is headed towards a massive defeat in the Middle East. We all know that most of this is down to the propoganda machine that Iran and proxies have very successfully built-up (Israel hasn't done themselves any favours in this regard either).

Despite how much leftists complain that the US is a dictatorship, the conclusion of this war has shown that the White House is still largely driven by popular opinion. We also have isolationists like JD talking into the president's ear which doesn't make our situation any easier.

But with all that said, Iran has shown immense strength in times of war:

The closing Hormuz created a situation that the world could not handle. Despite Trump trying to manipulate the markets, inflation still rose above interest rates and oil has soared in many countries. There is a saying now that "Iran survived 47 years of global sanctions, but the world couldn't survive 1 month of Iran's sanctions" and I think this rings very true even though I hate the IR.

The countries across the Persian Gulf have had their reputations shattered as safe havens for rich expats. There is now a huge exodus of influencers and businesses from the UAE, Qatar etc. All because Iran lashed out against them. The damage has been irreperable and even air travel which were some of their biggest industries, are now shifting base to Istanbul and Caucasian countries over Arab monarchies.

Separatist groups have been ridiculously silent. The Kurdish response to Trump egging them on was absolutely laughable. Even Azerbaijan which has their whole "one Azerbaijan" state ideology and "vowed revenge" against the IR hasn't even moved a single troop. Even on their obscure reddit forums, the South Azerbaijan sub is now PRO IRGC and the Kurdistan sub doesn't even discuss "Rojhelat" which they were so obsessed over just months ago. If there is one good thing to come out of this war besides Khamenei's death, it's the absolute silencing of these groups that always badgered and attacked Iranians on this sub.

I don't think many people really understood the geography of Iran before the war. Iran is the biggest country in the Middle East by quite a margin with at least 5-6 major metropolises/bases of government operations. So while the US was beating Tehran to shit, they barely managed to touch Mashhad, a city of around 4 million which, arguably, has just as many Basij forces and high ranking officials as the capital. I don't think that the US nor Israel had planned on using the amount of firepower/weapons they ended up having to send towards dozens of different cities that were 100s of Km apart. And even then, they really didn't cause as much destruction as they'd have hoped.

To add, the US is absolutely terrified of seizing a Kharg as it poses a huge threat to oil facilities in the Arab world and leaves them vulnerable to attack. If the US is too scared to challenge a shitty, dilapidated, fundamentalist regime on a tiny island, then imagine them or any other country trying to start a ground invasion.

And all this comes despite years and years of economic mismanagement, domestic and foreign terrorism, and a suicidal regime that wants the country to implode. I can only imagine what we will be as a country once we break the shackles of this regime and open for business.

For example, there seems to be a lot of Iranian Kurds (mainly Sunni) in Europe, particularly in Germany, whereas I've rarely met Kurds at all in North America. It seems every Pan-Turk Azeri is either in Turkey or Germany (surrounded by other Turks). Also I feel like it's a lot more common to see Northern Iranians like Azeris/Persians/Shomalis in diaspora rather than other southern Iranians like Balochis, Arabs and Bandari peoples. Has anyone else noticed this?