u/Electrical-Pie925

I’ve recently noticed, both among my relatives and on social media, that some Iranians in the west have increasingly anti-immigrant and anti-refugee opinions, even when it comes to other Iranians fleeing the regime. I had a conversation recently where someone told me that Iranians who want to leave the country should work hard to do so instead of being granted asylum, even with the war and repression going on.

I understand having an instinctive aversion to Islam, what I don’t understand is taking that so far that you support policies that hurt Iranians trying to flee exactly that ideology. Honestly, the lack of solidarity is very disheartening. If the IRGC stays in power and continues to terrorise Iranians the least we can do is help them escape like we ourselves did one way or another.

Has anyone else here also had similar conversations recently? What are your thoughts on these kinds of policies in the west?

When the lion and sun revolution was starting I was hopeful that we could finally achieve something. The regime seemed weak and the opposition was somewhat united for the first time. But now I just done have any more hope left.

Even the US topples the regime it seems like they will install freaking Ahmadinejad or some MEK lunatics before they even consider a secular-democratic option.

And meanwhile the opposition seems to be worse off than it was before January at this point.

Pahlavi and his supporters are increasingly associated with fascists like Tommy Robinson and I think this is fundamentally incompatible with a pro-democracy movement. And I say this as someone who would have supported Pahlavi as a transitional leader a few months ago.

So where do we go from here?