Trump, for his many shortcomings, has put major pressure on Iran, the most dangerous nation in the Middle East, and one of the most dangerous in the world. The propaganda of Foreign Police not withstanding, the more pressure we up on the mullahs, the better. A majority of the nation had no memory of the shah, but they know the rest of the world thought the Internet or satalitte TV. It was primed for an insurgency in 2009, but Obama, for some reason, didn't stick his nose and ears into it, like he would do to allied or non-hostile nations in his term.
Is Restart the center of ridding Iran of the mullahs? Don't know. But at least we are not in direct opposition to the forces in Iran opposed to the mullahs.
QAnon Goes to Iran
Restart, a fringe Iranian dissident group, shows how conspiracy spreads—and what that means for U.S. politics.
Ariane TabatabaiJuly 15, 2020, 12:07 PM
QAnon entered the mainstream U.S. political lingo in 2017, when its followers propagated the conspiracy theory that the “deep state” was plotting against U.S. President Donald Trump. Since then, ideas put forth by QAnon have gained traction, thanks in part to U.S. President Donald Trump giving a platform to its followers on a number of occasions, including by retweeting messages from accounts linked to the group. Most recently, a number of individuals with apparent ties to QAnon have become Republican candidates for Congress.
Although QAnon’s raison d’être is largely rooted in domestic politics—and it has capitalized mainly on anxieties prevalent in U.S. society—the conspiracy theory has recently developed an unlikely group of adherents: an Iranian dissident group that calls itself Restart. Despite remaining a minor political force for now, Restart is a fascinating example of a broader trend: conspiracist thinking going global.
The Restarters are a fringe association in a larger web of Iranian opposition and conspiracy groups that wish to overthrow Iran’s current power brokers. Among them are the followers of Reza Pahlavi, who is the son of the deposed shah, and the Mujahideen–e–Khalq (MEK), a crypto-Shiite cultlike dissident group, to name a few. Such groups have enjoyed strong tailwinds in recent years. As BBC Monitoring reported in 2019, Iranian opposition factions have been able to increase their social-media reach and following since Trump took office—likely because of the perception that the Trump administration’s Iran policy favors them...
Good. As many as you can to opposed the current Iranian regime.
These state and nonstate actors have very little in common; they differ in their ideologies and the traction they have received both within and outside Iran. However, they are aligned in at least one important respect: They are all vying for influence not in their native Iran, but in the United States, where they try to shift U.S. policy to their liking...
...Like QAnon, which doesn’t “possess a physical location, but … has an infrastructure, a literature, a growing body of adherents, and a great deal of merchandising,” as writer Adrienne LaFrance recently wrote in the Atlantic, Restart exists in the Internet more than the real world. But unlike QAnon, which has more of a presence in mainstream U.S. politics (with some candidates for office even espousing their ideas), Restart remains small. Its leader has certainly encouraged violent dissent, but more than leading to an actual rise in protests, Restart’s activities illustrate how fringe movements and media outlets can push narratives and amplify messages that can come to dominate more mainstream political discussions in the United States and around the globe....
Thank God, the Iranian opposition has make more effort to coordinate and act against the Iranian government. And this time the opposition will not be opposed by the US administration. Hopefully it will collapse from inside.
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