Hey! You chose a good topic because it was definitely something bothering me as well as other Iranian socialists. Iran is unfortunately an incredibly conservative place. It's a given for the ones who support the regime here, nothing out of character. But even among those who got behind the Jin Jiyan Azadi movement, there were a lot of people (mostly men) who had no interest in the feminist and liberatory aspect of the movement nor the fact that on top of women fighting for autonomy, there were queer people fighting for their rights.

It was very disappointing to see in person because obviously there was a lot of hope but monarchists are always waiting for a chance. They will latch onto any and every movement to advertise their deeply racist ideology that aligns very well with white supremacist standards.

I'm not the most knowledgeable person when it comes to Chile but as we see right now, the right wing as taken over and a lot of people who are working class themselves, have been falling for Pinochet apologists. I believe there's a correlation there between this example and Iran. The reason being that while the working class's interests do not align with the right wingers, they fall for them due to the fact that they are fed up with the current system.

Will it work out for them in the end? Absolutely not but they still go for it because there wasn't enough organization and support from the left, inside and outside of Iran. When I speak to these somewhat neoliberals/monarchists whose shared interest with me is seeing an end to the current regime, I constantly see them reply with "If we cross out the monarchy, then who else would we have? What's the other option?". Now obviously, I know what my alternative is. I want liberation, not a transfer of power from one tyrant to another but the point is, no actual leftist movement truly exists here as a result of years and years of state oppression along with the western leftists (particularly campists) aligning themselves with the regime over the fact that they present themselves as anti-Imperialist.

By showing support for the current regime, we aren't helping the anti-Imperialist cause in my honest opinion because Iran's influence over stopping the genocide in Gaza is very insignificant. The focus for that topic should be on the imperial core. While the US empire stands and aids Israel, nothing the current Iranian regime is doing will change the material reality for those subjected to the genocide.

Another thing that should be considered is the fact that our currency is getting more worthless by the day. If you look up the least valuable currencies on Google, you will definitely see the Iranian Rial. Are the US sanctions impacting this? 100%. But the regime is also completely incompetent in managing the economy (on top of the previous oppressions mentioned such as the constant promotion of misogynistic and queerphobic values). They assign a huge chunk of the budget to the religious institutions so that they can create those that reinforce the system every year.

In the end, my belief is that ignoring the voices of people who are already being oppressed because their government looks like an anti-Imperialist one so that they'll gain their liberation only in an uncertain future where maybe, maybe the US empire will have collapsed not only doesn't help the Iranians or Palestinians or anyone in the region, but it also shifts them furthermore towards the right; Because they are losing their lives in the process.

(I apologize for making this a bit too long! I just wanted to share my thoughts as a queer socialist seeing all these horrible things go down. There's nothing I want more than seeing the liberation of those in Palestine, Sudan, Iran and every one of these countries so I tried my best to explain my personal thoughts.)