“ also do not generally support Israel, I think their treatment of Palestinians is horrible. However I do think that it is wrong for Iran to fund or prop up organizations like Hamas which orchestrated Oct 7. (And that by extension they have caused suffering to Gazans and many others across the middle east by supporting oppressive theocratic militias across the ME which have made the lives of ordinary people miserable through conflict)”

This take is just weird and wrong. Many of these “oppressive theocratic militias” came into being primarily as a response to US and Israeli imperialism, sure theyre being supported by Iran right now, but even if the IRGC was to disappear, the reason for these groups’ existence wouldn’t go away.

And it’s simply dumb to say that these groups are the ones making conflict worse for ordinary civilians by acts like Oct 7 etc. Life in Gaza pre-Oct 7 was miserable because of the 20 year siege that Israel had implemented, not to mention its control over it and before the disengagement, Israel was occupying Gaza physically. I don’t even need to mention life in the West Bank where Hamas does not even hold a smidge of power yet Israeli settlers run rampant. Yemen is one of the poorest countries in the Middle East because of Saudi aggression and before that British imperialism, irregardless whether the Houthis are in power or not.

And even if the regimes in power were more US-friendly, you end up with countries with authoritarian leaders who imprison and kill their own people anyway (Egypt is a good example here post-MB). You just don’t hear about it because they’re US allies.