On “Leftists” And “Anarchists” Who Cheer For Regime Change In Iran

By  Caitlin Johnstone
Jan 15, 2026

Is there anything more undignified than “leftists” and “anarchists” who cheer on the fall of empire-targeted governments even as the empire moves war machinery into place?

Ooh look at me I’m sticking it to the man by supporting the same agendas as the US State Department. I’m being punk rock by regurgitating the same war propaganda talking points as John Bolton. I’m fighting the power by backing the foreign policy objectives of the most powerful empire that has ever existed.

Fucking embarrassing, man.

If you want to have a serious political outlook it is necessary to have a more layered understanding of the world than “tyranny bad”, because as westerners we ourselves are ruled by the most tyrannical power structure on earth. That power structure ceaselessly targets the few remaining states that have successfully resisted being absorbed into its globe-spanning power umbrella like Iran, Russia, China, North Korea, and Cuba. Those states have successfully resisted being absorbed into the imperial blob exactly because they have strong governments that don’t hesitate to exert control to stomp out all the imperial operations and infiltrations which would otherwise have overthrown them.

This doesn’t mean these governments are wonderful and flawless, it just means they possess the qualities that enable a state to resist the empire’s coups, proxy conflicts, color revolutions and foreign influence operations. If your only analysis of state power dynamics is “tyranny bad”, then you will naturally find yourself in opposition to the unabsorbed states and (whether you admit it or not) on the side of the most tyrannical regime on earth — namely the US-centralized western empire.

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No other power structure has spent the 21st century slaughtering people by the millions in wars of aggression around the world, attacking civilian populations with deadly starvation sanctions, staging coups, instigating proxy conflicts, and circling the planet with hundreds of military bases. Only the US empire is doing that. Dominating the entire planet with murderous brute force is as tyrannical as it gets. If this isn’t true, then nothing is.

If you want to have a serious political worldview, you need to get real about this. The premise that the fall of an authoritarian government is always inherently positive has no place in the understanding of a grown adult, especially if that grown adult happens to live in the core of the western empire, and especially if that empire is presently working to orchestrate the overthrow of the government in question

The more power structures are absorbed into the empire, the larger and more powerful the empire becomes. Desiring their absorption is desiring more power for the US empire.

And you can lie to yourself and say that you don’t want Iran to be absorbed into the control of the US empire, you just want its people to live in a free and democratic country. But we both know that’s not going to happen. Once the strength of the Iranian government has been collapsed there will be a power vacuum that is filled by whatever faction is able to secure control, and the strongest faction will be whichever one is backed by the US and its allies. There is no organic faction within Iran that is strong enough to stand against the installation of a US puppet regime at this time, besides the one that presently exists.

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That’s the reality of the situation. It’s not ideal, but it is reality. You can choose to be real about reality, or you can choose to psychologically compartmentalize away from it and tell yourself a bunch of fairly tales about a global people’s revolution which just coincidentally happens to be starting in all the countries the US empire hates most. I personally find the latter undignified, self-debasing, and power-serving.

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