It's a bit more complex than that, you have a country with two decades of mass demonstrations that were brutally suppressed and a new generation that no longer sees itself as religious while living in a theocracy.

they do have a massive popular support issue over there

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bobxmax 5 hours ago | parent [-]

None of what you said is true. They still enjoy large amounts of popularity - are you forgetting the entire country virtually coming to demonstrate when we slaughtered their commander a few years ago?

	▲	breppp 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Not sure, how "nothing of what i said is true" I didn't say there are no supporters, but there is an asymmetry between supporters and protestors. Supporters are being brought by buses, are often members of the Basij or other government functions and generally have incentives to do so. Protestors however risk extremely painful death and torture. There is support for the regime, usually outside of large cities, but there's a reason there were large protests in almost every single year since 2016 for some reading you can take a look at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/reader/read-online/234eb6fd-85... There's over 40% of responders that do not claim their religion is Shia, but rather Atheist, Humanist, etc. That's more than the people that define themselves as Shia, in a Shia theocracy. This also correlates with skepticism of government media and rejection of Hijab