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Al Rasool mosque burning in Iran
(hexbear.net)
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this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2026
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The only possible way this goes well for the protest is if wider society blames the government for failing to protect the mosque from this and gets mad at them for it rather than blaming the protest itself and losing support.
Perhaps if people are upset enough it becomes a symbol of "we don't care" or "yes this was to be expected" in the current events, but I don't think so. It's not the same as a government building or large palace residence burning that people might be indifferent to in somewhere like Ukraine during Maidan. Those things tend to benefit the atmosphere of the ongoing revolution whereas I'm pretty doubtful of this. Perhaps the point is not to help the protests but as a spectacle for the outside world immediately before the US and Israel start bombing.
I'd think this is not an appeal to the local population but to (islamophobic) westerners.
I don't think it's an appeal.
It's a show. This kind of thing forms part of a narrative of natural overthrow of the regime, and that the people wanted it so much that they would even burn down mosques to achieve it. The playbook of western regime change is to generate unrest as part of the narrative of regime change then to quietly prepare their replacement behind the scenes. What actually achieves the regime change is a coup of some sort that occurs behind the backdrop of all the unrest, but the story that is told in the media is of the people performing a revolution and naturally overthrowing the regime.
Something bigger is probably coming if that is what this is.
Usually people try to avoid the blame being put on the anti-goverment action by spreading misinformation that these sorts of things are a conspiracy by the government to win over support and to blame them.
However, they've been very overt, burned quite a number of mosques, and got it all video - we can even see one of them raising up their hands here.
The misinfo train won't work this time.