Apart from the usual "this is something important that is happening" (which is not quite HN "intellectual curiosity" territory, what is striking is the use of what I assume is a V for Vendetta mask - with Red and Green daubing.
That is like ...nothing, then you have like no idea how omnipresent this type of pop culture is (for good or for worse). Of course iranians watch these types of movies and of course an iranian hacker would be aware of the mask symbolism
These masks are also made by the Chinese in the billions and available in any "Bazar" for very cheap so they're a cheap way to obscure your identity :)
Not saying this is the case here (for TV this is probably well considered and it's not the standard Chinese mask which is the 'smiling' version) but there might be more than one explanation especially for seeing them on the street during protests.
Maybe that was the intention but it doesn't really look like a Guy Fawkes mask at all though, other than being a white face mask. Eyebrows and eye cut-outs are different, it has a full beard, it's not a v-shaped face, etc.
Anonymous, and many other unrelated protesters, used the V for Vendetta mask when protesting against Scientology not just as a symbol but rather because of the cult..er church well known tactics of harassing anyone who opposes them. They usually followed protesters until they put the mask off so they or their car license plate could be photographed easing the identification.
>the intent was to make sure people instantly understand without context
This goes without saying, but this isn't exclusive to AlQaeda. Using video editing to convey a strong message isn't enough reason to conclude there is a link to foreign intelligence. Most likely they were just trying to be direct and convey a message (a statement to the regime that the people are tired of and angry about the oppression/violence)- none of what you mentioned to explain your association to AlQaeda makes any sense- "musical tribal message"? Are you inplying AlQaeda is controlled by a foreign agency? Which agency?
Really makes it sound like you have a very vague understanding of the region, alongside a very strong bias.
> It's similar with the low quality "drone" footage from the Uyghurs "camps
Multiple news organizations have published high quality satellite photos of the Chinese concentration camps for ethnic minorities and Muslims, published the tenders for their construction and interviewed both victims and former jailers who have fled the country. Chinese officials on record boast about the 100s of thousands they have imprisoned or send to prison like factories across the country and the children they have separated from their parents for "re-education". Would you have us all believe this is an elaborate "MI6" conspiracy?
I live in China, I think if our asses were so clean, we could all go there and even visit these reform camps they said they built and are not at all cruel and inhumane.
You can say the foreigners exagerate, sure they do, with their sudden newfound love for muslim people even the worst ayatollahs of the world cant seem to express, but hum, it's not like there's no fire behind all this smoke...
However I've always been careful not to call it a genocide: for me we must prove the mass deaths first.
> In 1948, the United Nations Genocide Convention defined genocide as any of five "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such." These five acts were: killing members of the group, causing them serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions intended to destroy the group, preventing births, and forcibly transferring children out of the group. Victims are targeted because of their real or perceived membership of a group, not randomly.
Well, but that isn’t the definition tend to think of right? They do think mass killing, it’s part of why the word has such power. If it was merely portrayed as the Chinese working to forcibly convert Muslims a lot of the US would shrug and say that seems good
I can tell you believe this, and I do think it seems possible to me the west over plays it’s hand. Especially the genocide label, but your evidence isn’t exactly strong. You make it sound like Adrian Zenz is a cultist when as far as I can tell he’s just a passionate critic. As to the photos being deepfaked, I only look at a handful. One did look a bit suspicious, none of the others did, and none of them have that vanilla this person isn’t real type look. I also see the fact that China restricts travel to the region as compelling evidence of foul play even if when they occasionally do take people on tours they don’t find anything. Like you do know the Nazis produced lovely videos of concentration camps full have happy people just living out the war or whatever, China is hiding something.
My fairly uninformed guess (and tell me if this seems right to you) is that what’s going on is merely on the level of what the US did to American Indians what with the boarding schools and the forced removal of their children with maybe a touch of forced labor on the side for spice.
But it’s always worth remembering on this subject, only one of these countries tries to have the state capacity to squash dissent so yes I am a bit more skeptical of what their mouth pieces have to tell the world
Source? Actually, low effort agit prop that could actually be done by NGOs. Moral grand standing by US is so tiresome… it’s an Psyop color revolution otherwise we’d see Saudi protests etc.
China has openly acknowledged these camps, going so far has to request the UN acknowledge their sovereignty:
“The Chinese government officially legalized re-education camps in Xinjiang in October 2018.[422] Prior to that, when international media had asked about the re-education camps, China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that they have not heard of this situation.[423]
On 12 August 2018, a Chinese state-run tabloid, Global Times, defended the crackdown in Xinjiang after a U.N. anti-discrimination committee raised concerns over China's treatment of Uyghurs. According to the Global Times, China prevented Xinjiang from becoming 'China's Syria' or 'China's Libya', and local authorities' policies saved countless lives and avoided a 'great tragedy'.[424][425]
On 21 August 2018, Liu Xiaoming, the Ambassador of China to the United Kingdom, wrote an article in response to a Financial Times report entitled "Crackdown in Xinjiang: Where have all the people gone?".[432] Liu's response said: "The education and training measures taken by the local government of Xinjiang have not only effectively prevented the infiltration of religious extremism and helped those lost in extremist ideas to find their way back, but also provided them with employment training in order to build a better life."[433]
In September 2020, amid condemnation from Western countries, Chinese paramount leader Xi Jinping acclaimed the success of his policies in Xinjiang in a 2-day conference expected to set the country's policy for the next years.[445] The Chinese government published a white paper defending its "vocational training centers," claiming that the regional government organised 'employment-oriented training' and labour skills for 1.29 million workers a year from 2014 to 2019.[446]“
Of course you can choose to believe that the Internet Archive is in on the conspiracy, in which case you cannot be helped.
Or you can choose to believe that Chinese police were exaggerating their arrest statistics to make themselves look good, in which case I have an interesting article for you that mentions the practice: https://madeinchinajournal.com/2019/10/25/punish-and-cure%ef...
Do you remember when chinese were only able to give 1 single birth?
That policy never applied to ethnic groups, so the idea that the chinese government is trying to imprison ethnic groups to "re-educate" them is hard to believe
Concerning the MI6 story, it's not a conspiracy, when you share that kind of classified, military, materials with the public, your intent is not the truth, it's always manipulation, specially when the videos are always blurry, in the age of HD content, it's kinda fishy, maybe they want to obfuscate the imperfections, it gives me similar Colin Powell vibes
None of what you mention presents plausible evidence of your statement implying that CIA/MI6 have monolithic control over information regarding the camps. Not to say they aren't manipulating information or have no involvement, but none of the evidence you present backs up your claim.
Enforcing the birth of children and sending people to camps are two very different issues.
The content not being HD could be explained by them using less detectable drones. I would imagine that flying a military or HD drone over sovereign territory would be dangerous and an act of aggression, so it's within the realm of belief that someone, perhaps covertly, used a drone less likely to draw suspicion, not easily detectable or traceable to foreign interests.
Moreover if you watch the Frontline (the same source you cited above) documentaries about Iraq, you'll find they present people working in intelligence at the time explicitly told officials Zarqawi was sketchy and that the information he presented was not supported by the intel they had.
I'm not saying it's a certainty without doubt that the camps are everything what some sources allege them to be, but it's also not certain without a doubt that they aren't.
> That policy never applied to ethnic groups, so the idea that the chinese government is trying to imprison ethnic groups to "re-educate" them is hard to believe
I’m trying to understand this paragraph. In your mind, in what way does the one child policy make any of this hard to believe? How does that policy change our understanding of what’s going on in these camps?
If they were against ethnic groups, as the current western propaganda wants us to believe, they would have applied that policy so they'd have less of that "problematic ethnic group"
They didn't, which mean they are fine having ethnic groups
The west is pushing this propaganda because it's a known fact that the US want to split the Chinese territory (Tibetan, Uighurs, Taiwanese) (same with Russia btw)
For the same reason they now, publicly announced, want to hinder China's development
If you’re only aware of blurry videos on Twitter, I’d recommend you do a deeper dive and look at additional reporting on this matter. You don’t have to look very far [0] (just a single example).
At least you acknowledge the gigantic leap in your argument.
As a photographer, what about these images is obviously fake?
> All the eyes are at an identical pitch
Which is evidence of what? Generally, when booking photos are taken, the subject is asked to look at a single spot to preserve consistency and identifiability.
> when you go to the source you'll find many of them wearing exactly the same clothes, with exactly the same creases.
I find it very unsurprising that people in a prison situation are wearing the same clothes.
All of my clothing is also creased in the same places, but this is no big conspiracy, there are just popular ways of folding clothes…
I’m always interested in getting the whole story, but you’re going to need to share a less sketchy link…
Wow those last two are some pretty bad fakes. The first one I could blame on like file corruption or something, but I can't think of any way to explain the last two.
Sorry but humans do not look like that, sternocleidomastoid or no. Even the shadow makes no sense. Cochlear implants are, implanted, not worn over the ears.
There's many many more pictures like this. They're fake people.
> If they were against ethnic groups, as the current western propaganda wants us to believe, they would have applied that policy so they'd have less of that "problematic ethnic group"
> They didn't, which mean they are fine having ethnic groups
Or, they just didn't deem the issue relevant enough to spend the resources to deal with it. China is a large country, some of those ethnic groups exist in remote locations, some very difficult to reach- it has been the case numerous times when a natural disaster occurred and aid was slow to reach those regions because of logistical difficulties.
Perhaps it wasn't that they are fine with the ethnic groups, but that they were indifferent and/or deemed them unimportant unless they had sufficient reason to think they warranted the attention/involvement.
Mind that just because they didn't want to lower their numbers, doesn't mean they have no issue with those groups, or that they wouldn't have issues with them if the situation and their perception of them changed.
I have never met a single person that isn’t a Chinese propogandaist that actually believes Taiwan is a part of China. It’s such an obvious calling card.
The US does not consider Taiwan part of China. The US follows one China policy which is that they acknowdge Chinas position that it believes Taiwan is part of China.
That’s like saying “I understand you believe that the sky is pink.”
Hence she the US refers to it as strategic ambiguity. This is the same position that the likes of NZ and AU have.
So don’t go telling people they are uninformed when clearly you’re just here spreading propaganda.
There’s a reason why the CCP uses the One China Principle while countries like the US have One China Policy.
Don’t forget that the CCP advocated for Taiwan independence, and during an interview Mao said they would help Taiwan (Formosa) in its struggle for independence. During a conference in Moscow in the 1920s they referred to Taiwan as an independent nation and nationality. This only changed in 1943.
There’s no long China history with China. When the Dutch went to Taiwan there was no presence of Ming dynasty. And at no point in history had china ever controlled or ruled over Taiwan. The CCP has never even set food in Taiwan.
So it literally has no valid claims to Taiwan. Regardless of any opinions you may hold.
If that’s splitting hairs then there’s no point in discussing because you obviously don’t care about history or facts and only regurgitate propaganda.
The questions surrounding the involvement of foreign actors are interesting meanly because of the timing. It’s interesting that Iran see a vague of mass protests right after the utter failure of the nuclear talks and when they are admittedly very close to getting the bomb. Plenty of foreign powers therefore have an interest into seeing the current regime fall down and have historically never been above giving a gentle push in the right direction. It wouldn’t in any way make the reasons of the protests illegitimate however.
Now, I don’t really understand why you bring Al Qaeda and the Uyghurs to the mix. That needlessly muddies your point.
From the false news spread constantly being spread by Masiha Alinejad, to the focus on a small but growing group of protestors, to the massive social media campaigns trying to flame the situation both in and outside of Iran, this is well coordinated.
Mahsa Amini collapsed at a facility and was never hurt. No signs of being beaten are visible on her hospital pictures or her entry into the re-education centers. And yet the protest started from a few handful and started growing over several days.
This is a coordinated campaign of disinformation and protest.
Don't know about CIA conspiracies but I'm sure Saudi Arabians will protest Hijab mandates one day. Freedom is amazing and every human craves it at some level.
Freedom is amazing , true. But I am afraid you could be over optimistic saying that everyone craves it. Unfortunately many people have short-term goals that are more important for them than freedom…
Ah yes, the typical astounding secular definition of freedom, equating it with nakedness and vices. I’ll tell you something, the vast majority of the Saudis are proud of the Hijab and their Islamic faith that promotes purity and decency. We don’t want the western definition of “freedom” thank you very much, we’ve seen where it leads
You posted dozens of flamewar comments in this thread. That's extreme, and you have a history of doing it and ignoring our requests to stop. I've therefore banned this account as well as some others. Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with. Religious flamewars are not what this site is for.
Frankly, all the other commenters who jumped straight into the pit of hell with you are more responsible than you are, but we can't have people abusing HN this egregiously.
It leads to people showing the hair in their heads, that is the normal way in our species. Including the majority of the muslim population and the majority of the human population.
If you think this is the same as being naked in public or that women's hair is impure, well... You live in a very sad place and deserve compassion. It really sucks to be you, but your pain is self-inflicted.
Enjoying the feminine grace and beauty is one of the greatest pleasures of being alive. Imagine yourself sit in a caffee three months from now watching by the first time an endless stream of smiling happy, "naked" women. If this image don't puts a smile in your heart, then something terrible must had happened to you
> > The fact is that some men (and women) felt so threatened
> No one is feeling threatened.
Oh yeah? Then why did they feel compelled to kill a young woman for the "horrible crime" of not covering her hair?
> You're the one projecting here.
Nope, it's definitely you. All that gibbering about STDs... It's not actually mandatory for Westerners to have unprotected sex with every woman whose hair we can see.
And posting a YT playing list of some little scraggly-bearded mufti wannabe mullah spouting medieval superstition, as if that supports your position? It only further cements how wrong you are.
Flamewar comments like you posted in this thread are completely unacceptable on HN and will get you banned here, regardless of how you feel about someone else's religion.
Religious flamewar is a hell particularly to be avoided. Please don't post anything like this to HN again.
> Oh yeah? Then why did they feel compelled to kill a young woman for the "horrible crime" of not covering her hair?
Why are you asking me? Did I defend the corruption of such a regime anywhere in what I wrote? In fact, I stated the opposite. The incident should be investigated, and those responsible should face justice.
> It's not actually mandatory for Westerners to have unprotected sex with every woman whose hair we can see
No one said it is mandatory, but the results are clear for spreading immorality in the land.
Your last statement is pure bigotry and Islamophobic and racist. If you don't want to learn, I hope someone else who comes across this conversation has an open mind.
I well understand the frustration of being in the minority among an internet community, but you can't post flamewar comments like this to HN, and you did it repeatedly and egregiously in this thread. We end up having to ban accounts that post like this because the threads it leads to are so destructive of the community.
I don't like to ban people for expressing contrarian points of view, but your conduct in this thread was way past unacceptable in its own right. Please don't do this again, and please avoid religious arguments generally—they just lead to hellish flamewars and are always off topic.
Lets me check your list: Zero. Not. None of that I'm aware. None recently apart of the terrorist attacks in Madrid and Barcelona (hardly attributable to the west way of life). I never drive drunk and never meet anybody that was raped.
It seems that your image of the world has a few cracks on it, and is not so accurate as you think
Now tell me how many of those points can you check in your place.
Please don't dare to tell me that Islam countries are happy utopias were nobody is raped, there is not prostitution or mass killings and problems never appear. We aren't so gullible.
We know that Afghanistan is a main drugs exporter and mental issues by drug abuse are not uncommon. We are aware that half of the muslims want the other half killed and that some muslims have committed genocides towards other muslims at each single opportunity in their history. We are aware that in some places woman can't work or earn money to support themselves in any non clandestine way
We've had to warn you before about posting flamewar comments to HN. The kind of thing you repeatedly posted to this thread is particularly hellish and awful. We ban accounts that do this.
I don't want to ban you, so please don't post anything like this to HN again—regardless of how you feel about someone else's religion.
The possessive suggests possession - as if the men of Iran own the women of Iran, and are sovereign over them, like an autocratic government is over its subjects. You may be aware of protests currently ongoing in Iran regarding distaste for this attitude amongst “your” Iranians.
How does GP's statement have anything to do with "nakedness" and "vices". Those appear to be your words, dude.
Besides, the woman that was killed in custody that started this whole mess in Iran was hardly "naked", quite far from it.
It's not the west's fault that people lack so much self-control they can't handle anything but a hijab. In my opinion that speaks incredibly poorly, if anything that means folks shold spend more time looking inward than foolishly crying out for divine protection
Moralism is far more responsible for a society's ills than "decadence" ever will be
The slippery slope is real. And as far as we're concerned, taking the Hijab away is one very obvious step in that direction. Just look at history.
I'm not defending the Iranian regime by the way.
You're straw manning to assume that the Hijab's only reason is lack of self control. It's one part of many things that we have in Islam to preserve morality and purity. For example, both men and women are ordered to lower their gaze.
I'm not moralizing here. I'm defending my religion and land from the assumption of the secular west that they're here to liberate us from "oppression".
You posted many hellish flamewar comments to this thread. We ban accounts that vandalize HN like this. It doesn't matter how right you are or feel you are.
Moreover, we've already had to ask you many times not to do this:
Your comments in this thread were so aggressive that you've easily crossed the point where we would ban an account. I don't want to ban you because you've also posted good things. If you do this again, though, we're going to end up having to. Therefore, please review the rules (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) and avoid doing anything like this on HN again.
I’m not a Muslim but agnostic and agree that “freedom” is poorly defined and subjective like “idea” of America which is empty cipher. Ruling class of US idea of freedom is for citizens to be free to take on debt and live precarious alienated life with not a small portion dying in abject poverty and increasingly alone.
It is scientific, just not experimental science which is limited. Look up Islam's Isnad system to learn more. There is nothing like it in any other tradition, faith or historic or otherwise. If you only follow experimental science, then you follow the religion of scientism, which only give a partial picture, and sometimes even an incorrect picture.
Given the recent split between the USA and Saudi Arabia over crude oil production targets, I wouldn't be surprised to see similar hacking of Saudi news feeds by 'domestic protestors' and a new US State Department focus on 'human rights and democratic reforms in the repressive Saudi dictatorship' coming up pretty quickly.
This would be a radical shift from US behavior during the Arab Spring, when the USA gave a wink and a nod to Saudi tanks rolling into Bahrain to crush the pro-democracy protests there.
[edit] Here's a story about Saudi Arabia, hijabs, and death threats to women (2016). Let the revolutions begin!
> "A woman in Saudi Arabia has sparked outrage after posting a photo of herself on Twitter without an abaya or hijab, and is now facing calls for her execution."
This is a very simplistic view of the tensions in the region, which have been ongoing for decades. Just as the US has reason to retaliate against Saudi Arabia, many other places could also have reasons to push the ruling family out of power and gain influence.
It also fails to account for the autonomy of the people there. Is it really so hard to believe that they are rebelling against authoritarianism?
Even if there is an interest to empower the people to oust the regime, wouldn't it be fomenting on already existing unhappiness?
Interestingly, the same can be said of unrest anywhere- undoubtedly the agendas of several states will always align with weakening their competitors/adversaries.
When you consider the things everyday people care about and strive for, it can be argued that any party interested in destabilizing another nation would play to those aspirations in such a way as to further their control- this is true of almost everywhere, it is not exclusive to any one people or any one institution, and it can be seen in every region. In any given place, if you take a close look, there are varying levels of influence from foreign powers- often with the goal to secure economic goals or obtain natural resources.
> This is a very simplistic view of the tensions in the region
That is a very simplistic, and correct view of how the US manipulates such tensions.
There are many of us international HNers, whose countries suffered multiple US backed coups or color revolutions, and even worse, whose grassroots popular movements were co-opted and subverted by the US.
So much that even the 'people's movement', Solidarity in Poland, that was the 'trade union' movement that overthrow their government, was CIA funded and organized. The same thing has been a staple of daily life in Middle East since 1960s, when CIA decided to fund and use Islamist groups.
As someone from one of those countries, I'm well aware.
I'm not saying the US, and/or proxies of the agendas of the powerful who stand to gain from exploitation and meddling, aren't involved. I would expect they are very much involved, and I would be very skeptical of any claim they aren't.
What I'm saying is simply that despite this, people in those places could conceivably be independently fed up- and their dissatisfaction with their regimes stands on its own and is valid. There is a lot of nuance and a lot of different intersecting motivations and interests at play.
I just think, in my personal opinion, that those things people fight and risk dying for (freedom from persecution, personal safety, to be able to put food on the table, to care for family, etc) aren't only happening because of outside factors and political reasons, these are human concerns. People in Iran, Saudi Arabia, anywhere else, aren't just pawns susceptible to propagands- they understand there are all sorts of players trying to gain dominance over their lives. A lot of people in the US have these broad ideas about people in entire regions, as though they're monoliths- like people in Iran/Saudi Arabia were content and would have been obedient if not for foreign involvement, which I think is simplistic and I disagree with this assumption.
People in an uprising and nations in upheaval are especially vulnerable to external groups swooping in to manipulate the situation to their interests- this much is true, and it can also be true that people would have been rising up regardless. How this plays out over time is yet to be seen but unfortunately the most likely scenario is some other despot will step in to further their personal agenda at the expense of the people, whether they align with US interests or otherwise... like anywhere else, those in power will fight to maintain and gain power and control, no matter the human cost and devastation- this is true everywhere.
How this plays out over time is either of the two: 1) The protests fail, either due to the momentum fading or the government suppressing 2) The protests succeed, and the country gets a US backed government. Along with all the privatization, removal of labor protections and social welfare, decline in life standards.
Unfortunately, there hasnt been any case of the protesters somehow being able to avert that while still succeeding. Because such protests and movements need organization to succeed. And if there wasnt an indigenous, powerful source of such organization present in the country for a long time, the organization will be coming from those who are backed by the US.
A US backed government would mean hell for both Saudis and Iranis - Saudi Arabia has VERY extensive social programs that literally guarantee everyone's comfort, life and education. Iran does not have those, but it still has enough such programs and the traditional cultural relations and social fabric is still alive. Those tend to get destroyed in the first wave of privatizations and 'free marketization'.
Saudis not always acquiescing to US pleas/demands historically hasn’t ever regime change ops. They have Long history of cooperation likely, arms deals, key to keeping dollar for their market, keep up starving slaughtering Yemen, where as Iran has been one of baddies since 1979
I agree but what you’re missing from threat modeling is relative capability of actors. And yes not there’s degrees of of organic discontent which is key to amplifying or muting etc. they’ll have intelligence and adapt vectors. For example the girl was killed is a fact. The trick is building narrative and this is where likely lies of omission or exaggeration or semantics come in in e.g. girl is dead, it’s evil repressive regimes fault, we demand justice. Not perfect science for sure
You're absolutely right it's been going on for decades, but I think looking into that history is also telling. In 1953 Iran was a relatively secular and democratic nation that had generally positive, though flagging, relations with the West. Then their leader decided to reduce US/UK control over his country's oil assets. So of course we had to bring democracy to them. But since they already had a democracy, autocracy would have to do instead. [1]
We staged a coup, overthrew their democracy, and installed an extremely unpopular puppet dictator and monarch. 26 years later in 1979 there was another revolution, except this one was carried out by the people of Iran, and not the CIA. The puppet (still ruling from 1953 interestingly) was overthrown, and in his place an Islamic theocracy was created. And since then it's invariably been headed by leaders that, for some reason, haven't been especially fond of the West - and frequently imply we're up to shenanigans. That scenario continues to this day.
Ultimately I no longer really believe that we deserve the benefit of the doubt when it comes to black ops types scenarios. We've turned what should be a sort of last resort act of subterfuge into what increasingly seems to be a front-line approach to international relations. The most bizarre part is that these shenanigans never even really seem to achieve anything. Iran just being one example of going black ops to undermine one enemy, only to create one 10x more deadly, dangerous, and hostile than the former.
All we really seem to be achieving is the fast-tracking of WW3.
I agree. I am sure that the hack boosted the morale of many protestors. It is tragic but us normals have no way of determine the degree to which it was inside job. Who is going to trust the CIA, etc if they deny it?
Ya, we can't really know, but I think it's fair to say that powerful though the CIA is, they can't synthesize these kinds of protests from nothing. So, even if the CIA did hack these TV stations to aid the protesters, it's something that could just as easily have been done organically too, so I'm not sure it really matters whether they did or didn't.
No, GP is a legit comment. Everything you say about Iran is also true of Saudi Arabia (in the sense of the ruling regime being autocratic and oppressive) but it's expedient for the establishment in the US to condemn one regime and support the other.
> Even if there is an interest to empower the people to oust the regime, wouldn't it be fomenting on already existing unhappiness?
Out of all the nations on Earth, perhaps a majority of them have some kind of discontent among the population. Then, with this blank cheque being given, the nations with the most powerful intel agencies can empower the ones they want into full-blown protests.
The conspiracy theory that Russia influenced the two recent American presidential elections naturally come to mind. If that was the case—and I don’t doubt that they might have invested a small pittance into FB ads—then they were surely just building on existing unhappiness, as Trump supporters are too numerous to all be sleeper agents of the waning super power that is Russia.
The basic deal between the US and SA is, in exchange for supplying the global oil market, the US will overlook SA's dictatorship, human rights abuses, and involvement in 9/11, and will supply them with weapons. If SA stops upholding its side of the deal, I would expect the Arab Spring would suddenly find its way to SA. Or, perhaps first, the US would support a coup against MBS to replace him with a more compliant member of the House of Said.
People read too much into the recent production target cuts. An important thing to consider is that OPEC+ has been failing to meet their targets by about the same amount for several months now, and most experts seem to believe they lack capacity, not the will to produce.
You don't think they'd try to change a government they've hated for a long time? I would also find a sudden 180 on Iran suspicious, but also would not be surprised if any Iranian opposition group had US support.
How culture spreads is ... fascinating.