I know a couple of iranians (who have lived in the west for at least 20 years now) who all say that the average iranian hates the leadership for their support of shia minorities in the neighbouring countries, since the iranians themselves are desperately poor, and they (maybe rightfully) view all this support for other countries / militias as a theft from their own population, who are suffering heavily under the sanctions. I think their argument is that the leadership spends a lot of money to ensure that they don’t get invaded by their neighbours, but meanwhile the people are suffering heavily, and when you are that poor, you really need to spend your money wisely to develop.

I don’t really know what to think of this, since I don’t speak Farsi and can’t really interact wiht iranians other than the ones who moved to the west, and more or less entirely assimilated into western liberalism.