It's for the Scottish. It's in Iran's interests for Scotland to become independent because that would enforce change on the United Nations Security Council. The UK ceases to exist and loses its veto, then what happens on the UNSC after that is anyone's guess.
The UK doesn't cease to exist though, it just shrinks. Plus the USSR fragmenting and Russia (as the main constituent part, the nuclear power and the country the independent republics were happy to acknowledge as the continuation of the USSR) becoming the successor state is pretty well-established precedent for what happens when states fragment, whose legitimacy Russia probably doesn't want to contest too strongly...
General disruption in the UK would help the Iranian government a little, but I managed to click on one of the accounts before it was suspended, and its most popular tweets received very interaction (and were pretty banal statements of independence support indistinguishable from stuff thousands of completely normal Scottish people posted) I assume their attempts to seed wilder rumours were low effort and had very little success.
Russia was allowed to inherit the USSR seat on 3 conditions:
- It took on all the sovereign debt from the newly independent nations.
- It relinquished nukes that were left behind in Ukraine.
- The United Nations collectively agreed to it.
I don't think any of those things would happen in the UK's case. But of course it doesn't matter what you or I think. It only matters what _Iran_ thinks will happen if Scotland gains independence.
>The UK doesn't cease to exist though, it just shrinks.
Or as some wags have put it, when Northern Ireland unifies with the Republic of Ireland, and Scotland joins the EU as an independent state, the Rump UK (1) becomes the "Former United Kingdom of Wales and England" (2), or "FUK-Wangland" for short.
Russia didn't lose its veto when the USSR collapsed and neither would the UK lose it in such a case. If the UK was in danger of losing its veto it would never allow Scottish independence.
It doesn’t matter whether independence is realized, what Iran wants is more time and effort spent on domestic disagreement, so less is available to support international engagement.
This is a tool of international competition and the U.S. and U.K. have been trying to do it to Iran (and others) for even longer than the reverse.
Manx is the demonym for people from the Isle of Man. It's odd to see it written "Isle of Manx" in a list of other demonyms, but the word Manx itself is far from modern. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manx_people
Not Iranians - what would anyone gain by influencing Iranians' views of Scottish nationalism? My experience has been that people outside the west barely know Scotland exists and are not going to care about it anymore than the average Scot is likely to have strong feelings about Laos.
It may be aimed at Scots but sometimes be done too blatantly so slips into the implausible. It may be aimed at influencing just those prone to conspiracy theories - who might be few but more likely to extreme actions.
If their objective is to damage the UK they can do that without breaking it up. For example, for example by fostering violent Scottish Nationalism, or even just sowing hatred between the Scots and the English, or between Scots who want to remain the UK and those who do not..
Its quite unusual for separatist movements to both remain peaceful themselves, and not to be violent suppressed. Even other western democracies have not managed, nor did one other part of the UK for a long time.
My other nationality is Sri Lankan so I have seen how bad it can get. I do not think that will ever happen in the UK, but even a very small number of sufficiently nasty people can do a great deal of damage.
People leave Iran for UK. The idea is that if UK seems less attractive and stable, fewer people will be strongly inclined to pursue it. It also normalizes chaos at home.
I think there are parallels to draw to how Fox News tried to paint a picture of places in Europe being on fire and overtaken by gangs and radicals years before that became close to actual reality.
