Iran better not “shots” anybody.
That’s a direct quote from the leader of the free world who on Friday suggested he’s fully prepared to protect the Iranian people’s right to peaceful protest by bombing their country.
This was predictable. As I put it on December 30, protester deaths in Iran could “serve as an excuse” for the resumption of joint US-Israel airstrikes in the name of “protecting democratic freedoms.”
Sure enough, Trump threatened just that on day six of what counts as the most acute outbreak of social unrest in Iran since 2019, when hundreds of protesters were killed in a government crackdown.
The irony’s so glaring as to be scarcely worth a mention, but just in case: Trump’s all for violent crackdowns on protesters. We’re talking about a US president who just spent the better part of a year trying to militarize America’s streets and who once threatened to shoot black people for opportunistic looting during bouts of social unrest in America.
Trump doesn’t care a thing about the Iranian people’s right to peacefully demonstrate, but he does care about the fate of the regime in Tehran. Specifically, he’d be more than happy to see it gone, albeit not as happy as Benjamin Netanyahu who almost surely would’ve assassinated Ali Khamenei last summer if Trump were fully on board.
My guess — it’s more than a guess — is that Mossad and the CIA are doing everything they can to fan the flames of domestic discontent in Iran, not that citizens would otherwise be enamored with their situation.
In a characteristically shrill social media post complete with one of his famous typos, Trump on Friday warned the regime against taking aim at the demonstrators. “If Iran shots and violently kills peaceful protesters… the United States of America will come to their rescue,” Trump said. “We are locked and loaded and ready to go.”
There you have it. Any crackdown that results in additional deaths (at least two demonstrators died on Thursday) will — or at least could — result in US military action against the regime. You can be sure Netanyahu’s likewise “locked and loaded.”
One of Khamenei’s aides dryly remarked that “the people of Iran are well acquainted with the experience of Americans coming to the rescue, from Iraq and Afghanistan to Gaza.”
Touché, sir. But with the rial-USD exchange rate loitering near 140,000,000 to one, “the people of Iran” might be wondering if the devil they know’s by now worse than “Great Satan.”
There seem to be a lot of chess pieces moving on the oil table. Iran, Venezuela, Russia, and it looks like a little friction between Saudi Arabia and U.A.E. in Yemen. Could these coalesce into an oil shocker event?
I am partially locked and loaded for that eventuality
You left Venezuela out of your list, it seems.
Trump wants an excuse to attack the regime directly. There must be some oil, critical mineral, or resort-suitable beachfront in Iran? Maybe someone explained about Mercator maps and he realized Greenland isn’t that big after all. Or just trying for that elusive Nobel Peace Prize.
‘The irony’s so glaring as to be scarcely worth a mention.”
That was right up there after Putin told Trump during a phone call on December 28 that Ukraine had launched a large-scale drone attack targeting one of his residences in Russia’s Novgorod region.
Speaking later that day at Mar-a-Lago alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump reacted angrily. “I am very angry about the claim. This is not the right time,” he told reporters. He added: “It’s another thing to attack his house.”
“alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu” That’s ricch in irony.