Tag: iran

Rubio Hints at Preemptive Strike Option Against Iran

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, while testifying before the Senate, hinted that the United States could take preemptive action against Iran and told lawmakers that Tehran’s leadership is at its weakest point in years.

“I think it’s wise and prudent to have a force posture within the region that could respond and potentially, not necessarily what’s going to happen, but if necessary, preemptively prevent the attack against thousands of American servicemen and other facilities in the region and our allies,” Rubio said during Wednesday’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Venezuela, Gulf News reported.

The Trump administration’s push to strengthen U.S. assets in the Middle East, including the deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln to the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility, is aimed at protecting more than 30,000 service members in the region.

“I hope it doesn’t come to that, but that’s, I think what you’re seeing now is the ability to posture assets in the region to defend against what could be an Iranian threat against our personnel,” Rubio said, referring to a potential preemptive strike.

He added that Iran’s military capabilities are “weaker” than they have ever been, but warned that the country has “thousands and thousands” of long-range ballistic missiles even though its “economy is collapsing.”

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has publicly supported protesters in Iran, warning Tehran that violence against them would bring military consequences.

He repeated that warning Wednesday, saying future action against Iran would be “far worse” than last summer’s strikes on its nuclear facilities.

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Iran Is Not Libya: Why Destabilization Risks Global Chaos

The drumbeat of escalation against Iran has grown louder in Western capitals, from fresh sanctions rhetoric to renewed strike speculation. Beyond the headlines, a dangerous shift is occurring in the strategic thinking of policymakers. The old Neoconservative framework of “regime change”, which assumed one could swap a government while keeping the nation intact, is being shadowed by a far more perilous drift toward policies that risk state collapse.

Whether driven by the momentum of broad sanctions or a lack of viable alternatives, the current trajectory suggests that Western powers are risking a repetition of the “Libya Model” in Iran. A sober analysis of data, geography, and demographics indicates that this path would not lead to democracy, but to a geopolitical catastrophe that creates a security vacuum from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf.

The Libya Mirage vs. The Iranian Reality

The allure of this strategy rests on a kind of amnesia about the outcome of the 2011 NATO intervention in Libya. Sold as a humanitarian necessity, the removal of central authority did not produce a liberal democracy. Instead, it shattered the state’s monopoly on violence. Over a decade later, Libya remains a fractured territory where rival militias compete for control and human trafficking networks operate with relative impunity.

Attempting to replicate this outcome in Iran involves a profound misreading of scale. Iran is not Libya. It is a nation of nearly 90 million people, roughly thirteen times the population of Libya in 2011. Geographically, it sits atop the Strait of Hormuz, a critical artery through which a major share of globally traded oil passes each day.

In contrast to the isolated Gaddafi regime, a destabilized Iran would not implode neatly. It would likely erupt across borders. The collapse of central authority in Tehran could plausibly trigger large refugee flows toward Europe and create conditions conducive to extremism and narcotics trafficking. From a purely Realist perspective, the cost of coexisting with a difficult Iranian state is significantly lower than the cost of managing a major zone of ungoverned instability in the heart of Eurasia.

Sanctions and the Fragility Trap

Some advocates of “maximum pressure” argue that economic strangulation creates leverage for democratization. The economic data suggests a different outcome. While sanctions have undeniably devastated the Iranian economy, driving high and persistent inflation and eroding the national currency, they have failed to produce political liberalization.

In practice, these policies create what economists call a “fragility trap”. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned that geoeconomic fragmentation and the weaponization of trade are fracturing the global economy. In Iran, this dynamic systematically hollows out the middle class. By destroying the economic foundation of independent civil society, Western policy eliminates the very social stratum historically required for stable democratic transitions.

As citizens are pushed into a struggle for biological survival, facing documented obstacles to accessing some critical medicines and shrinking purchasing power, their capacity for organized political activism diminishes. They rarely become builders of stable institutions; survival takes over. Thus, the current policy does not weaken the grip of the state; it weakens the resilience of the society.

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Iran will treat any attack as ‘all-out war against us,’ says senior Iran official

Iran will treat any attack “as an all-out war against us,” a senior Iranian official said on Friday, ahead of the arrival of a U.S. military aircraft carrier strike group and other assets in the Middle East in the coming days.

“This military buildup – we hope it is not intended for real confrontation – but our military is ready for the worst-case scenario. This is why everything is on high alert in Iran,” said the senior Iranian official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“This time we will treat any attack – limited, unlimited, surgical, kinetic, whatever they call it – as an all-out war against us, and we will respond in the hardest way possible to settle this,” the official said.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday that the United States had an “armada” heading toward Iran but hoped he would not have to use it, as he renewed warnings to Tehran against killing protesters or restarting its nuclear program.

“If the Americans violate Iran’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, we will respond,” said the Iranian official. He declined to specify what an Iranian response might look like.

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The US-Israel Hybrid War Against Iran

The question is not if the US and Israel will attack Iran, but when. In the nuclear age, the US refrains from all-out war, since it can easily lead to nuclear escalation. Instead, the US and Israel are waging war against Iran through a combination of crushing economic sanctions, targeted military strikes, cyberwarfare, stoking unrest, and unrelenting misinformation campaigns. This combination strategy is called “hybrid warfare.”

Both the American and Israeli deep states are addicted to hybrid warfare. Acting together, the CIA, Mossad, allied military contractors and security agencies have fomented chaos across Africa and the Middle East, in a swath of hybrid wars including Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Yemen.

The shocking fact is that for more than a quarter century, the US and Israeli militaries and intelligence agencies have laid waste to a region of hundreds of millions of people, blocked economic development, created terror and mass refugee movements, and have nothing to show for it beyond the chaos itself. There is no security, no peace, no stable pro-US or pro-Israel alliance, only suffering. In the process, the US is also going out of its way to undermine the UN Charter, which the US itself had brought to life in the aftermath of World War II. The UN Charter makes clear that hybrid war violates the very basis of international law, which calls on countries to refrain from the use of force against other countries.

There is one beneficiary of hybrid war, and that is the military-industrial-digital complex of the US and Israel, with firms like Palantir and others profiting from their AI-supported assassination algorithms. President Dwight Eisenhower warned us in his 1961 farewell address of the profound danger of the military-industrial complex to our society. His warning has come to pass even more than he imagined, as it is now powered by AI, mass propaganda, and a reckless US foreign policy.

We are witnessing two simultaneous hybrid wars in recent weeks, in Venezuela and Iran. Both are long-term CIA projects that have recently escalated. Both will lead to further chaos.

The United States has long had two goals vis-à-vis Venezuela: to gain control over Venezuela’s vast oil reserves in the Orinoco Belt, and to overthrow Venezuela’s leftist government, in power since 1999. America’s hybrid war against Venezuela dates to 2002, when the CIA helped to support a coup attempt against President Hugo Chávez. When that failed, the US ramped up other hybrid measures, including economic sanctions, the confiscation of Venezuela’s dollar reserves, and measures to cripple Venezuela’s oil production, which in fact has collapsed. Yet despite the chaos sown by the US, the hybrid war did not bring down the government.

Trump has now escalated to bombing Caracas, kidnapping President Nicolas Maduro, stealing Venezuelan oil shipments, and imposing an ongoing naval blockade, which of course is a continuing act of war. It also seems likely that Trump is thereby enriching powerful pro-Zionist campaign funders who have their eyes on seizing Venezuelan oil assets. Zionist interests also have their eye on toppling the Venezuelan government, since it has long supported the Palestinian cause and maintained close relations with Iran. Netanyahu has cheered on America’s attack on Venezuela, calling it the “perfect operation.”

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Reports: Iranian Regime Accused of Using Chemical Agents in Crackdown on Protesters

Growing allegations that the Islamic Republic of Iran may have used chemical agents against protesters have intensified scrutiny of the regime’s most recent crackdown, described by observers as the deadliest suppression of public dissent in the country’s modern history. The claims gained momentum following the circulation of footage from Sabzevar showing Iranian security forces equipped with protective gear typically associated with hazardous chemical environments, as well as testimony from protesters in Tehran describing prolonged and unusual medical symptoms after exposure to what authorities labeled “tear gas.”

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WEB WAR: After Shutting All Internet in the Country, Iranian Forces Are Now Jamming Starlink Service, While Users on the Ground Try to Bypass This New Censorship

It’s a technological ‘cat and mouse’ dispute.

As massive protests took to the streets of Iran for days on end, the Ayatollahs’ regime shut down the country’s internet completely.

That left the insurgents relying almost solely on the Starlink services made free by Elon Musk during the confrontations.

So the Iranian government started a two-pronged approach: begin cracking down and seizing all the Starlink terminals it could find, and at the same time, deploy military-grade level jammers to (so far, successfully) disrupt Starlink satellite service.

Both SpaceX engineers and Iranian protesters on the ground are now seeking ways to circumvent this censorship.

France24 reported:

“Iranian authorities cut the public’s access to the internet and telephone communications on January 8. The networks were later partially reinstated, but with severe restrictions. The Iranian regime has been facing a series of protests since late December. In an attempt to crush the movement, the Iranian government also tried to break the last international communication link available to Iranians: Starlink.

Starlink, which provides internet access through a constellation of satellites, was thought to be out of the Iranian authorities’ reach for censorship. However, in recent days, Starlink has been subject to a jamming campaign that has seriously impaired its use.”

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Iran Protests Easing After Deadly Crackdown: Rights Groups

Iran’s deadly crackdown appears to have broadly quelled protests for now, according to a rights group and residents, as state media reported more arrests on Friday in the shadow of U.S. threats to intervene if killing continues.

After President Donald Trump’s repeated threats of military action against Iran in support of protesters, fears of a U.S. attack have retreated since Wednesday, when Trump said he’d been told killings in the crackdown were easing.

U.S. allies including Saudi Arabia and Qatar conducted intense diplomacy with Washington this week to prevent a U.S. strike, warning of consequences ‍for the wider region that would ultimately impact the United States, a Gulf official said.

The White House said on Thursday that Trump is ‍closely monitoring the situation on the ground, adding that the president and his team have warned Tehran there would be “grave consequences” if killings linked to its crackdown continue.

Trump understands that 800 scheduled executions were halted, White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt added, saying the president was ⁠keeping “all of his options on the table.”

The protests erupted on December 28 over soaring inflation in Iran, whose economy has been crippled by sanctions, before spiraling into one of the biggest challenges yet to the clerical establishment that has run Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

With information ​flows from Iran obstructed by an internet blackout, several residents of Tehran said the capital had been quiet since Sunday. They said drones were flying over the city, where they’d seen no sign of protests on Thursday or Friday.

Iranian-Kurdish rights group Hengaw said that there had been no protest gatherings since Sunday, saying “the security environment remains highly restrictive.”

“Our independent sources confirm a heavy military and security presence ‍in cities and towns where protests previously took place, as well as in several locations that did not experience major demonstrations,” Norway-based Hengaw said in comments to Reuters.

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Israeli media is now admitting the rioters in Iran were armed with Israeli weapons

If, just yesterday, you suggested the riots in Iran were not organic protests, you would have been accused of supporting tyranny. I should know because I was, and yet Israeli media is now admitting to Israel’s role in the violence.

Israel’s Channel 14 is reporting that Israel has been arming the rioters who have been carrying shotguns and pistols and throwing firebombs. Channel 14’s coverage is pro-Netanyahu so this story is likely to have come directly from government sources.

If there was any doubt about the veracity of this story, Mossad has been using its Farsi Twitter account to encourage Iranians to get out onto the streets. And it is bragging about having agents alongside the rioters in the field. Mossad operatives have been shooting Iranian police officers to provoke a violent response against Iranians, and here was you thinking they cared about their liberation…

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Dem Rep. Vindman: ‘Irony’ with Iranians Protesting, ‘What We See with ICE’ in U.S.

On Tuesday’s broadcast of “CNN News Central,” Rep. Eugene Vindman (D-VA) said that the United States should “support the Iranian people in their struggle for freedom and independence.” And the Iranian people are “protesting, largely peacefully, on the streets, and they’re being attacked and murdered. And I think there’s an irony, obviously, in what we see with ICE on America’s streets.”

Vindman said, “Well, first of all, I think we all recognize that the Iranian regime is an authoritarian regime that is suppressing its people. And I recognize that in my own family experience, we fled from a Communist authoritarian regime, and we need to support the Iranian people in their struggle for freedom and independence. They’re protesting, largely peacefully, on the streets, and they’re being attacked and murdered. And I think there’s an irony, obviously, in what we see with ICE on America’s streets.”

He continued, “But just to stay focused on Iran, I think it means putting enormous pressure on the regime so they recognize that suppressing their own population through violence is not going to work.”

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Iran’s Inflation Protests Turned Into an Uprising. Will Trump Get Involved?

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who made Iran an Islamic republic in 1979, famously said that revolution was “not about the price of watermelons.” He held economics in contempt as the science of feeding donkeys. As his successor, Ali Khamenei, is learning, people will make a revolution about the price of watermelons. Demonstrations against inflation in late December have become some of the most violent unrest in Iran since the 1979 revolution.

The country has been under a total communications blackout since January 8, but the information that has emerged from Iran indicates that there has been a massive, bloody crackdown. The Human Rights Activists News Agency, a nonprofit in Virginia, has verified 483 civilian deaths and 47 deaths of police and military personnel. On Sunday, Iranian state television broadcast video from a morgue in Tehran overflowing with bodies; authorities claim that the situation is now under control and hosted a progovernment rally in Tehran on Monday.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened Iran if the government kills protesters. He told reporters on Sunday that “it looks like” his line has been crossed, and that he “might meet” with Iranian negotiators, or that “we may have to act because of what is happening before the meeting.” His cabinet is scheduled to meet on Tuesday to discuss options, including war, to support the protesters.

Trump’s promise to intervene “encouraged [Iranian authorities] to act much more aggressively and brutally,” Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies Professor Vali Nasr said during a panel hosted by the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, where I used to work. “You just end the protests quickly and take this off the table, so if that’s the excuse for intervention, it’s not going to be there anymore,” he explained, quoting a hypothetical Iranian official. 

As the space for political dissent has shrunk in Iran, protests have become more frequent and violent. In 2009, around 72 people were killed in protests by the reformist movement against a contested presidential election. In 2019, the government responded to protests about fuel prices by shutting down the internet, killing at least 321 people, and banning reformists from parliament. In 2022, when Iranians rose up against mandatory hijab laws, the crackdown killed at least 551 people.

This round of protests began with a merchants’ strike that was triggered by the Iranian rial hitting a record low against the U.S. dollar. (Unlike many of Iran’s self-inflicted economic problems, economist Esfandyar Batmanghelidj pointed out, the currency crisis has been directly caused by U.S. economic sanctions.) In the midst of the protests, the government announced that it would cut billions of dollars from import subsidies—increasing prices in the short term—and instead give citizens an additional $7 per month.

The unrest suddenly escalated in the second week of January. Video evidence from before the communications blackout, compiled by military observer Mark Pyruz, shows that protest sizes ballooned by five times between January 5 and January 7. Then, several Kurdish parties and Reza Pahlavi, the former crown prince exiled in 1979, called for their followers to come out on the night of January 8. At that point, authorities shut down the internet.

It’s unclear how much control Pahlavi actually has on the ground. Last summer, after the Israeli war with Iran, he claimed to have recruited 50,000 defectors from the Iranian government online. On Sunday, the former crown prince called on oil workers to go on strike in a video message. There’s no evidence that Pahlavi has been able to summon either the defectors or the strikes; on Sunday, he went on Fox News to appeal publicly to Trump, who has refused to meet with him, for help.

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