The latest news out of Iran is grim. Over the last 20 years, uprisings in Iran have followed a pattern: the regime identifies leaders, blames foreign influence, enforces a communications blackout, then brutally crushes resistance. We are now in the “crush” phase as the regime has ordered its core enforcers to “shoot to kill.”
“The regime is on a killing spree,” said one protester, Yasi. She, like other Iranians interviewed by The New York Times, asked that her full name be withheld for safety.
This time, it’s a bit different, as Iranians who have obtained Starlink terminals can still connect to the outside world. However, reports are emerging that the regime is going “door to door” in Tehran, confiscating these devices and arresting those who have them. And where is America? Despite President Donald Trump’s promise to “rescue” Iranian revolutionaries when the regime begins the mass killing, the White House is telling reporters “What you’re hearing publicly from the Iranian regime is quite different from the messages the administration is receiving privately, and I think the president has an interest in exploring those messages.”
To me, that means Trump intends to make a deal with the tyrants who rule Iran, and well, the brave Iranians who have stood up to those evil oppressors will just have to deal with it. Lest you say, Steve, that’s your TDS talking, I am basing this opinion on fact and history of the Trump administration. If we look past the social media posts, threats, and occasional use of military force, a pattern emerges, and it’s not one of freedom for the people.
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“However, with that said, the president has shown he’s unafraid to use military options if and when he deems necessary, and nobody knows that better than Iran,” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt added.
“If” and “when” are doing a lot of work here. For instance, “if” the mission is limited, against a smaller, less equipped force, and has a good chance of success, the president is totally unafraid. He’s unafraid of using military assets to take out speedboats, or to board oil tankers. I am not going to argue that the boats weren’t running drugs, or that the tanker isn’t part of Russia’s shadow fleet. I will, however, argue that the pretexts for using military force—to free Venezuela from the tyranny of the Chavez-Maduro dictatorship—were abandoned the minute Maduro was brought to New York to face charges.
Venezuela is still run by the Chavez-Maduro government, only with a different face. Arguably, Delcy Rodriguez, the acting president, is as bad or worse than Nicolás Maduro himself. Rodriguez grew up a child of Marxism; her father was tortured and murdered in 1976 by the U.S.-backed secret police (DISIP) for kidnapping an American executive. She hates America. But Rodriguez is a realist. She’ll make a deal with Trump, because she knows she can outlast him. The oil executives Trump is trying to bully into investing in Venezuela know that she can outlast him. And they know when Trump is gone, anything they invested will be confiscated by the state once again.
Taking Maduro out was a golden opportunity to give power back to the Venezuelan people, and restore Maria Corina Machado as the duly elected leader. Machado offered to “share” her Nobel Peace prize with Trump, and has dedicated it to him, an act of incredible grace on behalf of her people. Machado recently met with Pope Leo and asked him to intercede for the release of hundreds more political prisoners in Venezuela. But Trump won’t make a deal with Machado, because he doesn’t trust her motives. He’d rather deal with the scum and Marxists who run the country now. The people will just have to deal with it.
In Ukraine, Trump’s motivation seems clear to me. He can’t stand Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He blames Zelenskyy for his first impeachment, which was followed by COVID-19, and Trump’s loss to President Joe Biden. Trump would make a deal with Ukraine, but not with Zelenskyy. The only thing keeping the U.S. at the table is Vladimir Putin’s intransigence and middle-finger attitude about taking Ukraine. But Trump would rather make a deal with Putin, if it results in the European leaders owing fealty to him to keep Ukraine from falling.
Ukraine is a hard nut, it’s not an easy situation to solve. President Joe Biden did nobody any favors by focusing on keeping the war from expanding. Remember, it was the Biden administration that offered Zelenskyy a ride in 2022, assuming that Russia’s decapitation attempt was not worth opposing, and prepared to hand all of Kyiv, and control of Ukraine, to Putin. When the Ukrainians prevailed, instead of standing completely with them (which I admit was Biden’s gut instinct), he went with his nannies and staffers, and refrained from involving America too deeply. We could have ended the war in 2022, and I do not believe that Putin would have nuked the world if we did.
Now, we’ve got a stalemate, a WWI-trench war, except with drones, which makes it impossible for either side to move without being detected and mercilessly destroyed. The Russians and Ukrainians fight and die over patches of land the size of an average American suburban house lot. Villages are razed to the ground, taken, and retaken. The Ukrainian people suffer hardship, lack, intermittent power, and corruption of their government officials.
But where is the U.S.? The last time Congress authorized aid to Ukraine was April, 2024. Since assuming office, Trump has used the aid flow as a tool to bring Zelenskyy to heel. We keep hearing about negotiations and deals, but in reality Russia is stepping up its attacks on Ukraine, including punishing waves of missiles and drones, almost nightly. We talk “peace,” but in reality Trump wants to make a deal with a tyrant, who, like Delcy Rodriguez, knows that the U.S. president is a lame duck, and all Putin has to do is wait and outlast Trump.
In Gaza, the U.S. has all but walked away from “Phase 2” of the 20-point peace plan, especially the part about Hamas disarming. Hamas never agreed to disarm, and would never agree to that. The moving parts of the “Board of Peace,” the so-called technocrats who are to run Gaza, are titularly led by Trump and the U.S., but in practice, it’s the Israelis, Egyptians, and Bulgarian diplomat Nickolay Mladenov who are running things. Hamas, for its part, has agreed to dissolve its civilian government when the Board of Peace takes over. That just means Hamas will get back to its core function: attacking Israel.
It also means that the Gazans will continue to live under the boot of tyrants, and the threat of military action by the IDF. The technocrats cannot effectively govern Gaza while Hamas is armed, and Hamas will not disarm. The U.S., under Trump, has said we would disarm them, but that deal was just talk. It will fall to Israel to provide the military muscle, while Egypt and other friends of the terrorists will go back to smuggling and tunnel-building logistical support.
“If” and “when” the U.S. decides to do a military strike, it will be one that antiseptically puts few Americans in danger, has a high chance of success, making headlines, but leaving the people to deal with tyranny.
Let’s get back to Iran. I have seen reports that the U.S. military is leaning forward, and indeed is “locked and loaded” with respect to Iran. We can, if we wish, do more than “exploring those messages” from the barbaric butchers in Tehran. We could simply do what Israel has done over and over: decapitate the regime. We had no problem taking out Qasem Soleimani, but we did that while he was in Iraq. We had no problem bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities, but we did that with Israeli support. Now those who need our help are literally dying by the thousands in the streets. The Islamic Republic’s ability to slaughter its own people and outlast mass protests is well-established. Given enough time, and the news of Trump’s dealmaking with the ayatollahs, the protests will die, and those who died for freedom will have done so in vain.
President Trump has been making deals with tyrants for a decade. He has walked hand-in-hand with some of the worst people on Planet Earth, including Kim Jong-un, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and now Delcy Rodriguez. If he makes a deal with the Iranian regime, add Ali Khamenei to the list.
There’s still time to change the course of millions of lives in Iran. I implore the president to do something, not “explore those messages.” Make no deals with the Iranian regime. They are evil. But based on history, and the messaging coming out of the White House, I am not holding my breath.
Perhaps the Iranians in the streets will have to take care of business by themselves. Counting on the U.S., and its president, to actually back up his promises of “rescue” might be a fool’s dream. Freedom is too valuable to trust in a fool’s dream. I can’t resist taking one last shot, and maybe it really is the TDS talking here. Perhaps people here at home like Sen. Mark Kelly, Fed chair Jerome Powell, and some of the ICE protesters are learning this themselves.
Not holding my breath for Trump and Co. to do anything principled that doesn't a) try to make them look good, or b) distract people from the fact that they are breaking the law right now with a lack of releases of Epstein Files material[1].
We have a Cabinet member supporting the murder of American citizens delivering that message behind a podium recycling the rationale Nazis used to murder entire villages in World War II: "One of Ours, All of Yours"[2].
If you are Iranian and looking for help from Trump, you probably will have better results promising a new Peace Prize to give him, than expecting any assistance to arise out of a sense of concern and set of principles that he can't muster for US citizens.
Not holding my breath for Trump and Co. to do anything principled that doesn't a) try to make them look good, or b) distract people from the fact that they are breaking the law right now with a lack of releases of Epstein Files material[1].
We have a Cabinet member supporting the murder of American citizens delivering that message behind a podium recycling the rationale Nazis used to murder entire villages in World War II: "One of Ours, All of Yours"[2].
If you are Iranian and looking for help from Trump, you probably will have better results promising a new Peace Prize to give him, than expecting any assistance to arise out of a sense of concern and set of principles that he can't muster for US citizens.
[1] https://www.foxnews.com/politics/lapsed-epstein-deadline-underscores-challenge-reviewing-files-30-days
[2] https://brendonbeebe.substack.com/p/one-of-ours-all-of-yours-origins
Tyrants of a feather flock together?