Click to see full-size image. (Press TV)
United States President Donald Trump on January 12 threatened Iran with “very strong” military options over the ongoing wave of protests, as large crowds of Iranians marched across the Islamic Republic in support of the government.
The protests began late in December as a result of the worsening economic conditions in Iran, and escalated significantly early in January after Trump set a red line, vowing to punish the Iranian government if protesters are killed.
Recent days an uptake in violence, with protestors clashing with security forces. The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency reported the death of 544 people from both sides. In an attempt to contain the situation, the government has cut off the internet for the last four days or so.
Asked by reporters aboard Air Force One whether the Iranian government has crossed his red line, Trump responded with more threats.
“They’re starting to [cross it]. It looks like [it]. There seem to be some people killed that aren’t supposed to be killed… They rule through violence,” Trump said.
“We’re looking at it very seriously. The military is looking at it, and we’re looking at some very strong options. We’ll make a determination,” he added, noting that he is receiving hourly updates on developments at the protests.
Trump also revealed that will soon speak to Elon Musk about potentially getting Starlink satellite internet service fully operational in Iran to assist the protesters.
Notably, Trump also claimed that Iran reached out to the U.S. and proposed holding another round of nuclear talks, without providing more details.
“I think they’re tired of being beat up by the United States,” Trump said. “Iran wants to negotiate.” He added: “The meeting is being set up, but we may have to act because of what’s happening before the meeting.”
Following Trump’s latest threats, large crowds of Iranians gathered in Tehran and all other cities across the Islamic Republic to show support to the government. In footage aired by state media, many can be heard shouting “Death to America,” a slogan that first emerged from Iran after the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
Unshaken by Trump’s latest threat, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told foreign diplomats in Tehran that “the situation has come under total control.”
“That’s why the demonstrations turned violent and bloody to give an excuse to the American president to intervene,” Araghchi said, in comments carried by Al Jazeera.
In other remarks from the diplomatic meeting carried by state TV, Araghchi said that “the Islamic Republic of Iran is not seeking war but is fully prepared for war.”
“We are also ready for negotiations but these negotiations should be fair, with equal rights and based on mutual respect,” he says.
While the Iranian government remains calm, the situation in the Islamic Republic appears to be heading towards more escalation.
Reza Pahlavi, an Iranian opposition figure and son of the deposed shah, declared a new stage in the effort “to overthrow the Islamic Republic,” calling on protestors to attack government institutions.
In recent days, Pahlavi was widely promoted by mainstream media in the West as the leader of the protests in Iran, although many sections of the deeply divided Iranian opposition do not support him, and do wish to see his family returning to power.
“In addition to seizing and holding the central streets of cities, all institutions and apparatuses responsible for the regime’s false propaganda and cutting off communications are considered legitimate targets,” Pahlavi said in a video statement.
“Government employees, and the armed and security forces, have the opportunity to join the people… or choose complicity with the murderers of the nation,” the self-declared shah continued.
“We are on the verge of reclaiming our dear Iran from the Islamic Republic. Khamenei and his regime have suffered several heavy blows from you, and we must not give them a chance to catch their breath again,” he added.
So far, protests have been reported in at least 512 locations across 180 cities in all 31 provinces of Iran. More than 10,000 people have been allegedly arrested, at least some were agents of the Israeli Mossad spy agency, according to Iranian authorities.
Despite the threats from the U.S. and focused coverage by the mainstream media, the current protests are still smaller in scale than the Mahsa Amini protests of 2022, and can’t be compared to the mass protest of 2009, which were called at the time the Green Movement. That’s being said, the protests are clearly much more violent.
Iran lost much of its influence in the Middle East in the last few years, with its allies in the Gaza Strip, Lebanon and Syria defeated, only to then face a blow directly from Israel during the 12-day war. The current unrest in the Islamic Republic is a direct result of this.
Despite facing a very serious threat, the Iranian government remains hesitant in its approach to both internal affairs, and foreign relations.
While the reformist government has shown a level of openness recently, it is yet to adopt much needed large-scale reforms. At the same time, it refuses to make any real changes to its foreign relation approach, despite showing openness to talks with the U.S.
The intention to intervene in Iran by the U.S. and others, including Israel, is clearer than ever. If the Islamic Republic fails to take decisive action on all levels, first and foremost diplomatically, the government will likely go down. This will, without a doubt, result in a civil war that will fragment Iran forever, especially that the opposition is deeply divided, with ethnic tensions involving Arabs, Kurds and Azaris as one of the main factors.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
SouthFront: Analysis and Intelligence
NOW hosted at southfront.press
Previously, SouthFront: Analysis and Intelligence was at southfront.org.
The .org domain name had been blocked by the US (NATO) (https://southfront.press/southfront-org-blocked-by-u-s-controlled-global-internet-supervisor/) globally, outlawed and without any explanation
Back before that, from 2013 to 2015, SouthFront: Analysis and Intelligence was at southfront.com
if iran falls, it would mean this world belong to the zionisist and the jews. it’s not worth living on this planet and we should hope some planetary tragedy destroy us all including the us empire and the machiavellic jews and their brethren including all flavor of christians. the only good thing about christianism its that implies that men’s are cannibals by design, “eat my meat and drink my blood” the machiavellic jews first psychological weapon to succeeded after million fails.
if iran falls also it would men that russia will fall for sure, sooner or later russia will be the next to crack down and dissapear. iran goverment must survive no matter what and the jews should be relocated to us in america and leave the middle east once for all. then peace will return to the middle east.
there’s been no peace in the middle east since the crusades trumo created history by
getting them tk agree to the abraham accords but biden wrecked that.
causing all of the disaster .by funding iran to fund hamas which i think he did quite irresponsibly. none of oct7th and what followed would have happened if biden had never been president.
recent months saw a large u.s. military build up in the caribbean, with socom deploying assists in puerto rico and near trinidad and tobago…………………………… https://psee.io/8jqu9r
yes i know, but there were the christians in the crusades the invaders, and even today behind the us empire trying to conquer a land that it was won by the muslims and the prophet. ancient wars, are still alive even today.
no they weren’t christians they were catholics jews and moslems there were no protestants then and the greeks never seem to get involved in all of that.
the prophet didn’t even exist until around the same time rome turned christian around 500 years after the death of jesus. coincidentally of course meanwhile its what year in tbe jewish calendar??
i can bet the same thing about a jew carpenter… don’t be a moron, this is about religions sects, today’s transformed into institutions, it was never about belief, or creeds or even reality.
why should we desire peace when there is injustice
death to khameini. down with the islamic regime! death to the dictator
death to the west and their foul empire of jews
calm down russia has never fully regained sovereignty after the bolshevics took over in the name of the banks and europe has lost sovereignty during the world wars if not before that.
we lived in that world our entire lifes and not that bad at least in europe.
of course its not fair to the countries chosen to fall like iraq, yugoslavia, afghanistan, lybia, syria, ukraine, yemen. but it is what it is. for the bankers its all just a big boardgame.
what a load of rubbish typical sf anti semitic propagandas for
tbe enemiesof american democracy . .
enemy of the american democracy? really… where was the last time did you vote for go to a war? or to invade a weaker country? when did you vote for establish the taxes to pay? or to reform the constitution? please don’t come here preaching like the sheeps. democracy is a tool to weaken your adversaries and give them a recipe for become a colony of a world power.
an ayatollah that oppresses and massacres his own people is a mass murderer dictator that deserves a penalty punishable by public hanging.
death to the dictator. death to khameini 🖕
death to your despotism and inciting violence.
gli ebrei commettono un errore la religione possono pregare chi vogliono uno stato biblico è una follia, hanno una cosa bella l’amore per il sapere e questo amore per il sapere i gentili lo hanno dimenticato e vivono il nichilismo passivo che li sta distruggendo.
trump cares so much for 500 iranians. that is why he ignored the death of 20,000 palestinian children
toral lies as usual from the same anti semitic sources.
death to the cold blooded islamic dictator
death to khameini.
death to ☪️ancer
the murderous islamic republic of iran will die together with kamenei and his regime
cut the crap ramses we jl know its you trying to be disingenuous
death to the islamic republic
death to the regime
death to the dictator
death to all islamic nazi terrorists.
ayatollah must die!
ramses tom sawyer finklestein mekkelstein dumpstein blowing yo trumpet again.
“if iran fails to take decisive active, first and foremost, diplomatically” the gov will likely go down” sounds like sf is drinking orange kool ade again. diplomacy with who? there are more people in the streets for the gov, than against it. those against have to be young, western brainwashed gen z idiots doing the same as stupidity as before. maybe they should look at minnesota in u.s. where police shoot unarmed, peaceful mothers in the street.
thars obama who had the young mum shot to death she was unarmed aand harmless .remember?allegedly according to fimed footage
and married lesbian couples who deliberately use their vehicles as a weapon to stop law enforcement and then tey to run an officer down aren’t innocent .
and three guesses which anti semitic person funded the protests.
death to the dictator. death to khameini. down with the islamic regime
no other country in the world would tolerate what’s been going on in iran. they’re
living like its another century .do they have freedom to be any religion they like? can they wear what they want to wear .? can women drive a car ?
can a husband divorce his wife by repeating 3 times i divorce you ?
yes, stupid the do have the freedom to practice other religion. there rae 1,000of jews living tere and they ain’t muslim, ziobot. do they shoot unarmed mothers of 3 in the face/ no does trump ? yes. by all means go with trump, the liar, zionist war monger, child rapist.
what a filthy disgusting dishonest despicable lying cretinous entirety you are foul and disgusting every single day always reinforced by sf moderators too .ramses the most dirty minded troll on the planet quite likely .allegedly
take a hike to fantasy island bird brain
death to the oppressor. the dictator.
death to the ayatollah regime
death to khameini. down with the islamic republic 🖕
disgusting americunt inferior that tolerates ugly dystopia
empowering women’s to weaken your adversaries, great tactics my friend but no, iran knows what to do, they do not let the empire of exceptionals and the big nose breed to infiltrate them and take apart their goverment. all those thing that you want, do it in your land why do you want to impose it in iran?
ok, i get the 504 error, meaning mossad doesn’t like the comment. either sf is useless at their own security or they’re openly being used. judging from the ziobots, it looks like the latter. they are now intercepting comments during server handoff…which of course means they monitor keystrokes on page. boy they are really going after it, an attack must be soon.
it looks lik ethey don’t like th epart i wrote about raping little boys in israel and the white house.
you’re really unbelievable. pathetic actually you just make stuff
up. ill bet you dont kow of one little boy that’s ever been raped in the white house or anyone who’s been raped in israel.
don’t even bother with attempts at passive aggressive anti semitism here pal when everyone knows the whole site couldn’t be more anti semitic ..hate speech inciting genocide all day everyday for years consistently.
iran venezuela siryah they all trust in the great allie the great army of russia lol
they did nothing to help putin ..if iran syria china had sent their armies into russias situation that could have assisted in creating successful peaceful negotiations but they all did nothing .imo with intentions too , i suspect. all in it together to deceive the worlds deadshit sheep and stir the pot for war profits allegedly .very successfully.
having over 500 people killed doesn’t indicate a government remaining calm. not in my book .
and the whole thing is that trump had just gotten the abraham accords signed too
they do not want peace .absolutely not .it wouldn’t make any difference what anyone tried to do. imo .
500 killed is a fake news. bodies in the streets and in warehouses. all because of khameini.
death to the dictator ! down with the islamic regime.! death to khameini! 🖕
death to the dictator. death to khameini.
who voted for trump to be emperor of the world
he is just as much of a dictator
any nation without nuclear weapons is extremely vulnerable to the shlomo “americans”
death to all americunts—inferior ugly species
all the old men are protesting to defend the islamic republic, all the young iranian woman are protesting to get a better cellphone and some nice top she saw on the internets
where they can be tracked and “exploded”?….
question: when will the russian federation and it’s titular head proclaim that an attack on persia is an attack on the russian federation?… rinse and repeat for china and india.
going on 25 years too late.
this will never happen. neigher would it happen in the west if that would mean to really be in danger.
eastern european countries would wake up to realise that article 5 does not force anyone to go to war just to react within their possibilities. so if the usa, uk or france would get in danger themselves they wont come to help. which tells us that either they never inteded to enter ukraine at all or they are 100% sure it wont lead to a real war with russia.
as long as the global souths consists of countries who just care about themselves they will be picked one by one.
la religione non può governare uno stato, basta vedere cosa ha fatto la religione cattolica, guardate come vestono le suore e non gli fanno dire messa è vergognoso contro la donna, e là in iran fanno mettere quegli orribili hijab alle donne mortificandole invece di farle vestire e portare i capelli come desiderano e altra cosa importante mandarle all’università ,tutto questo va risolto e subito ricordo che il museo maxxi di roma è stato progettato da una donna architetto iraniana.
grandes multidões de iranianos marchavam pela república islâmica em apoio ao governo. não precisa dizer mais nada.