The Regime Change Machine Is Turning on Iran Again
the strategy shifts from direct confrontation to destabilization from within, through sabotage, information warfare, and regime-change pressure. That is why unrest inside Iran is being treated as an opening to exploit. That has been the official US and Israeli strategy for decades. And Israeli officials are already framing this like a Syria scenario.
This is all built to shape diaspora perception — and then feed Western headlines. Israel and the United States aren’t operating separately; they operate as an ecosystem. Israel drives the information war: narrative shaping, psychological operations, and online influence. The U.S. provides the infrastructure layer: funding pipelines, Persian-language media influence, pro-democracy NGO networks, and diaspora-facing institutions that convert narrative momentum into political pressure.
Even if Iranians overthrew their government today, that does not mean Iran’s future would suddenly be decided freely. Because the moment a state collapses, a vacuum opens. Washington and Tel Aviv will fill that vacuum. They will intervene politically, economically, and through media and proxy networks to shape the outcome.
January 16th, 2026, Mnar Adley, https://www.mintpressnews.com/us-israel-iran-protests-regime-change/290644/
Make no mistake: the U.S. and Israel are ready to seize this moment in Iran’s mass protests to drive a regime change operation. And it’s not even subtle.
Trump has openly threatened airstrikes against Iran — and he’s told protesters to keep going, promising: “Help is on the way.”
And Israeli security analysts are already gaming out a collapse scenario — suggesting the Israeli military could hit Iran’s strategic infrastructure and government targets if the state begins to crumble — to weaken the Islamic government and shape the outcome towards regime change with a plan to install Reza Pahlavi, the son of the brutal dictator, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
And the timing matters. Iran sits at the heart of the Axis of Resistance, and Israel has been hit with many political and regional losses from resistance in Gaza, Lebanon, and Yemen. With its global reputation destroyed after the genocide in Gaza and stalled normalization plans with Saudi Arabia and Turkey, Israel’s default issue is to attack Iran, as the Islamic Republic is the number one target of the apartheid state.
This is why Israel is seizing this moment now. Its own intelligence agency posted on its Farsi-language account urging Iranians to join the protests, even claiming that Mossad was with them “in the field.”
What began as legitimate protests over the collapsing rial, rising prices, economic hardship and calls for real political reforms is now bwwwwwweing hijacked by pro-monarchy rioters waving Shah-era flags, openly calling on Israel and the United States to help overthrow the government.
Reports indicate these rioters who are openly backed by Israel have burned down over 30 mosques, and committed attacks and killings against civilians and pro-government demonstrators, using military-style weapons, hunting rifles, knives, axes, and blades, while targeting police and state institutions.
MintPress has documented how Israeli intelligence covertly transfer weapons into Iran through its eastern border and often times through Israeli-tied Cargo Ships that travel past Yemen through the Red Sea. A MintPress investigation revealed that Zodiac Maritime, operator of the Mercer Street, has deep ties to the IDF and Mossad — using commercial ships to move arms and operatives for covert operations, including assassination missions inside Iran.
Phony Human Rights Groups
Despite these facts, Western corporate media are pushing out bogus casualty and mass arrest numbers that are being shared by diaspora Iranians in the push for regime change. But we at MintPress News traced these numbers back to one source: the Human Rights Activist News Agency – an arm of the Human Rights Agency in Iran (HRAI).
A new MintPress investigation found that this agency and its news arm are funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a CIA cutout organization.
They’ve become the go-to source for some of the most inflammatory claims and shockingly high casualty figures reported in the press. In the past week alone, their numbers have been repeated across outlets like CNN, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, ABC News, Sky News, and The New York Post, among others.
Even mainstream liberal commentators repeat these claims as settled fact. One example of this is Owen Jones, who wrote in The Guardian that Human Rights Iran is a “respected” group, and that their death toll claims are “probably significant underestimates.”
But what these reports almost never disclose is the funding pipeline connecting it directly to the CIA. Human Rights Activists in Iran presents itself as independent, but it’s based in Fairfax, Virginia — right inside the Washington intelligence ecosystem of the CIA. On its website, it describes itself as “non-political,” and even claims it does not accept financial aid from political groups or governments. Yet in the same paragraph, it admits its major donor is from the National Endowment for Democracy, a group created by the CIA to covertly do what the CIA once did openly.
And Human Rights Iran isn’t the only “human rights” NGO being signal-boosted into Western headlines. Another organization widely cited in coverage of Iran is the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran, led by Roya Boroumand — cited by outlets including The Washington Post, PBS, and ABC News.
And again, the proximity to the U.S. foreign policy apparatus is rarely mentioned.
Although the Boroumand Center does not prominently advertise it in its funding disclaimer, it has been supported by the National Endowment for Democracy. A 2024 NED press release described the center as a “partner” organization — and the NED awarded Boroumand its 2024 Goler T. Butcher medal for democracy promotion.
At that ceremony, NED officials openly praised the Boroumand Center’s work as an “indispensable resource” and said the NED was “proud to support” their advocacy toward what it called a “democratic future for Iran.”
And sitting on the center’s board is Francis Fukuyama — a former NED board member, and an editor of the NED’s own publication, the Journal of Democracy.
So when Western corporate media presents these organizations as neutral, independent referees while using them to justify escalations, sanctions narratives, and regime change pressure, understand what’s happening.
Propaganda Onslaught
These messages are being reinforced digitally on social media through coordinated media messaging, diaspora amplification, and bot-driven campaigns traced back to hubs including Tel Aviv, Virginia and LA, boosting hashtags calling for the downfall of the Islamic government.
Of course, Iranians have the right to self-determination But what is happening now is unfolding inside a long-standing U.S.-Israeli framework built around sanctions, information warfare, and “democracy promotion” pipelines, including CIA-linked front structures like the National Endowment for Democracy, designed to steer unrest and manipulate Iranian diaspora toward regime change.
We have to remember: Israel has spent decades pushing the nuclear red-herring — the claim Iran is always “months away” from an atom bomb — to justify sanctions, sabotage, and escalation.
This summer, Israel and its allies tried to pull the U.S. into direct strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. But instead of a clean victory, Israel took a major blow when Iran retaliated, hitting military targets and causing damage reportedly worth billions, including in and around Tel Aviv.
Israel can’t win a full-scale war with Iran on its own.
So the strategy shifts from direct confrontation to destabilization from within, through sabotage, information warfare, and regime-change pressure. That is why unrest inside Iran is being treated as an opening to exploit. That has been the official US and Israeli strategy for decades. And Israeli officials are already framing this like a Syria scenario.
In the last year alone, Israel has been deploying an AI enabled operation on X targeting Iranians in the diaspora — using fake bot accounts, AI-generated personas, fabricated crisis content, and synchronized posting to push regime change messaging — pushing the idea that Iran must be de-Islamicized, that the Islamic Republic must fall, and that the “solution” is a secular, Western-aligned order. Ironic, of course, considering it is being pushed by an ethnic-Jewish state.
And when they say “de-Islamicize Iran,” Israel means destroy its revolutionary spirit from its roots. Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution that overthrew a US and British backed Monarchy is rooted in Islamic history and stories of Imam Hussain and Karbala, standing against a tyrannical system of exploitation, class warfare and oppression no matter the cost even if it means to stand alone.
That story is the moral backbone of Iran’s resistance identity, including why it backs Palestinian liberation, working class movements, independence and rejects U.S. and Israeli imperialism in the region and is part of a resistance movement for liberation.
Therefore, weakening that Islamic identity weakens resistance, targeting not just Iran, but Hezbollah, Yemen, and Gaza. That is why secularization is being sold as “liberation,” even though Iran is a majority-Muslim country.
This AI signal boosting promoting secularism, the monarchy, and regime change to the diaspora is not new. During previous unrest, hashtags like #WomenLifeFreedom and #IraniansDetestSoleimani were aggressively signal-boosted by bot networks — with MintPress analyses showing major traffic patterns tied not to Iran, but to hubs in Los Angeles and Tel Aviv, and even MAGA-linked account clusters pushing the messaging. In some cases, over 80% of the traffic tied to these hashtags was coming from outside of Iran, according to X activity patterns and Google Analytics.
Read more: The Regime Change Machine Is Turning on Iran AgainThis is all built to shape diaspora perception — and then feed Western headlines. Israel and the United States aren’t operating separately; they operate as an ecosystem. Israel drives the information war: narrative shaping, psychological operations, and online influence. The U.S. provides the infrastructure layer: funding pipelines, Persian-language media influence, pro-democracy NGO networks, and diaspora-facing institutions that convert narrative momentum into political pressure.
Modern regime change against Iran doesn’t start with tanks. It starts with civil society capture — shaping what people believe, what they protest for, and what outcome they’re pushed toward through “pro-democracy NGOs” that are CIA cutouts. The stated goal and policy is to covertly do what the CIA once did openly.
That pipeline runs through a network of “democracy promotion” groups tied into U.S. foreign policy that can be traced back to the CIA’s National Endowment for Democracy, and organizations in its wider orbit like Foundation for Democracy in Iran, United for Iran, Tavaana, NUFDI, the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, and Farashgard. Different branding — same function: media narratives, activist training, diaspora pressure campaigns, and political steering toward one destination: regime change.
One of the pressure points repeatedly weaponized is culture, especially women and the hijab, framing Islamic governance as backward, while selling “freedom” as secularization and Western capitalism as the future of freedom.
Now here’s the part most people never hear: it’s an influence architecture, where Washington-linked NGOs generate the numbers, Western outlets repeat them as fact, and the funding networks behind them stay off-screen and are represented as “independent.”
In Washington, Iran policy runs through institutions that are funded by weapons manufactures like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin and pro-Israel billionaires with board members that read like a war criminal roster.
The pressure campaign is sustained by think tanks like the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, American Enterprise Institute, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and the Atlantic Council, pushing maximum pressure, sanctions escalation, and regime change year after year.
These institutions are fueled by donor networks tied to hardline pro-Israel politics — billionaire megadonors like Miriam Adelson, Paul Singer, and Haim Saban — who bankroll the ecosystem that keeps Iran framed as the permanent enemy and regime change as the permanent solution.
Imperial Games
And of course, Iran sits inside a broader U.S. Cold War framework targeting Russia, China, and Iran as the core adversarial bloc. Iran’s “crime” is refusing to submit — standing independent, backing resistance, and defying U.S. and Israeli power.
So the policy becomes familiar: isolate, sanction, destabilize. And if that fails, destroy.
Israel’s strategic doctrine has long treated the region’s strongest adversarial states – Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Iran – as targets for destabilization, because these states and alliances block Israeli dominance.
Its plan to weaken these states is documented in its Yinon Plan — the argument that Israel’s long-term security is strengthened when major states are broken into smaller sectarian and ethnic entities.
In 1996, a strategy paper written for Netanyahu’s circle called “A Clean Break” argued for reshaping Israel’s environment by weakening hostile states and rolling back adversaries. Meanwhile, in the U.S., the Brookings Institute published “Which Path to Persia?” treating regime change in Iran as a standing policy option, while outlining methods from pressure campaigns to covert destabilization.
If regime change doesn’t deliver a compliant Iran, partition becomes the fallback. The plan is to carve out a Sunni statelet across western Iraq and eastern Syria — specifically to cut the land corridor that connects Iran to its allies. That corridor runs Iran → Iraq → Syria → Lebanon — the route that links Tehran to the Mediterranean and to Hezbollah. And if you break that corridor, you isolate Iran, weaken the Axis of Resistance, and sever the regional link that makes Iran such a strategic problem for Israel.
The plan has already been partially executed with the U.S. and Israel’s proxy war in Syria, the new HTS leadership, the arming of Kurdish separatists, and breaking off Kurdistan into its own state in Iraq. This is called the Sunnistan plan inked by neocon war hawk John Bolton, and it is being put into action through policy by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, AEI, and the Washington Institute.
This has been the official plan for Iran and the region to target any resistance to U.S. and Israeli imperialism. So when bystanders call for regime change under the guise of humanitarianism, they do not realize they are falling into the trap of imperialist propaganda and war planning that is fueled by a very sophisticated messaging system.
Even if Iranians overthrew their government today, that does not mean Iran’s future would suddenly be decided freely. Because the moment a state collapses, a vacuum opens. Washington and Tel Aviv will fill that vacuum. They will intervene politically, economically, and through media and proxy networks to shape the outcome.
And that’s why the replacement is being preloaded right now. If the Islamic Republic falls, the preferred answer is ready: Reza Pahlavi, a secular figurehead. A pro-West, pro-normalization with Israel, reversing the Islamic Revolution’s economic independence, and reopening Iran’s strategic industries — oil, gas, infrastructure — to Western capital and privatization. That’s the sad truth.
Iran is not a chessboard. It is 90 million human beings, with a civilization, culture, and identity far deeper than any foreign policy narrative. This is a people shaped by deep history and resilience, not a caricature in a policy playbook. And if the world truly believes in self-determination, then Iran’s future cannot be decided by think tanks in Washington or intelligence agencies in Tel Aviv.
Yet Western governments — where police state repression is increasingly the norm at home — are acting like they have the moral authority to tell Iranians to overthrow their own government.
In the United States, Trump has unleashed ICE in ways that have involved grave abuses, all while that same government lectures the world about human rights and “freedom.”
And history shows us this clearly: when the empire intervenes, it’s ordinary people who bleed first. Iran’s future belongs only to Iranians.
Study reveals ‘persistent danger’ from Israel’s white phosphorus strikes in southern Lebanon
Middle East
An investigation mapping out 248 strikes highlights Israel’s use of white phosphorus during the recent conflict in southern Lebanon between October 2023 and November 2024. Open-source researcher Ahmad Baydoun, who conducted the study, emphasises the serious and ongoing concerns regarding the substance’s impact on health, agriculture and the environment.
The FRANCE 24 Observers/ Djamel BELAYACHI, 03/12/2025, https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20251203-study-reveals-persistent-danger-israeli-white-phosphorus-strikes-southern-lebanon
Burnt olive groves, devastated fields and toxic fragments buried underground – in southern Lebanon, Israel‘s use of white phosphorus during the conflict with Hezbollah from October 2023 to November 2024 left a lasting mark.
Although not explicitly prohibited by international law, the use of white phosphorus is regulated as an incendiary weapon. Its use against civilians or in populated areas is prohibited. In June 2024, the Israeli army claimed that it did not use white phosphorus shells to target or set fires, adding that “Israel Defence Forces procedures require that such shells are not used in densely populated areas, subject to certain exceptions”.
‘91% of white phosphorus strikes took place before Israeli forces entered southern Lebanon’
Ahmad Baydoun is an open source intelligence (OSINT) researcher at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. According to data from the study he led, presented in an interactive map published in October 2025, a significant proportion of white phosphorus strikes in southern Lebanon hit civilian and agricultural areas.
Collecting this data involved combining digital tools, verification of images posted on social media (particularly Facebook and Instagram), and testimonies from residents on the ground. Baydoun explains:
“Israel justifies the use of white phosphorus as a smoke screen to protect the movements of its troops or to mark targets. But according to my research, 91 percent of white phosphorus strikes took place before Israeli forces entered southern Lebanon in October 2024, which contradicts the official Israeli version. Furthermore, 39 percent of all phosphorus strikes we documented took place over civilian areas, 16 percent over agricultural land, and only 44 percent in uninhabited areas or areas far from residents.”
NGOs such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have documented the use of white phosphorus in or near residential areas, contradicting official Israeli statements.
‘A persistent danger to human life and livestock’
White phosphorus was used only with artillery during the last war, according to Baydoun. The munition explodes, scattering incandescent fragments over a wide area, reaching temperatures of up to 800°C.
Baydoun told our team:
“The munitions explode in the air and produce 115 small fragments that sink into the ground and continue to emit this toxic substance for ten to fifteen minutes. Fragments can remain active in the ground. They can remain dormant until they are exposed to oxygen again. Then they reactivate and produce smoke.
We had a farmer in southern Lebanon who, a year after the initial strike, hit a fragment with a stick, and the fragment started emitting toxic smoke again, demonstrating the ongoing danger to people’s lives and livestock.”
The study lists nearly 28,700 fragments scattered throughout the region, which are considered very difficult to extract.
“It is very difficult to extract them from the ground. If someone has livestock and that livestock eats one of these fragments, it dies immediately, and if a human consumes the meat from that livestock, they also die.”
Among the villages in southern Lebanon most affected by white phosphorus strikes are Al-Khiam (30 incidents), Meiss El-Jabal (28 strikes), Kfar Kila (26 strikes), Yaroun (24 strikes) and Rmaysh (17 strikes).
Fear of consuming local products
Thanks to the geolocation of hundreds of photos and videos, Baydoun’s project has precisely documented 248 strikes. Residents can check whether their land or homes have been affected.
Many residents express fear of consuming local products, particularly olive oil and vegetables, over concerns of invisible contamination. In February 2025, analyses conducted by the Lebanese Ministries of Agriculture and Environment did not detect traces of phosphorus in olive samples. However, high concentrations were found in some soils, posing a potential risk to future harvests.
According to the United Nations FAO, nearly 2,100 hectares of orchards were burned, 2.3 million livestock were killed, and agricultural losses in the south of the country and the Bekaa Valley (in eastern Lebanon) exceeded 704 million dollars between October 2023 and November 2024.
Iran & Israel Secretly Agreed Not To Attack Each Other Through Russian Backchannel
by Tyler Durden, Jan 15, 2026, https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/iran-israel-secretly-agreed-not-attack-each-other-through-russian-backchannel-wapo
There may have been some back-channel dealmaking and a ‘mutual understanding’ reached between Iran and Israel far behind the scenes as protests unfolded on Iran’s streets, and as President Trump began to make threats about striking Tehran.
At a moment Trump seems to have climbed down (at least for now) from the threatened drive to intervene militarily, The Washington Post has issued a Wednesday report saying Israel and Iran have been in indirect diplomatic contact via Russia as a mediator.
“Days before protests erupted in Iran in late December, Israeli officials notified the Iranian leadership via Russia that they would not launch strikes against Iran if Israel were not attacked first,” WaPo writes. “Iran responded through the Russian channel that it would also refrain from a preemptive attack, diplomats and regional officials with knowledge of the exchange said.”
Could this be because of the Iranian missiles that rained down on Tel Aviv back in June? If so, it seems the Islamic Republic has finally established deterrence.
The timeline of what was communicated when remains unclear. But this backchannel had already been revealed in Middle East media reports, for example in the following prior reporting:
Israel and Iran have recently exchanged secret, indirect messages through Russia in the midst of heightened regional tensions, according to a new report by Amwaj.media today. The exchanges were described as an effort to prevent further military escalation rather than to establish any form of ceasefire or diplomatic framework.
According to the report, the messages were conveyed through Russian President Vladimir Putin after Israel sought to pass along a signal that it was not interested in escalating military conflict at this stage. Iranian officials acknowledged the message but emphasized that their reply carried no commitment, no coordination, and no obligation on Iran’s part. An Iranian political source quoted in the report said bluntly that “there is no commitment, no coordination, and no ceasefire agreement.” The source emphasized that the contact should not be interpreted as a step toward broader understandings between the two countries, which remain bitter adversaries with no direct diplomatic ties.
The exchanges were reportedly limited in scope and intent. No guarantees were offered, no timelines were discussed, and no monitoring or enforcement mechanisms were established. One source described the communication as “a mutual announcement to a mutual friend on no new strikes,” meaning that the goal was simply to manage tensions at a specific moment rather than to lock in any lasting arrangement.
A senior Iranian political source confirmed that indirect communication with Israel had indeed taken place, identifying Russia, and specifically Putin, as the intermediary. The source reiterated that there was “no ceasefire agreement” and that the messages amounted only to parallel notifications of intent, rather than a shared understanding or deal.
The report says the Iranian side of the exchanges was handled not by the foreign ministry but by Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council.
It’s possible that this served as important background to Trump’s apparent decision to not strike Iran at this point. Israel is usually the country yelling loudest to hit Iran, but this time the Netanyahu government was somewhat muted.
By all accounts, Iran’s streets have pretty much gone quiet by now, after a crescendo of violence this week left hundreds dead, including many police and security personnel.
US Evacuating Some Troops From Middle East Bases as It Considers Attacking Iran
One of the bases the US is pulling troops from is the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, which Iran previously attacked in retaliation for the US bombing its nuclear facilities
NEWS.ANTIWAR.COM, by Dave DeCamp | January 14, 2026
The US is pulling some troops from several of its bases in the Middle East, as European officials told Reuters on Wednesday evening that a US attack on Iran could come within the next 24 hours. The US pulled forces from bases in the region before the start of the 12-day US-Israeli war against Iran in June 2025.
One of the bases the US is pulling troops from is the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, which Iran attacked in June in retaliation for the US bombing its nuclear facilities. Iran gave the US advanced warning ahead of the attack, giving the US military time to evacuate its forces and prepare to intercept the missiles.
Iranian officials have been warning they will strike US bases and ships in the region in response to any attack, and it’s likely this time they won’t give advanced notice……………………………………………………………………………………… https://news.antiwar.com/2026/01/14/us-evacuating-some-troops-from-middle-east-bases-as-it-considers-attacking-iran/
Revealed: The CIA-Backed Think Tanks Fueling The Iran Protests
Reading between the lines, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is attempting to build up a widespread network of media outlets, NGOs, activists, intellectuals, student leaders and politicians who will all sing from the same hymn sheet, that of “transitioning” from “authoritarianism” (i.e., the current system of government” to “democracy,” (i.e., a U.S.-picked government). In other words: regime change.
Mint Press News, January 15th, 2026. Alan Macleod
As waves of deadly demonstrations and counter-demonstrations hit Iran, MintPress examines the CIA-backed NGOs helping to stir the outrage and foment more violence.
One of these groups is Human Rights Activists In Iran, frequently referred to as HRA or HRAI in the media. The group, and its media arm, the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) have become the go-to group of experts for Western media, and are the source of many of the most inflammatory claims and shockingly high casualty figures reported in the press. In the past week alone, their assertions have provided much of the basis for stories in CNN, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, ABC News, Sky News, and The New York Post, among others. And in a passionate plea for leftists to support the protests, Owen Jones wrote in The Guardian Tuesday that HRAI are a “respected” group whose death toll proclamations are “probably significant underestimates.”
Yet what none of these reports mention is that Human Rights Activists In Iran is bankrolled by the Central Intelligence Agency, through its cutout organization, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED)
“Independent” NGOs, Brought to You By the CIA
Established in 2006, Human Rights Activists in Iran is based in Fairfax, Virginia, just a stone’s throw away from CIA headquarters in Langley. It describes itself as a “non-political” association of activists dedicated to advancing freedom and rights in Iran. On its website, it notes that, “because the organization seeks to remain independent, it doesn’t accept financial aid from neither political groups nor governments.” Yet, in the same paragraph, it notes that “HRAI has also been accepting donations from National Endowment for Democracy, a non-profit, non-governmental organization in the United States of America.” The level of NED investment into HRAI has been substantial, to say the least; journalist Michael Tracey found that, in 2024 alone, the NED had apportioned well over $900,000 towards the organization.
Another NGO widely cited in recent media reports on the protests is the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center for Human Rights in Iran (ABCHRI). The group has been quoted widely, including by The Washington Post, PBS, and ABC News. Like with the HRAI, these reports also fail to disclose the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center’s proximity to the U.S. national security state.
Although it does not mention it in its funding disclaimer, the center is supported by the NED. Last year, the NED described the center as a “partner” organization, and awarded its director, Roya Boroumand, their 2024 Goler T. Butcher medal for democracy promotion.
“Roya and her organization have worked rigorously and objectively to document human rights violations committed by the regime in Iran,” said Amira Maaty, senior director for NED’s Middle East and North Africa programs. “The work of the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center is an indispensable resource for victims to seek justice and hold perpetrators accountable under international law. NED is proud to support Roya and the center in their advocacy for human rights and tireless pursuit of a democratic future for Iran.”
In addition to this, sitting on the center’s board of directors is controversial academic, Francis Fukuyama, a former NED board member and an editor of its “Journal of Democracy” publication.
If anything, the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) has gone further than HRAI or the ABCHRI. Widely cited across Western media (e.g., The New York Times, The Guardian, USA Today), the CHRI has been the source of many of the goriest and most lurid stories coming out of Iran. A Monday article in The Washington Post, for example, leaned on the CHRI’s expertise to report that Iranian hospitals were being overwhelmed and had even run out of blood to treat the victims of government repression. “A massacre is unfolding. The world must act now to prevent further loss of life,” a CHRI spokesperson said. Given President Trump’s recent threats about U.S. military attacks on Iran, the implications of the statement were clear.
And yet, like with the other NGOs profiled, none of the corporate media outlets citing the Center for Human Rights in Iran noted its close connections to the U.S. national security state. The CHRI – an Iranian human rights group based in New York City and Washington, D.C. – was identified by the government of China as directly funded by the NED.
The claim is far from outlandish, given that CHRI board member, Mehrangiz Kar, is a former Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow at the NED. And in 2002 at a star-studded gala on Capitol Hill, First Lady Laura Bush and future president Joe Biden presented Kar with the NED’s annual Democracy Award.
A History of Regime Change Ops
The National Endowment for Democracy was created in 1983 by the Reagan administration, after a series of scandals had seriously damaged the image and reputation of the CIA. The Church Committee – a 1975 U.S. Senate investigation into CIA activities – found that the agency had masterminded the assassination of several foreign heads of state, was involved in a massive domestic surveillance campaign against progressive groups, had infiltrated and placed agents in hundreds of U.S. media outlets, and was carrying out shocking mind control experiments on unwilling American participants.
Technically a private entity, although receiving virtually all its funding from the federal government and being staffed by ex-spooks, the NED was created as a way to outsource many of the agency’s most controversial activities, especially overseas regime change operations. “It would be terrible for democratic groups around the world to be seen as subsidized by the CIA,” Carl Gershman, the NED’s longtime president, said in 1986. NED co-founder Allen Weinstein agreed: “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA,” he told The Washington Post.
Part of the CIA’s mission was to create a worldwide network of media outlets and NGOs that would parrot CIA talking points, passing it off as credible news. As former CIA taskforce leader John Stockwell admitted, “I had propagandists all over the world.” Stockwell went on to describe how he helped flood the world with fake news demonizing Cuba:
We pumped dozens of stories about Cuban atrocities, Cuban rapists [to the media]… We ran [faked] photographs that made almost every newspaper in the country… We didn’t know of one single atrocity committed by the Cubans. It was pure, raw, false propaganda to create an illusion of communists eating babies for breakfast.”
Mike Pompeo, former CIA director, alluded this being active CIA policy. At a 2019 talk at Texas A&M University, he said, “When I was a cadet, what’s the cadet motto at West Point? You will not lie, cheat, or steal or tolerate those who do. I was the CIA director. We lied, we cheated, we stole. We had entire training courses [on] it!”
One of the NED’s greatest successes came in 1996, when it successfully swung elections in Russia, spending vast amounts of money to ensure U.S. puppet ruler Boris Yeltsin would remain in power. Yeltsin, who came to power in a 1993 coup that dissolved parliament, was deeply unpopular, and it appeared that the Russian public were ready to vote for a return to Communism. The NED and other American agencies flooded Russia with money and propaganda, ensuring their man remained in power. The story was cataloged in a famous edition of Time magazine, whose title page was emblazoned with the words, “Yanks To The Rescue: the Secret Story of How American Advisors Helped Yeltsin Win.”
Six years later, the NED provided both the finances and the brains for a briefly successful coup d’état against Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez. The NED spent hundreds of thousands of dollars flying coup leaders (such as Marina Corina Machado) back and forth to Washington, D.C. After the coup was overturned and the plot was exposed, NED funding to Machado and her allies actually increased, and the organization has continued to fund her and her political organizations.
The NED would have more luck in Ukraine, playing a key role in the successful 2014 Maidan Revolution that toppled President Viktor Yanukovych and replaced him with a pro-U.S. successor. The Maidan affair followed a tried-and-tested formula, with large numbers of people coming out to protest, and a hardcore of trained paramilitaries carrying out acts of violence aimed at destabilizing the government and provoking a military response.
Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs (and future NED board member) Victoria Nuland flew to Kiev to signal the U.S. government’s full support of the movement to oust Yanukovych, even handing out cookies to protestors in the city’s main square. A leaked telephone call showed that the new Ukrainian prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, was directly chosen by Nuland. “Yats is the guy,” she can be heard telling U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, citing his experience and friendliness with Washington as key factors. The 2014 Maidan Revolution and its aftermath would lead to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine eight years later.
Just across the border in Belarus, the NED planned similar actions to overthrow President Alexander Lukashenko. At the time of the attempt (2020-2021), the NED was pursuing 40 active projects inside the country.
On a Zoom call infiltrated and covertly recorded by activists, the NED’s senior Europe Program officer, Nina Ognianova, boasted that the groups leading the nationwide demonstrations against Lukashenko were trained by her organization. “We don’t think that this movement that is so impressive and so inspiring came out of nowhere — that it just happened overnight,” she said, noting that the NED had made a “significant contribution” to the protests.
On the same call, NED President Gershman noted that “we support many, many groups, and we have a very, very active program throughout the country, and many of the groups obviously have their partners in exile,” boasting that the Belarusian government was powerless to stop them. “We’re not like Freedom House or NDI [the National Democratic Institute] and the IRI [International Republican Institute]; we don’t have offices. So if we’re not there, they can’t kick us out,” he said, comparing the NED to other U.S. regime change organizations.
The attempted Color Revolution did not succeed, however, as demonstrators were met with large counter-demonstrations, and Lukashenko remains in power to this day. The NED’s actions were a key factor in Lukashenko’s decision to abandon his relationship with the West, and ally Belarus with Russia.
Just months after their failure in Belarus, the NED fomented another regime change attempt, this time in Cuba. The agency spent millions of dollars infiltrating and buying off pliant musical artists, especially in the hip hop community, in an attempt to turn local popular culture against its revolution. Led by Cuban rappers, the U.S. attempted to rally the people into the streets, flooding social media with calls from celebrities and politicians alike to topple the government. This did not translate into boots on the ground, however, and the fiasco was written off sarcastically as the U.S.’ “Bay of Tweets.”
So many of the most visible protest movements the world over have been quietly masterminded by the NED. This includes the 2019-2020 Hong Kong protests, wherein the agency funnelled millions to the movement’s leaders to keep people in the streets as long as possible. The NED continues to work with Uyghur and Tibetan separatist groups, in the hope of destabilizing China. Other known NED meddling projects include interfering with elections in France, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Poland.
It is precisely for these reasons, therefore, that accepting funding from the NED should be unthinkable for any serious NGO or human rights organization, as so many that do have been front groups for American power and clandestine regime change operations. It is also why the public should be extremely wary about any claims made by organizations on the payroll of a CIA cutout organization, especially those that attempt to hide the fact. Journalists, too, have a duty to scrutinize any statements made by these groups, and inform their readers and viewers about their inherent conflicts of interests.
Targeting Iran
Apart from funding the three U.S.-based human rights NGOs profiled here, the NED is spearheading a myriad of operations targeting the Islamic Republic. According to its 2025 grant listings, there are currently 18 active NED projects for Iran, although the agency does not divulge any of the groups they are working with.
It also refuses to divulge any hard details about these projects, beyond rather bland descriptions that include:
Empowering” a network of “frontline and exiled activists” inside Iran;
“Promoting independent journalism,” and “Establishing media platforms to influence the public;”
“Monitoring and promoting human rights;”
“Training student leaders inside Iran;”
“Advancing policy analysis, debate, and collective actions on democracy,” and;
“Foster[ing] collaboration between Iranian civil society and political activists on a democratic vision and raise awareness on civic rights within the legal community, the organization will facilitate debate on transition models from authoritarianism to democracy.”
Reading between the lines, the NED is attempting to build up a widespread network of media outlets, NGOs, activists, intellectuals, student leaders and politicians who will all sing from the same hymn sheet, that of “transitioning” from “authoritarianism” (i.e., the current system of government” to “democracy,” (i.e., a U.S.-picked government). In other words: regime change.
Iran, of course, has been in American crosshairs ever since the removal of the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi during the Islamic Revolution of 1978-79. Pahlavi himself had been kept in place by the CIA, who engineered a coup against the democratically-elected government of Mohammad Mossadegh (1952-53). Mossadegh, a secular liberal reformer, had angered Washington by nationalizing the country’s oil industry, carrying out land reform, and refusing to crush the communist Tudeh Party.
The CIA (the NED’s parent organization), infiltrated Iranian media, paying them to run hysterical anti-Mossadegh content, carried out terror attacks inside Iran, bribed officials to turn against the president, cultivated ties with reactionary elements within the military, and paid protestors to flood the streets at anti-Mossadegh rallies.
The shah reigned for 26 bloody years between 1953 and 1979, until he was overthrown in the Islamic Revolution.
The U.S. supported Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, who almost immediately invaded Iran, leading to a bitter, eight-year long conflict that killed at least half a million people. Washington supplied Hussein with a wide range of weapons, including components for chemical weapons used on Iranians, as well as other weapons of mass destruction.
Since 1979, Iran has also been under restrictive American economic sanctions, measures that have severely hindered the country’s development. During his first term, Trump withdrew from the Iran Nuclear Deal and turned up the economic pressure. The result was a collapse in the value of the Iranian rial, mass unemployment, soaring rents and a doubling of the price of food. Ordinary people lost both their savings and their long-term security.
Throughout this, Trump has constantly threatened Iran with attack, finally following through in June, bombing a host of infrastructure projects inside the country.
A Legitimate Protest
The current demonstrations began on December 28 as a protest against rising prices. Yet they quickly ballooned into something much bigger, with thousands calling for an overthrow of the government, and even the reinstatement of the monarchy under the son of the shah, Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi.
They were quickly supported and signal boosted by the U.S. and Israeli national security states. “The Iranian regime is in trouble,” Pompeo announced. “Happy New Year to every Iranian in the streets. Also to every Mossad agent walking beside them…” he added. Israeli media are openly reporting that “foreign elements” (i.e., Israeli) are “arming the protesters in Iran with live weapons, and this is the reason for the hundreds of dead among the regime’s people.”
The Israeli intelligence services confirmed Pompeo’s not-so-cryptic assertion. “Go out together into the streets. The time has come,” the spying agency’s official social media accounts instructed Iranians: “We are with you. Not only from a distance and verbally. We are with you in the field.”
Trump echoed those words. “TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!! Save the names of the killers and abusers. They will pay a big price,” he roared, adding that American “help is on the way.”
Any debate about what Trump meant by “American help” was ended on Monday, when he stated that “If Iran shots [sic] and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue… We are locked and loaded and ready to go.” He also attempted to place an all-out economic blockade, announcing that any country trading with Tehran would face an additional 25% tariff.
All of this, added to the increasing violence of the protests, makes it much harder for Iranians to express themselves politically. What started as a demonstration about the cost of living has spiralled into a huge, openly insurrectionist movement, backed and fomented by the U.S. and Israel. Iranians, of course, have every right to protest, but a wealth of factors have raised the very real possibility that much of the anti-government movement is an inorganic, U.S.-orchestrated attempt at regime change. While Iranians can argue about how they wish to express themselves and what sort of government they want, what is undebatable is that so many of the think tanks and NGOs called upon to provide supposed expert evidence and commentary about these protests are tools of the National Endowment for Democracy.
Alan MacLeod is Senior Staff Writer for MintPress News. He completed his PhD in 2017 and has since authored two acclaimed books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent, as well as a number of academic articles. He has also contributed to FAIR.org, The Guardian, Salon, The Grayzone, Jacobin Magazine, and Common Dreams. Follow Alan on Twitter for more of his work and commentary:
Founders of Deadly Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), ‘Shaping’ New US-Backed Administration for Gaza: Report
Netanyahu’s top military advisor is among those central to the new executive committee, which is due to operate under Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’
News Desk, JAN 14, 2026, https://thecradle.co/articles/founders-of-deadly-ghf-shaping-new-us-backed-administration-for-gaza-report
Many of the figures emerging as key players in the new US-backed administration for Gaza were central to Washington’s Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the Financial Times (FT) reported.
The GHF was a deadly US-Israeli aid scheme introduced in May, which was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of starving Palestinian aid seekers.
According to the FT report, the Gaza executive committee set to be announced soon – which will operate directly under a Trump-led ‘Board of Peace’ – is being “shaped” by several people close to Israel.
This includes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chief military advisor, Roman Gofman, and US-Israeli investor Michael Eisenberg, who has been advising the Israeli premier since the start of the ceasefire.
Others involved are US-Israeli policymaker Aryeh Lightstone and Israeli cybersecurity entrepreneur Liran Tancman, who is Mossad-linked.
All four of these men were involved in the establishment of GHF. The deadly aid scheme resulted in the killing of around 2,000 Palestinians within half a year.
Under the pretext of humanitarian assistance, Palestinians were crammed into tight spaces and handed limited quantities of aid for months as Israeli troops and US contractors regularly opened fire at unarmed aid seekers.
The announcement of Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’ was meant to take place this week, but has been delayed. According to reports, the executive committee that will operate under the board could be announced as early as Wednesday.
“Eighteen Palestinian officials have received invitations to join the committee that will replace Hamas,” sources told the New Arab.
Ali Shaath, a former deputy planning minister in the Palestinian Authority (PA), has been designated to head the committee, while retired intelligence official Mohammed Nisman is expected to assume control over security.
According to the sources, the committee is scheduled to hold its meeting in Egypt’s capital on Thursday, the sources said.
The ‘Board of Peace,’ which will be announced later, is expected to include 15 world leaders from countries such as the UK, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Egypt.
Hamas has repeatedly vowed that it is ready to hand over governance to an independent body of technocratic Palestinians, as envisioned in the truce.
It rejects disarmament until an independent Palestinian state is formed, but has expressed openness to an initiative that would “freeze” its weapons for a period of time.
The group has stressed that the second phase of the ceasefire deal cannot commence until Israel halts all violations.
Israel has killed at least 442 Palestinians since the US-backed ‘ceasefire’ was reached in October last year, the Gaza Health Ministry reported. Over 1,200 have been injured.
Tel Aviv continues to indiscriminately target civilians, justifying the attacks under the pretext of alleged ‘security threats,’ while persisting in the violent pursuit of resistance leaders with no regard for the terms of the ceasefire agreement. The blockade on Gaza also remains in place, further deepening the humanitarian crisis.
Sources told Times of Israel in a report published on 11 January that the Israeli army has drawn up plans for a new assault in the Gaza Strip – aimed at expanding the areas under Tel Aviv’s control in violation of the ceasefire.
On the Eve of Destruction: Has His Majesty’s Madness for War Led His Loyal Supporters Astray?
15 January 2026 David Tyler, https://theaimn.net/on-the-eve-of-destruction-has-his-majestys-madness-for-war-led-his-loyal-supporters-astray/
The Persian Gulf is no longer a tinderbox; it is an inferno. Just this morning, President Trump of the USA and Venezuela, as he now styles himself, has effectively issued a declaration of intent, telling Iranian protesters that “help is on its way.” Is that a threat or a promise? Survivors remember US help last time. But as B-2 bombers warm their engines and squadrons of Israeli Adir, as they call their versions of F35s, stealth fighter jets, sit fuelled on the tarmac, we must pull back the curtain on the “spontaneous” uprising that serves as the pretext for this looming catastrophe.
The Hand of the Provocateur
The economic misery of Iran’s people is raw and real; the rial has lost around four-fifths of its value since the June 2025 war; inflation is crippling. But the timing of this chaos cannot be ignored. Tehran is right to point to the meddling of foreigners. When former CIA Director, Mike Pompeo, tweeted a “New Year” greeting to “every Mossad agent walking beside” the protesters, the mask wasn’t just slipping; it was discarded.
History repeats as farce: just as the CIA orchestrated the 1953 coup in Tehran by paying mobs to riot, today’s agents provocateurs are reportedly steering protesters toward IRGC outposts and banks. Iranian state media has showcased confessions from alleged Mossad agents, while reports of 40,000 Starlink terminals smuggled into the country by the CIA and Mossad lend credence to Tehran’s narrative; even as the protests’ roots in economic despair remain undeniable.
The CIA may have wasted its time with the Starlink. Iran has successfully disrupted 80% of Starlink service using military-grade GPS jamming; the first regime to effectively cripple what was thought to be “unjammable” satellite internet
Iran accuses the CIA of creating a level of “state-directed” “massacre” that provides the moral high ground for a “Humanitarian Strike.” The irony could not be any darker. The US mission is to save lives. Even if their agents have to shoot every protester themselves to create the pretext for a US-Israeli attack.
Iran’s Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi claims Trump’s warning of military intervention motivated “terrorists” to target protesters and security forces to encourage foreign intervention. Translation: he’s alleging provocateurs are shooting people deliberately to justify Trump’s promised intervention.
“Protesters are speculating” – CNN reports: “protesters are speculating whether the violence is being fuelled by the Iranian regime itself, or by foreign powers.” In the digital blackout, any atrocity can be committed and blamed on anybody. Qatari state broadcaster, Al Jazeera, is giving serious airtime to Tehran’s claim that terrorist groups are shooting people.
When Al Jazeera gives prominent airtime to Iran’s “armed terrorist groups shot people” narrative, that’s not neutral journalism – it’s Doha signaling to Tehran that they’re sympathetic to their version while trying to keep communication channels open
Classic Gulf realpolitik: publicly neutral, privately picking sides based on gas pipelines and base leases.
The Napoleonic Blunder: Two Fronts, Zero Carriers
But US forces may struggle. In his hubris, the President has committed the ultimate strategic error: the creation of a war on two opposing fronts. On January 3, US Special Forces captured Nicolás Maduro in Caracas, and the USS Gerald R. Ford; the Navy’s most advanced carrier, is now anchored in the Caribbean, not the Persian Gulf. This has left a catastrophic “Carrier Gap” in the Middle East. For the first time in years, there is no US aircraft carrier in the 5th Fleet’s area of responsibility.
To launch a war against a sophisticated adversary like Iran, while the Navy is playing colonial administrator in the Caribbean, is more than a mistake; it is a Napoleonic blunder of historic proportions. Or it’s Thiel and Miller’s idea of a military 4D Chess gambit.
The “Grey Figures” and the Fascist Blueprint
The common refrain that Trump “appoints the worst” is only half-true. As Robert Reich has pointed out, the real danger lies in the “grey figures” who are terrifyingly competent. Figures such as Peter Thiel, whose Palantir systems are now the “eyes” of the US military, and Stephen Miller, the architect of the administration’s most ruthless nationalist policies, are not bumbling sycophants. They are “highly capable fascists” who view the destruction of the Iranian regime as a necessary “disruption” to the global order.
Thiel’s Palantir isn’t just watching the war; it’s scripting it. The company’s AI platforms, honed in Ukraine and Gaza, are now the “eyes” of the US military, turning battlefield data into kill chains. The same AI that monitored Iran’s nuclear porgram, identified strike targets in June 2025. It now processes protest data, social media and Starlink traffic. It predicts “threats using predictive policing algorithms. This is “creative destruction” as geopolitical doctrine, with Thiel and Miller as its high priests.
Their criterion for service is not just sycophancy, but a shared disdain for the “old world” of diplomacy. They have led the President’s loyal supporters astray by rebranding a traditional regime-change war as a “populist rescue,” while simultaneously building the digital surveillance infrastructure to ensure that “liberty” abroad looks a lot like “control” at home.
Just to recap. When 12,000 Iranians die in two nights with the internet dark, and Palantir’s AI is processing every data point – who decided they were threats? An algorithm trained on Israeli battlefield data? A predictive model that flags “rioters” the same way it flagged Gaza civilians as “militants”?
Thiel’s company doesn’t just see the war – it authors it. And it’s making billions doing so.
The Retaliation Forecast: A Doomsday Scenario
If the “Iron Strike” protocols are triggered this week, the response will be a regional fireball:
Targeting the “Fixed” Assets: Without carriers, the US must fly from land bases like Al Udeid (Qatar) and NSA Bahrain. These are static targets. Iran’s parliamentary speaker, Ghalibaf, has already warned that these bases will be “totally obliterated” by ballistic missile swarms the moment the first US bomb falls.
The Strait Chokehold: Expect the mining of the Strait of Hormuz, which will send oil prices, already spiked by the Venezuela crisis, into territory that could collapse the global economy.
The “Shadow Fleet” Conflict: The recent US seizure of the Marinera (the renamed Bella 1) shows that the “Shadow War” has already turned kinetic.
With no carriers in the Gulf and US bases in Qatar and Bahrain sitting ducks for Iranian missiles, the “Humanitarian Strike” could quickly become a humanitarian catastrophe. The two-front trap is set; and the empire may have walked right into it.
The Periphery as a Laboratory: The “Donroe Doctrine”
Joseph Schumpeter spoke of “Creative Destruction” as the essential fact of capitalism, the incessant revolutionizing of the economic structure from within by destroying the old one.
In 2026, the Trump administration has applied this to geopolitics.
Under what independent commentators are calling the “Donroe Doctrine,” the administration is treating the global periphery – Venezuela in the West and Iran in the East – as obsolete structures to be liquidated.
The Venezuelan Template: The January 3rd abduction of Maduro wasn’t just about drugs; it was about the “destruction” of a non-compliant energy node to make way for a US-managed resource monopoly.
The Iranian Bait: Al-Jazeera’s recent reporting highlights that while Iran’s Foreign Minister Araghchi pleads for dialogue, the “Grey Figures” in Washington; the Thiels and Millers, are busy ensuring the “creative” part of the destruction. By baiting the regime into the January 8th massacre via agents provocateurs, they have created the “moral” vacuum necessary to install a new, techno-dependent order.
The Symbiosis: Sycophants vs. The “Highly Capable”
Trump is very useful to his key staffers; they need the distraction of his madness. The real power dynamic is not found in the sycophancy of a Pete Hegseth, but in the calculated brilliance of the ideologues.
The Architect: Stephen Miller has successfully pivoted from domestic nativism to a “Brute Strength” foreign policy. He isn’t just a sycophant; he is a practitioner of realpolitik who views the two-front war (Venezuela/Iran) as a necessary “stress test” for American hegemony.
The Engineer: Peter Thiel’s involvement represents the ultimate Schumpeterian shift. Through Palantir’s integration into the “Iron Strike” protocols, the war is being fought as an algorithmic liquidation. This is the symbiosis: Trump provides the populist gale, while the “Grey Figures” provide the silicon-grade precision to ensure the “destruction” is permanent.
The Australian Connection: The Mirror of Suppression
As we look at the suppression of speech in Australia, the parallels are chilling. The “Public Assembly Restriction Declarations” (PARD) in Sydney, ostensibly to “ensure safety” after the Bondi tragedy, are being used to silence those protesting the US attack on Venezuela.
In Canberra, the “Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism Bill” is a masterclass in Orwellian doublespeak. Ostensibly targeting hate, its sweeping powers could just as easily silence critics of US wars or Israeli apartheid. And with a loophole for religious scripture, it may even protect the very extremists it claims to combat.
The Schumpeterian Irony: In the drive to “creatively destroy” foreign adversaries, the administration and its allies are destroying the very liberal-democratic structures they claim to defend.
Strategic Assessment: The Two-Front Trap
Despite the “capable fascists” at the helm, the Napoleonic blunder remains. With the USS Gerald R. Ford anchored in the Caribbean, the US is vulnerable. Iran knows this. Their “Arc of Fire” retaliation plan doesn’t target carriers; it targets the static, land-based infrastructure of the “Grey Figures’” digital war.
Next Update: I am currently tracking the flow of “emergency” data-sharing agreements between Canberra and Washington. It appears the suppression of the Sydney protests is being used as a training set for the very “Human Geography” mapping Thiel is deploying in Tehran.
In the next instalment, we’ll examine how the “Donroe Doctrine” is reshaping the global order, and why the “help” that is “on its way” may be the very thing that finishes us.
President Trump Urges Iran Protests To Continue, Says ‘Help Is on Its Way’
The president also said he cut off contact with Iranian officials
by Dave DeCamp | January 13, 2026 , https://news.antiwar.com/2026/01/13/president-trump-urges-iran-protests-to-continue-says-help-is-on-its-way/
President Trump on Tuesday called for the protests in Iran to continue and said “help is on its way,” suggesting he was making another threat of military intervention.
“Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING – TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!! Save the names of the killers and abusers. They will pay a big price,” the president wrote on Truth Social.
The president also said he cut off contact with Iranian officials, a comment that came after he suggested he was open to diplomacy with Tehran. “I have cancelled all meetings with Iranian Officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY. MIGA!!!” Trump added.
“MIGA” refers to “Make Iran Great Again,” a slogan Trump used during the 12-day US-Israeli war against Iran back in June 2025 when he floated the idea of regime change in the country. He also recently posed with a “Make Iran Great Again Hat” alongside Sen. Lindsey Graham, who has said the president is ready to kill Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, responded to Trump’s post, saying the “names of the main killers of the people of Iran” were the US president and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Also on Tuesday, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed it disrupted “Israeli-linked terror teams” and seized US-made weapons.
Iranian officials have warned that the US would face a severe response to any attack. “Come and see what will happen to American ships and military bases in the region,” the speaker of Iran’s parliament, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, said at a pro-government rally over the weekend.
“Come and burn in the fire of the Iranian nation so severely that it becomes a lasting lesson in history for all oppressive US rulers. Come and find out what will happen to you and to the region,” he added.
US Surging Military Assets To the Middle East To Prepare for War With Iran After Trump Postpones Attack
Reports claim that Netanyahu asked Trump to delay the attack as Israel wants more time to prepare for counterattacks
by Dave DeCamp | January 15, 2026, https://news.antiwar.com/2026/01/15/us-surging-military-assets-to-the-middle-east-to-prepare-for-war-with-iran-after-trump-postpones-attack/
The US military is planning to surge military assets to the Middle East to prepare for a potential war with Iran after President Trump backed down from bombing the country, according to a report from The New York Times.
US officials told the paper that the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and some warships from its strike group were on their way to the Middle East from the South China Sea, a roughly week-long trip. The US is also planning to send an array of warplanes to the Middle East, including fighter jets and refueling aircraft, and additional air defenses.
According to other media reports, the US military’s message to Trump amid his threats to bomb Iran is that there weren’t enough US assets in the region to face a potential counterattack, which could target the many US bases in the region. Trump was also reportedly told that US strikes likely wouldn’t result in regime change and could lead to a prolonged war.
The Times report also said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked Trump to postpone his plans to attack Iran, and Axios reported the same thing later, saying that Netanyahu wants more time to prepare for Iranian retaliation.
If the reports about Netanyahu’s request are true, it’s likely that he also wants more US military assets in the region since Israel relied on US forces to intercept Iranian missiles during the war back in June 2025, and many still got through and struck Israeli territory, which is what led to Israel agreeing to a ceasefire after 12 days.
On the other hand, the leaks and delays could be meant to keep Iran off guard as the US and Israel engaged in a deception campaign before Israel launched the opening salvo of the 12-Day War.
The White House has claimed that Iran has postponed planned executions due to Trump’s threats and warned that if the “killing” in Iran continues, there will be consequences. However, the unrest in Iran is just the latest pretext for war with Iran.
Iran’s nuclear program was the pretext for launching the 12-Day War, and while meeting with Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago back in December, Trump said he would back an Israeli attack on Iran if Tehran “continues” its conventional missile program. There’s no sign that Iran would even consider limiting its ballistic missiles since they are the Islamic Republic’s only form of deterrence.
Caitlin Johnstone: You Know They’re Lying About Iran
Caitlin Johnstone, Jan 15, 2026, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/you-know-theyre-lying-about-iran?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=184538794&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
You’ve seen this all before. They run the same script over and over again. You know all the beats. The formula never changes.
“Oh no, the people in the targeted nation are being oppressed! They need freedom and democracy!”
“Hey, I bet we could use our powerful military to help them get the freedom and democracy! Wouldn’t that be swell?”
“Oh gosh, there are some people who don’t think we should use our powerful military to help the people in the targeted nation get freedom and democracy! They must have some sinister, suspicious loyalty to the Evil Regime which rules the targeted nation!”
“Look, I get that sometimes in the past we have used our powerful military in ways that were mean and unhelpful, but you need to understand that the Evil Regime is also very, very bad. Two things can be true at the same time, you know!”
“Oh no, now the Evil Regime is committing atrocities! You know it’s true because it’s in the news, and the news isn’t allowed to lie! We’ve got to DO something! We can’t just DO NOTHING!”
Don’t fall for it.
Don’t fall for the propaganda.
Don’t fall for the imperial concern trolling about human rights.
Don’t fall for the nuance policing and both-sidesing of the empire’s operatives and useful idiots.
Don’t let the empire apologists shout you down and shut you up.
Stand your ground. This is exactly what it looks like. You are right, and they are wrong.
They’re not doing anything new. They’re using the same old script. Hell, they’re even using a lot of the same actors. This is the same bullshit as always.
Once you’ve seen enough Hollywood movies, you get familiar with the formula. Boy meets girl, but he’s got some kind of secret or character flaw that will be discovered by the girl about three-quarters of the way through the film, it will seem as though all is lost, but he wins her back in the end. They churn out variations of this movie year after year, following the same formula every time.
This is like that. You’ve seen enough of these to know the formula by now.
Trust your gut. Have confidence in your own inner vision. You’ve got this.
There’s probably going to be a whole lot of narrative distortion dumped into the information ecosystem in the coming days, but they’re not going to make a sucker out of you.
You’re seeing things much too clearly now.
Reza Pahlavi vows to recognise Israel, end nuclear programme if he led Iran.
Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s deposed Shah, set out key policies he would put in place if he ever returned to rule the country. Pahlavi said he would recognise Israel and end Iran’s nuclear programme. Pahlavi, who lives in the US, has backed calls to overthrow Iran’s leaders.
Trump names son-in-law, Rubio, Blair to Gaza ‘Board of Peace’
Jessica Gardner, Jan 17, 2026 , https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/trump-names-son-in-law-rubio-blair-to-gaza-board-of-peace-20260117-p5nuqb
Washington | United States President Donald Trump has named Secretary of State Marco Rubio, his Middle East fixer Steve Witkoff, his son-in-law Jared Kushner and private equity baron Marc Rowan to a Board of Peace to oversee the rehabilitation of wartorn Gaza.
The formation of the board, which will be chaired by Trump, was one of the 20-steps in a peace plan that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the terror group Hamas agreed to in September 2025, which led to the longest enduring ceasefire in the two-year conflict.
A White House statement released on Friday afternoon (Saturday AEDT) named the seven-member executive board, which also includes former British prime minister Sir Tony Blair, World Bank president Ajay Banga and US national security adviser Robert Gabriel.
There are no women on the board, nor are there any Palestinian representatives or leaders from Arab nations.
Each board member will “oversee a defined portfolio critical to Gaza’s stabilisation and long-term success,” the White House said. These responsibilities included governance capacity-building, regional relations, reconstruction, investment attraction, large-scale funding, and capital mobilisation.
Trump has also appointed Major General Jasper Jeffers to command an International Stabilisation Force to “establish security, preserve peace, and establish a durable terror-free environment”.
Trump has previously relied on Witkoff and Kushner as on-the-ground sherpas of his unorthodox style of foreign policy. Witkoff, a former real estate developer, has also been heavily involved in negotiations to end the Russia-Ukraine war.
The two men, as well as Blair and Rowan, the chief executive of $US908 billion ($1.4 trillion) investment giant Apollo Global Management, will also join a Gaza Executive Board responsible for supporting governance and service delivery.
Other members of that board include Turkish Foreign Minster Hakan Fidan, Qatari diplomat Ali Al-Thawadi, Egyptian intelligence official Hassan Rashad and United Arab Emirates Minister of State for International Cooperation Reem Al-Hashimy.
Trump earned praise for his role in persuading Netanyahu to end his military campaign in Gaza, which was sparked by the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by the terror group Hamas, which killed 1200 Israelis and took 250 hostages. Israel’s two-year retaliation led to the death of over 70,000 Palestinians, the majority of them civilians.
The ceasefire led to the return of all living hostages and almost all the remains of those hostages who had been killed.
Witkoff said in a post on social media platform X on Wednesday that the White House was moving into the second phase of Trump’s peace plan, which will include establishing a transitional Palestinian governing committee and beginning the complicated tasks of disarming Hamas and reconstruction.
The United Nations has estimated reconstruction will cost over $US50 billion. This process is expected to take years, and little money has been pledged so far.
Trump’s 20-point plan — which was approved by the U.N. Security Council — lays out an ambitious vision for ending Hamas’ rule in Gaza. If successful, it would see the rebuilding of a demilitarized Gaza under international supervision, the normalization of relations between Israel and the Arab world, and the creation of a possible pathway to Palestinian independence.
But if the deal stalls, Gaza could be trapped in an unstable limbo for years to come, with Hamas remaining in control of parts of the territory, Israel’s army enforcing an open-ended occupation, and its residents stuck homeless, unemployed, unable to travel abroad and dependent on international aid to stay alive.
The ceasefire took effect on October 10, 2025, although Israeli fire has killed more than 450 Palestinians since then, according to Gaza health officials. Palestinian militants, meanwhile, continue to hold the remains of the last hostage — an Israeli police officer killed in the Hamas-led attack that triggered the war.
Gaza’s population of more than 2 million people has struggled to keep cold weather and storms at bay while facing shortages of humanitarian aid and a lack of more substantial temporary housing, which is badly needed during the winter months.
Report: Military Tells Trump It Needs More Time to Prepare for War With Iran.
Military commanders in the Middle East want more time to prepare for Iranian counterattacks
by Kyle Anzalone | January 11, 2026 , https://news.antiwar.com/2026/01/11/report-military-tells-trump-it-needs-more-time-to-prepare-for-war-with-iran/
Senior Department of War officials have told President Donald Trump they need more time to consolidate American troops deployed to the Middle East before the US launches an attack on Iran.
According to The Telegraph, “Trump has been warned that the US military needs more time to prepare for strikes against Iran.” Military commanders in the Middle East stated they need to “consolidate US military positions and prepare defences” in anticipation of an Iranian retaliatory attack.
Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said that if it attacks Iran, the Islamic Republic will strike Israel and US bases in the Middle East/
Trump has threatened Iran several times in recent weeks. “If Iran [shoots] and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue. We are locked and loaded and ready to go,” Trump said earlier this month.
Demonstrations began in Iran two weeks ago, and some protests have escalated into riots. Some groups report that 200 people have been killed during the demonstrations, including over 40 members of Iranian security forces.
Iranian authorities have reportedly used live ammunition to break up protests, and Tehran has cut off internet service in an attempt to quell the movement.
Israel Hayom spoke with American officials who said the White House is preparing a range of actions against Iran, including using Starlink to provide protesters with internet access, a cyber attack, new sanctions, and kinetic military action.
The Telegraph reports that potential targets of US strikes include non-military targets in Tehran and Iranian security forces.
At the end of last year, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traveled to the US to lobby Trump to restart the war with Iran. In June, Israel launched a surprise attack on Iran that ignited a 12-day war.
During the conflict, Trump ordered American bombers to strike three Iranian nuclear sites. The Islamic Republic responded by striking a US military base in Qatar. The Iranian response was viewed as symbolic, and a ceasefire between the US, Israel, and Iran was reached shortly after.
You Can’t Cheer For Regime Change In Iran Without Also Cheering For The US Empire.
Caitlin Johnstone, Jan 11, 2026, https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/you-cant-cheer-for-regime-change?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=184201179&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
The western press are reporting that Trump is considering another attack on Iran as protests heat up amid a government crackdown and internet blackout. The president had previously announced that he will intervene militarily if the Iranian government starts killing protesters.
At this point it’s probably worth recalling that earlier this month Mike Pompeo tweeted that Mossad agents were intimately involved in the unrest, saying, “Happy New Year to every Iranian in the streets. Also to every Mossad agent walking beside them.”
Pompeo was secretary of state during Trump’s first term, and was Trump’s CIA director prior to that. The claim that Mossad agents are active among the protesters has also been circulated by the Israeli press.
As secretary of state, Pompeo said during a 2020 interview that the goal of the crushing sanctions the US had imposed on Iran was not to pressure the Iranian government to change, but to pressure the Iranian people to change the government. He told former acting CIA director Mike Morrell that while he didn’t expect the sanctions to change Tehran’s behavior, he believed that “what can change is the people can change the government.”
Pompeo was confessing that Washington’s starvation sanctions were directed not at the Iranian government, but at the people of Iran. The goal has been to make them so miserable and impoverished that they turn to civil war against their government out of desperation. Economic strife is widely cited as a driving motivator for the protests.
Deliberately immiserating a population in order to cause a civil war is a profoundly evil thing to do. And it becomes all the more evil when you understand that it is only being done for power and geostrategic domination.
If you think of yourself as a leftist or an opponent of the US murder machine, there is no valid excuse for you to support regime change in Iran. It’s not okay to be a grown adult and pretend this is all happening in a vacuum like it’s somehow separate from all these foreign abuses that have been calculatingly engineered to give rise to the unrest we are seeing in Iran today, and act like this wouldn’t directly benefit the most murderous and tyrannical regime on this planet.
I find it so offensive when I see anarkiddies and NATO progressives supporting the regime change agendas of the CIA and the Pentagon like it somehow makes the world less tyrannical when yet another nation gets absorbed into the folds of the imperial blob. If they do get their wish and Tehran is toppled, all that will happen is that the US-centralized empire will gain that much more power and the worst people on earth will get big smiles on their faces. It gives the most powerful and destructive power structure on earth even more control over the fate of our species, and these infantile human livestock are clapping along with it and pretending they’re sticking it to the man.
It’s a completely nonsensical position to support the downfall of any government before the fall of the western empire, because that is the most deadly and abusive power structure in existence, and because it directly benefits whenever it succeeds in absorbing a noncompliant state into its power umbrella. If you actually oppose tyranny and support freedom, it’s absurd to desire the fall of the empire’s enemies while the empire itself remains standing, because every win for the empire makes the world less free.
I don’t know what’s going to happen in Iran, but I hope the empire fails its regime change operation. I hope the western empire gets weaker, not stronger, because it is only getting more and more despotic and deadly as the years go on, and the last thing we need is for it to shore up even more control over our planet. Humanity won’t have a shot at real freedom until that power structure has been thoroughly dismantled.
Is the U.S. preparing to install another Shah to run Iran as a U.S. puppet?
13 January 2026 AIMN Editorial, By Walt Zlotow , West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL, https://theaimn.net/is-the-u-s-preparing-to-install-another-shah-to-run-iran-as-a-u-s-puppet/
Nationwide anti-government protests are wracking Iran with over 500 killed and 10,000 detained. The U.S. political establishment is ecstatic about the possibility of regime change of the hated Iranian Islamic government which in 1979 toppled the American puppet Mohammed Reza Pahlavi (the Shah of Iran) the U.S. installed in 1953.
Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi pounced on this statement by former US Secretary of State and CIA Director Mike Pompeo that implied both the US and Israel are involved in fomenting the protest:
“The Iranian regime is in trouble. Bringing in mercenaries is its last best hope. Riots in dozens of cities. 47 years of this regime; POTUS 47. Coincidence? Happy New Year to every Iranian in the streets. Also to every Mossad agent walking beside them.”
Araghchi responded:
“According to the US Government, Iran is ‘delusional’ for assessing that Israel and the US are fueling violent riots in our country. There is only one problem: President Trump’s own former CIA Director has openly and unashamedly highlighted what Mossad and its American enablers are really up to.”
Araghchi is well aware of historical precedence for US regime change in Iran. Seventy-three years ago the US joined Britain’s Operation TP-Ajax, the US-British coup that deposed Iran’s legitimate ruler Dr. Mohammad Mosaddegh. The Brits conceived the coup in 1952 and presented it to ‘Give ‘Em Hell’ Harry Truman, who literally told the Brits to go to hell.
A year later newbie Prez Ike greenlighted TP-AJAX to allow Britain to grab back its Iranian oil monopoly nationalized by elected Prime Minister Mosaddegh. For Ike, it was a chance to make his bones as a stanch anti-communist, due to Mosaddegh’s unwillingness to crush Iranian communist influence. Leading this first official CIA coup against a foreign leader who wouldn’t do our bidding was TR’s grandson Kermit Roosevelt Jr., following a family tradition of senseless and bellicose militarism.
Our handpicked successor was Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, son of the first Pahlavi monarch Reza Shah Pahlavi. His reluctance and indecision almost wrecked Uncle Sam’s best laid plans, but our CIA Iranian operatives, masquerading as commies, shed enough blood to turn the tide against Mosaddegh. The Shah ruled Iran for another 26 years, with his CIA trained secret police killing thousands who dared speak out against his tyrannical rule.
And guess who has jumped into the current chaos in Iran… Reza Pahlavi, the US-based son of Iran’s ousted Shah whom the US installed after deposing Mosaddegh in 1953. Pahlavi praised the protests as “magnificent” and urged Iranian to plan more targeted actions “to seize and hold city centers.” He’s likely salivating at a chance to reclaim his father’s rule in Iran to once again do America’s bidding. Back then it was to protect British, US oil interests and counter communist influence in Iran. If installed today Pahlavi would complete both Israel and America’s decade’s long goal of weakening, destabilizing Iran to cement Israel’s Middle East hegemony.
Maybe the US has nothing to do with current unrest that may topple the Iranian regime. But based on US regime change history with Iran and numerous other countries, it would not surprise if the US was all in aiding it.
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