TRUMP ADMINISTRATION WORKING TO INCUBATE NASCENT IRANIAN REVOLUTION
BY ROBERT SPENCER
SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2018/01/trump-administration-working-to-incubate-nascent-iranian-revolution;
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
At last, an American President.
“Trump Admin Working to Incubate Nascent Iranian Revolution,” by Adam Kredo, Washington Free Beacon, January 2, 2018:
The Trump administration is keeping a close eye on the growing protests in Iran, with senior administration officials working to ensure President Donald Trump does not miss an opportunity to incubate a possible revolution that could topple Iran’s hardline ruling regime, according to White House officials who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon.______________________________________________________
With the world watching growing demonstrations across Iran, the Trump administration sees an opportunity to feed the growing protests. The policy is starkly different than the Obama administration’s approach in 2009, when similar protests gripped Iran and were met with silence.
Many viewed the Obama administration’s hesitation to back the protests as part of the reason they fizzled out amid a violent crackdown by the Iranian regime, which has engaged in similar tactics as anti-regime activists take to the streets across the Islamic Republic.
President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence are said to be closely monitoring the situation and working to warn Iran’s ruling regime that “this will not be a repeat of the 2009 demonstrations,” according to a senior administration official briefed on the situation.
As the death toll in the current protests reaches at least 21 individuals, Iranian officials have blamed the unrest on “overt support of the U.S., the Zionist regime [Israel], and Saudi Arabia.”
The protests, which began last week, have mostly centered on economic frustrations among Iranian citizens who feel the ruling regime has failed to invest in the country. While Iran has spent billions of the cash windfalls it received from the landmark nuclear deal on a massive military buildup, it seems little of that money has been reinvested in the Iranian economy, which remains in shambles following years of economic sanctions by the West.
The Trump administration is not seeking to repeat what it described as the Obama administration’s failure to support demonstrators who could eventually topple the clerical ruling regime of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
“While Obama administration officials continue to double down on its failed, passive approach to past freedom uprisings in Iran, President Trump and Vice President Pence are making clear to the world that they will not turn their backs on the freedom-seeking protesters,” one senior administration official told the Free Beacon on Tuesday, after reports claimed another nine protesters were killed and at least 450 arrested.
“The Trump administration’s strong and vocal support for the demonstrators is a 180 from the Obama administration’s approach and it’s signaling to Tehran that this will not be a repeat of the 2009 demonstrations,” the administration official said….
“As long as [Trump] is [President] and I am [Vice President], the United States of America will not repeat the shameful mistake of our past when others stood by and ignored the heroic resistance of the Iranian people as they fought against their brutal regime,” Pence tweeted on Monday.
As a lawmaker in Congress, Pence spearheaded efforts to protect free speech in Iran.
As the Obama administration stood on the sidelines of the tumult in 2009, Pence, then a House lawmaker, co-sponsored a measure to back “all Iranian citizens who embrace the values of freedom, human rights, civil liberties, and rule of law.”
The resolution condemned the Iranian regime’s violent suppression of the protests.
At the time, Pence disagreed “with the administration’s decision to essentially draw the line at not meddling and not interfering.”
Another source close to the Trump White House told the Free Beacon that public criticism from Obama administration officials has only fueled the drive to back Iranian protesters.
“If you want to understand how totally different the Trump approach is from Obama’s, all you have to notice is that Democrats aren’t even pretending Obama would have done this,” said the source, a veteran D.C.-based foreign policy adviser who is close to the White House.
“Usually when the president shows leadership, the noise machine spins up and says he’s just doing what Obama would have done,” the source said. “But in this case everyone knows that Obama abandoned the protesters in Iran in 2009 because he wanted a nuclear deal, and he would do it again.”
Police Truck Plows Into Peaceful Iranian Protestors Then Militias Open Fire
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Former Obama advisers tell Trump to be quiet about the Iranian protests
BY CHRISTINE DOUGLASS-WILLIAMS
SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2018/01/former-obama-advisers-tell-trump-to-be-quiet-about-the-iranian-protests;
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
Several key advisers to former President Barack Obama have poured scorn on President Donald Trump’s support for the protests sweeping Iran in recent days.The former Obama administration, over a year later, still has not accepted that it is no longer leading America, and that the American people exercised their democratic right to vote in Trump as their leader. The public lost confidence in a so-called leader who betrayed American principles of democracy. Among Obama’s misdeeds, he:
- Signed the Iranian deal, which released over 100 billion dollars into Iran’s coffers, enabling it to further fund its jihadi proxies such as Hizballah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, etc.
- Airlifted 400 million dollars to Iran, which happened to coincide with the January 2016 release of four Americans detained in Tehran, such that critics called it a ransom payout.
- Paid Iran some $33.6 billion in secret cash and gold payments, in monthly installments of $700,000,000, between 2014 and 2016, according to testimony provided before Congress by an expert on the Iran nuclear agreement.
- Hid intel on Iranian jihadis in Syria in order to push the Iranian nuclear deal.
- Tried to convince Argentina to give Iran nuclear fuel, according to former Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner.
- Ordered the CIA not to support the 2009 Green Movement in Iran, because he was too committed to “diplomatic” outreach to Ayatollah Khamenei.
In 2009, when the “Green Revolution” threatened the Iranian regime, Obama and his administration refrained from supporting the protests. Obama said that “we respect Iranian sovereignty and want to avoid the United States being the issue inside of Iran.Respect for this brutal regime that oppresses its people, aims to obliterate Israel and funds jihadi terror globally?
Should Donald Trump’s support help bring the Iranian people closer to freedom with any measure of success — weakening the Iranian regime — then it would further show up the incompetence within the Obama administration as leader of the free world. Otherwise, the new Iranian uprising could expose even more about the unscrupulous partnership between the Obama administration and Iran, none of which is flattering or useful to Obama and his cronies.
“Former Obama Advisers Tell Trump to ‘Be Quiet’ on Iran Protests”, by Joel Pollak, Breitbart, January 1, 2017:
Several key advisers to former President Barack Obama have poured scorn on President Donald Trump’s support for the protests sweeping Iran in recent days.
In 2009, when the “Green Revolution” threatened the Iranian regime, Obama and his administration refrained from supporting the protests. Obama said that “we respect Iranian sovereignty and want to avoid the United States being the issue inside of Iran.”
That weak response, and the administration’s general lack of support for the demonstrators, allowed the regime to consolidate power.
Obama was more concerned with preserving the possibility of an eventual deal on Iran’s nuclear program than he was in removing the Iranian regime as a strategic threat or in standing up for human rights. Critics charge that Obama missed a golden opportunity.
President Trump has taken the opposite approach, vigorously supporting the protests and criticizing the regime.
But the Obama brain trust rejects Trump’s approach, and apparently believes the approach Obama took in 2009 remains the best one.
Former National Security Advisor Susan Rice tweeted a New York Times op-ed by former Obama aide Philip Gordon, “How Can Trump Help Iran’s Protesters? Be Quiet.” The author argues that supporting the protests, and taking steps to end the Iran nuclear deal, will only help the regime to delegitimize its internal opponents.
Rice offered no other statement of solidarity for the demonstrators.
Rob Malley, who had once been dropped from the Obama campaign for meeting with the Hamas terrorist group but found his way back into the administration in negotiations with Iran, also praised Gordon’s op-ed.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was in office during the Green Revolution, was more supportive of the protesters, but said merely that she “hope[d]” the Iranian regime would listen to them…..