January 14, 2020—On the fourth day of student protests that began on Saturday, demonstrators called on Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of the Iranian regime, to resign. "Commander in chief, resign!" the students were chanting. Slogans also included the following:
- People didn't die for us to praise the murderous leader
- We will die and we will take back Iran
- Death to the rule of the mullahs
Protests began on Saturday after Iranian officials admitted, following a three-day delay, that security forces had shot down a civilian passenger plane flying from Tehran to Kiev, Ukraine.
I24 NEWS REPORTS:
Iranians Are Protesting, But They Aren't Protesting Trump and the Media Can't Stand It
President Trump tweets out support for Iranian protests
TRUMP SPEAKS DIRECTLY
TO THE IRANIAN PEOPLE
It's impossible to overestimate the power of the president’s words.
BY MICHAEL LEDEEN
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research
purposes:
The Iranian people are demonstrating. You can see the protests on Twitter, and read about the internal ferment online at the Free Iran Herald, which appears on Gateway Pundit.The current round of demonstrations erupted all over the country after the destruction of the Ukrainian commercial airplane taking off from Tehran. The security forces are reacting with even greater than usual violence, shooting the protesters with live ammunition. At the same time, supporters of deceased General Qassem Soleimani within the Revolutionary Guards are being rounded up in significant numbers, suggesting that there was a power struggle underway within his Quds Force for the succession after the death of the supreme leader—Ali Khamenei—who is now eighty years old.According to the Free Iran Herald, published in the Gateway Pundit blog,This news is increasing the speculation that Soleimani, who was known to act on his own initiatives, and who was being seen as a possible future dictator-in-waiting for Tehran, was betrayed to American intelligence by his own colleagues within the regime, who feared that he would deprive them of their power and privileges.Additionally, information has surfaced that Soleimani, who had been personally leading the repression against the popular uprising in Iraq since October, had been planning a coup d’état in Baghdad that would have resulted in the assassination of the Iraqi president, and the seizing of the American embassy there.Most of the passengers on the Ukrainian aircraft were Iranians, and speculation abounds that the flight was brought down in order to kill the "disloyal" ones. Although the question remains: disloyal to whom? The Tehran regime organized big crowds to say goodbye to Soleimani, but the current demonstrations are explicitly against Khamenei and his cohorts, from calls for the resignation of the supreme leader to students on campus in Tehran refusing to walk on big painted images of the American and Israeli flags. The regime was shutting down Internet communications as rapidly as possible, attempting to divide the Iranian people from one another, a tactic that has proven effective in the past, while the leaders of the demonstrations used couriers to carry messages from city to city.But perhaps the biggest news came from the White House, where President Trump spoke directly to the Iranian people in English and Farsi. He rehearsed the violence of the regime against the people, and said that he had supported the people from the outset, and would continue to do so. That was Saturday. Sunday he did it again. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has been at it for some time, stressed the same themes: the regime is the source of the violence, and the people deserve the active support of the free nations of the world.I don’t believe it is possible to overestimate the power of the president’s words on both the regime and the seventy-or-so million Iranians who oppose it. This is the first such event in forty years, and it comes from an American leader who has tried very hard to make a deal with the regime of the Islamic Republic.He gave it his all, and satisfied himself that the regime was not interested in a deal with the United States. Accordingly, he rejected the advice of the likes of Rand Paul, and ordered the troops to eliminate the regime’s prime killer Soleimani and the band of Mafiosi around him, in the event mostly from Iraq. Now Trump is talking directly to the Iranian people, and the demonstrations are bigger and more widespread than any earlier ones.I don’t think that the Khamenei regime is long for this world, now that the American president has spoken directly to the masses of Iranians who had waited for the United States to do their dirty work for them. No American president -- not Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush fils, or Obama -- had understood the key to the Middle East: bring down the Islamic Republic. That, rather than the conquest of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam, should have been our goal in 2003, but we chose the wrong target.Now, of all the unlikely people, Donald Trump figured it out and is pursuing it. Like his predecessors, Trump does not wish to invade Iran; unlike them, he has found that the regime is ready to fall, that America can inspire and lead a revolution against the world’s leading terror country.Just look at the scenes coming out of Iran today._____________________________________________________________
Iranian People Vs. The Mullahs“Death to liars!” - “Death to the dictator!”BY JOSEPH KLEINrepublished below in full unedited for informational, educational and researchpurposes:After the Iranian regime first denied and then finally admitted that it had shot down a Ukrainian passenger plane killing all 176 people aboard, protests broke out against the government in Tehran as well as in other Iranian cities. As many as tens of thousands of Iranian people are said to be involved. Protesters are risking their lives denouncing the government, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader.“Khamenei is a murderer!” some protesters exclaimed. Others shouted slogans such as “Death to liars!”, “Death to the dictator!”, and “You have no shame!” Whatever national unity there was in the immediate aftermath of the American killing of Maj. Gen. Qassim Soleimani is now gone. Indeed, protesters were seen ripping up pictures of Soleimani. Even some hardline conservatives in Iran, who generally support the regime, were critical of how the government had handled the downing of the plane.Riot police, plainclothes security men, and members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps have been out in full force, trying to keep things under control. Police even arrested the British ambassador to Iran, Rob Macaire, who was attending a vigil for the victims. Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi described Ambassador Macaire as “an unknown foreigner in an illegal gathering” before confirming the ambassador’s identity and allowing him to be freed. The United Kingdom’s Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab denounced the arrest of Ambassador Macaire as “a flagrant violation of international law.”In the past, the Iranian regime has been brutal to its own citizens who dared to protest against the government. A bloody crackdown late last year resulted in the deaths of as many as 1000 demonstrators and the wounding and imprisonment of thousands more. President Trump cautioned Iran’s leaders this time to show restraint. He tweeted:“To the leaders of Iran - DO NOT KILL YOUR PROTESTERS. Thousands have already been killed or imprisoned by you, and the World is watching. More importantly, the USA is watching. Turn your internet back on and let reporters roam free! Stop the killing of your great Iranian people!”Clearly, the Iranian regime is on the defensive. Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, offered a half-apology while also blaming the Great Satan, the United States, for the tragedy. “Human error at time of crisis caused by US adventurism led to disaster,” he tweeted. But the Iranian leaders and military have nobody to blame but themselves. And the Iranian people are tired of the regime’s standard propaganda.Many poor and lower middle class people who have supported the regime in the past turned against it last fall after the regime imposed an increase in gas prices. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ costly military ventures abroad, while Iranian citizens were suffering economic misery at home, added to the anger fueling the protests. The shooting down of the passenger plane and the cover up that followed may become the tipping point.The Iranian regime had no explanation as to why commercial planes were allowed to take off from Iran in the first place, after the regime had launched missiles aimed at Iraqi bases housing U.S. troops and was anticipating a possible military response by the United States. Then, the regime offered a lame explanation for the crash, ascribing it to technical problems, before being forced to admit the truth in the face of overwhelming evidence that an Iranian missile had struck the Ukrainian aircraft. Even after admitting what the regime called a human error on its part, Iran’s military tried to deflect some blame onto the flight’s crew for allegedly veering off course near a sensitive military base. After Ukraine pushed back on this claim, an Iranian commander with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps walked it back. In short, the Iranian regime has bungled the whole incident from beginning to end."This tragedy will not be forgotten nor is it easy to overcome for the population under sanctions and pressure not just from abroad but also from the state," said Sanam Vakil, Senior Research Fellow at Middle East and North Africa Programme, Chatham House. "This incident is a stark reminder of the gaping lack of governance."Ray Takeyh, senior fellow for Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said that the downing of the plane “has shocked the public. Once more, the regime carelessly kills its own people. It punctures the already spurious narrative that the killing of Soleimani has united the Iranian people behind their government."Internationally, the Iranian regime’s claim to “credibility” has also taken a major hit.President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine has insisted on “a full admission of guilt” by the regime. “We expect Iran to assure its readiness for a full and open investigation, to bring those responsible to justice, to return the bodies of the victims, to pay compensation, and to make official apologies through diplomatic channels,” he said.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, the home country of many who were killed in the downed plane, said he was “outraged and furious” and demanded a “full and complete investigation.” For once, Trudeau is right.In the irony of ironies, as reported by Voice of America, "Iran has invited the National Transportation Safety Board, the U.S. accident investigation agency, to participate” in the Ukrainian plane crash investigation. Is German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas right in saying that Iran’s invitation is “a very important signal" of possible de-escalation? It’s doubtful, but one can hope.
