White House chooses Khamenei over Iranian people, again
Joe Biden called Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu immediately after Iran fired "500 ballistic and cruise missiles as well as attack drones” at Israel to “dissuade" him from ”greenlighting an immediate retaliatory strike.”
Let the Ayatollah be
Axios provided more details on the White House pressure on Israel to drop pre-approved plans for retaliation:
"You got a win. Take the win," Biden told Netanyahu, according to the official.
The official said that when Biden told Netanyahu that the U.S. will not participate in any offensive operations against Iran and will not support such operations, Netanyahu said he understood.
The Times of Israel reported that plans for retaliation were pre-approved before the Biden call:
Netanyahu shelved plans that had been prepared for retaliation against Iran’s weekend barrage after speaking with US President Joe Biden immediately following the attack…
… the cabinet had already approved a series of possible responses depending on the scope of the Iranian attack, which were slated to be carried out immediately following the Iranian fusillade early Sunday.
“The response won’t be what was planned any longer; diplomatic sensitivities won out,” a senior source was quoted as telling the broadcaster…
The report noted the comments likely pointed to a weaker response than what had been approved. [Emphasis added.]
That “weaker response” turned out to be, thus far, just three missiles aimed at an air defense system in Iran after “the Pentagon urged what amounted to what one senior U.S. official called a ‘signal, not a strike,’ with minimal chance of casualties.” [Emphasis added.]
Good news for Khamenei; not for Iranians
Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran since 1989, certainly welcomed the news, as Iranian dissidents had been hoping to capitalize on a major retaliatory strike by Israel to precipitate mass protests against the longest-serving head of state in the Middle East. This after already being disappointed by a lack of support from Biden during protests in 2022 that “raged across Iran despite the brutality of the government’s response,” according to The Guardian, which detailed that brutality:
Over 400 people have been killed; an unknown number of journalists and demonstrators have been imprisoned or disappeared. Hundreds have been blinded by rubber bullets and metal pellets fired into crowds of protesters. [Emphasis added.]
Media in lockstep
Biden's lack of support for the protestors against their despotic leaders led The Guardian to title their article, "Why are Americans ignoring the protests in Iran?" The article noted that, in addition to Biden's muted response, comprising but a short, ambiguous mention within his September 2022 UN speech mostly devoted to Ukrainians, mainstream media left Americans in the dark about the protests.
Coverage of the uprising has been notably sporadic; we search our screens and front pages, mostly in vain.
Even in the absence of mass protests, executions in the totalitarian terror state have continued, with Amnesty International reporting in 2023 that, “Iran executes 853 people in eight-year high amid relentless repression and renewed ‘war on drugs.’”
Iranian hope
Despite prior letdowns, many Iranians hoped that foreign powers would finally intervene to provide protests a chance at success this time around, even taking the risk of publicizing their hopes:
One Iranian even pleaded with Israel to directly attack Khamenei:
Support for Israeli attacks on Iran's dictators by America, the leader of the free world, would have particularly provided wind to the sails of Iranian dissidents.
Carter
The State Department's failure to fully back dissidents in Iran is particularly noteworthy in light of the role of previous administrations in each of the revolutions that brought totalitarian leaders to power.
Prior to the Iranian revolution of 1979, the nation was led by the popular Shah (King) Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
The New American detailed the lengths to which the Carter administration went to bring down the Shah:
The Carter administration’s continuous demand upon the Shah: liberalize. On October 26, 1978, he freed 1,500 prisoners, but increased rioting followed. The Shah commented that “the more I liberalized, the worse the situation in Iran became. Every initiative I took was seen as proof of my own weakness and that of my government.” Revolutionaries equated liberalization with appeasement. “My greatest mistake,” the Shah recalled, “was in listening to the Americans on matters concerning the internal affairs of my kingdom.”
Iran’s last hope: its well-trained military could still restore order. The Carter administration realized this. Du Berrier noted: “Air Force General Robert Huyser, deputy commander of U.S. forces in Europe, was sent to pressure Iran’s generals into giving in without a fight.” “Huyser directly threatened the military with a break in diplomatic relations and a cutoff of arms if they moved to support their monarch.”
“It was therefore necessary,” the Shah wrote, “to neutralize the Iranian army. It was clearly for this reason that General Huyser had come to Teheran.”
The White House did not even try to hide the purpose of sending a top general to Iran during the protests:
Huyser only paid the Shah a cursory visit, but had three meetings with Iran’s revolutionary leaders — one lasting 10 hours. Huyser, of course, had no authority to interfere with a foreign nation’s sovereign affairs.
Prior to execution later by Khomeini, General Amir Hossein Rabbi, commander-in-chief of the Iranian Air Force, stated: “General Huyser threw the Shah out of the country like a dead mouse.”
The Shah finishes the story in his own words:
U.S. officials pressed the Shah to leave Iran. He reflected:
You cannot imagine the pressure the Americans were putting on me, and in the end it became an order …. How could I stay when the Americans had sent a general, Huyser, to force me out? How could I stand alone against Henry Precht [the State Department Director for Iran] and the entire State Department? [Emphasis added.]
Keep Khamenei for stability?
The White House has justified its calls for almost no retaliation against Iran with claims that strong strikes could widen Israel's war and destabilize the region with the conflict “escalating."
In fact, Iran has already destabilized the region, using Hamas terrorists in Gaza and the West Bank, Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon and Syria, and Houthi terrorists in South Yemen to attack Israel on five fronts. The NY Post covered Elica Le Bon, a British-born, American-educated lawyer and popular TikToker of Iranian descent, making this very point:
Le Bon further argued that far from being the victim, Iran was the aggressor responsible for creating Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as the Houthis in Yemen, for the sole purpose of destabilizing the region. [Emphasis added.]
Le Bon emphasized this point to her 300,000 followers:
How about the terror proxies that the Islamic Republic has created to foster regional instability … What did you think Hezbollah was there for … , Hamas, Houthis. Their miliita groups in Iraq and Syria.
Did you think they were there to instigate a system of public schooling, education, to feed the poor, house the unhoused? … Are the rockets that Hamas fires into Israel on a near daily basis an act of war?
She also clarified the difference between the regime and the population they rule:
First of all, you're not talking about Iran, you're talking about the Islamic Republic…
Iranians don't want war with Israel. We want peace with Israel. Iranian people inside of Iran have come out and said this over and over and over again. It's you [the regime] that wants war with Israel.
The NY Post also notes Le Bon's complaint that the regime's oppression of Iranians is ignored by Hamas supporters:
“When we were screaming that they were killing Iranian women for not wearing a hijab, where were you?” Le Bon demands to know in the video, which has gone viral with more than 1 million views.
“When they were lynching Iranian men from cranes for protesting, where were you? When we were explaining that it’s a terrorist occupying force, where were you?”
Gazans too
Hamas supporters not only fail to show concern for Iranians oppressed by dictators — they also fail to show concern for those suffering under tyrannical Hamas terrorists. While flying thousands of illegal adult, male migrants into the U.S. from nations at peace, Secretary of State Antony Blinken labeled the relocation of even women and children in Gazan war zones a “non-starter.”
Future Shah?
Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, the oldest son of the last Shah of Iran and the last heir-apparent to the throne of the Imperial State of Iran, currently in exile in the United States, advocates for Middle East stability through the removal of Iran's leaders and a restored peace with Israel, as he writes on X:
An Iran ruled by Pahlavi would be expected to immediately defund Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis and bring stability to the region.
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