US and Iran on Brink of War, “Help Is On the Way”, Says Trump

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Authored by Mike Shedlock via mishtalk,

Did anyone think Trump would morph into Niki Haley with MAGA cheering?

Help Is on the Way

Please note Trump Tells Iranian Protesters ‘Help Is On Its Way’

“Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING – TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!! Save the names of the killers and abusers. They will pay a big price,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social Tuesday. “I have cancelled all meetings with Iranian Officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY.”

Large-scale demonstrations in Iran began in late December, initially triggered by soaring inflation; the collapse of the rial, the country’s currency; and the economic pinch felt by ordinary people.

Since then, hundreds of thousands have filled the streets. The regime has instigated a bloody crackdown that has led to hundreds of deaths and more than 10,000 arrests, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran.

Trump has repeatedly threatened to intervene, prompting U.S. officials to examine possible strikes on Iranian military sites. No action is imminent, the officials said, but Trump has taken briefings to explore options including military, cyber and economic measures.

U.S. Steps Up Planning for Possible Action in Iran

Also note U.S. Steps Up Planning for Possible Action in Iran

President Trump is scheduled to be briefed Tuesday on options to respond to the protests in Iran, according to U.S. officials, a sign the president is considering reprimanding the regime for its crackdown on demonstrators as he has repeatedly threatened.

The president’s planned meeting with senior administration officials will be a discussion about the next steps, which could include boosting antigovernment sources online, deploying secretive cyber weapons against Iranian military and civilian sites, placing more sanctions on the regime and military strikes, the officials said.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Dan Caine are expected to attend the Tuesday meeting, the officials said.

Trump, speaking Sunday to reporters on Air Force One, said he had been reviewing military options to strike Iran after the regime was “starting to” cross his red line of not killing protesters.

“We’re looking at some very strong options,” he said. If Iran retaliates to an American attack by targeting U.S. troops in the region, “we will hit them at levels that they’ve never been hit before.”

Crackdown on Starlink

In an effort to stop protest videos from going, Global Iran Is Hunting Down Starlink Users

With the government shutting down the internet and throttling phone services, Iranians are leaning heavily on Elon Musk’s Starlink service to share videos of growing protests and the regime’s escalating crackdown with the world.

But Iran has intensified efforts to jam the service, which is banned in the country, and users are being hunted.

Over the weekend, authorities began searching for and confiscating Starlink dishes in western Tehran, said Amir Rashidi, director of digital rights and security at Miaan Group, a U.S. nonprofit opposed to internet censorship.

“It’s electronic warfare,” Rashidi said. He said disruptions are worst in parts of Tehran where protests are taking place and in the evening, when the demonstrators gather.

The battle over information—while secondary to the confrontations taking place nightly in dozens of cities across Iran—has potentially serious consequences. President Trump has threatened to intervene in response to a crackdown by the regime.

Video from the streets is one of the few ways of getting information out about the scale of the protests and the actions of Iranian authorities.

Trump is scheduled to be briefed Tuesday on his options. One under discussion is to send in more Starlink terminals. Trump said he would ask Musk about the possibility.

“We may get the internet going if that’s possible,” Trump told the reporters.

Starlink terminals are illegal in Iran and had to be smuggled in, often on small boats from Dubai or across the border from Iraqi Kurdistan.

They started to show up in big numbers at the end of the last big wave of protests in 2022, when Musk said his company would seek an exemption to sanctions for his terminals.

Trump Sanctions Starlink Terminals

There is a shortage of starlink terminals in Iran and one of the reasons is Trump sanctions.

Now Trump is suddenly TACOing on starlink.

This in turn explains Musk’s sudden suck-ups to Trump.

Musk has even defended the killing of Renee Nicole Good and Vice President J.D. Vance’s idiotic portrayal of it.

Oh well, at least there’s profit in it.

Niki Haley Q&A

Q: What was it Trump said about Niki Haley?
A: “People that want to go have wars all the time. Nikki’s one of them. She’s one of them.”

Niki Haley Flashback

Please consider the Reuters January 23, 2024 post Trump, Haley spar in New Hampshire over foreign wars

Trump in turn has cast Haley as a “warmonger” who will drag the U.S. into a foreign conflict just as the country has finally exited Afghanistan.

“People that want to go have wars all the time. Nikki’s one of them. She’s one of them,” he said. “’Let’s kill people all over the place, and let’s make a lot of money for those people that make the missiles.’”

“We will restore peace through strength,” Trump said at a rally in Rochester, New Hampshire, on Sunday. “I will prevent World War Three.”

Kai Taggersell, a 34-year-old Trump supporter, said Haley’s stances on foreign policy are one of the reasons he can’t back her. He sees her as a “Bush-era” Republican keen to jump into wars.

“I’ve lost friends who went to war and came back and are now passed away. They took their own lives and died from overdoses,” said Taggersell, a Maine resident who attended the Rochester rally.

“We just don’t want to keep doing it,” he added. “America hasn’t benefited at all.”

Peace Through Confrontation, Intervention, and War.

Trumps new motto appears to be Peace Through Confrontation, Intervention, and War.

Niki Haley would approve that message. And so would Hillary and John McCain.

Here’s an amusing 2006 New York Times flashback on Clinton’s Bond With McCain.

Two summers ago, on a Congressional trip to Estonia, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton astonished her traveling companions by suggesting that the group do what one does in the Baltics: hold a vodka-drinking contest.

Delighted, the leader of the delegation, Senator John McCain, quickly agreed. The after-dinner drinks went so well — memories are a bit hazy on who drank how much — that Mr. McCain, an Arizona Republican, later told people how unexpectedly engaging he found Mrs. Clinton to be. “One of the guys” was the way he described Mrs. Clinton, a New York Democrat, to some Republican colleagues.

Mrs. Clinton and Mr. McCain went on to develop an amiable if professionally calculated relationship. They took more official trips together, including to Iraq. They worked together on the Senate Armed Services Committee and on the issue of global warming. They made a joint appearance last year on “Meet the Press,” interacting so congenially that the moderator, Tim Russert, joked about their forming a “fusion ticket.”

McCain talks economy with Hillary

On October 15, 2008, Politico reported McCain talks economy with Hillary

On Sept. 24, Hillary Rodham Clinton received a surprise phone call from the man she’s often denounced as an economic know-nothing: John McCain.

Three weeks later, at the town hall debate in Nashville, Tenn., McCain rolled out a $300 billion anti-foreclosure plan that’s similar, if not identical, to Clinton’s — and subsequently credited the concept “to a suggestion that Sen. Hillary Clinton made not that long ago.”

Moral of this Story

In case you have not figured out the moral of this story, please note that no matter who you vote for, you get more wars which leads to more military spending to support them.

The amusing thing is MAGA now openly cheers Trump’s bombing of 8 countries so far in 2026. Did you vote for this?

MAGA also cheers Trump’s announcement that he is president of Venezuela and his threats to take Greenland by force.

But hey, look on the bright side we have two new slogans: MIGA (Make Iran Great Again) and MVGA (Make Venezuela Great Again).

Was any of this on your bingo card?