Well, Trump is definitely disrupting things. The question is can he keep the whole machine from shaking itself apart. Venezuela doesn’t bother me. That’s not even a real country. It’s a mafia neighborhood with a money-printing machine in the basement.
Iran on the other hand is a much bigger and more dangerous neighborhood. Their economy is in tatters and the middle-class is so starved that they dared to face off in the streets against the thugs that Khamenei employs to silence all protestors, with a crow bar. Trump threw in a threat against the mullahs if they start murdering the protestors in the street. And that is his place as leader of the “free world” I guess. But is it just an idle threat? And will these protests really go anywhere?
The last time protests accomplished anything in Iran was 1979 when the Islamists overthrew the Shah of Iran and brought the Ayatollah Khomeini out of exile to begin the Islamic Republic. And that kicked off the Islamic Revolution by holding Americans hostage for over a year. Is it possible that enough Iranians are angry enough to risk torture and death to kick the mullahs out of power and turn Iran back into a modern country? I guess it’s possible but why now?
I read that inflation in Iran is currently at 43%. That is definitely getting close to some kind of breaking point. But standing up to men with machine guns and torture cells takes a lot of guts. I’m far from convinced that anything will come of the Iranian protests. Now maybe it will soften up the regime into cutting a deal with the West. Maybe they’ll agree to end their funding of terrorist groups and in that way begin to have economic sanctions lifted against their oil exports other commercial enterprises.
Now, all of this going on at the same time that Ukraine and Russia are battling to the death may not be a coincidence. Both Venezuela and Iran are Russian allies and trading partners. These situations may be an attempt to destabilize the Russian economy. Sanctions against Russia have been skirted in part by using oil tankers that trade outside of the western countries and this is the same strategy that Iran and Venezuela have used. Perhaps Trump is ratcheting up the pressure on all of these “shadow fleets” to destabilize the economies of all three of these countries.
And maybe it will work. Iran is badly hurting and Russia is beginning to suffer from the combination of sanctions and war fatigue. And Venezuela was a sitting duck for US military and covert attacks. Maybe Trump will get a trifecta of victories. He might even get his Nobel Peace Prize.
But I’ll have to say it’s an exceedingly dangerous game he’s playing. There must be dozens of Iranian sleeper cells that snuck in during Biden’s open border policy. What if the mullahs grow desperate and decide to spread some chaos in the land of the “Great Satan” before they lose control of their own country? I get so tired of these places on the map that are nothing but misery for their own people and anyone that gets involved with them. Donald, be careful.