Washington Hesitates on Iran

From colour revolution to strategic retreat

Brecht Jonkers on why the US attack on Iran did not happen.

There seems to be a last-minute hesitation on the US side about carrying on with its planned attacks on Iran.

Despite the pomp and circumstance and the military show of force, the US has already made clear that they would dedicate no ground troops to regime change operations against Iran.

By contrast, major evacuation has taken place across US bases in the Persian Gulf region, indicating fear of retaliatory Iranian strikes if the US were to start an air raid against the Islamic Republic. Iranian missile technology has significantly improved over the past years, penetrating the Zionist Iron Dome system with relative ease last year.

Word on the ground is that several of the Arab states hosting US bases have spoken up against Trump’s initial war plans, out of concern about the instability, economic destabilisation and Iranian retaliation that such a war would entail.

My guess is that the US anticipated a much larger impact of the regime change attempt that hit Iran this past week. The combination of Iranian economic measures addressing the genuine dissatisfaction amongst the populace (including a major tax cut for small businesses and merchants), with a highly efficient operation by Iranian security forces in weeding out and arresting Mossad operatives and foreign-backed provocateurs and terrorists, has effectively nipped the regime change operation in the bud in a matter of mere days.

There has been relatively little difference in the efficiency of this latest operation when compared to previous, regularly occurring, attempts at overthrowing the Islamic Republic. The major difference is the sheer brutality of the foreign agents within the protest rallies this time around, and the much higher number of Iranian civilians killed by these agents.

However, this has tremendously backfired into the face of the US and Israel; after all, it is hard to maintain a humanitarian façade when your guys on the ground are burning down mosques and murdering actual children in the street. In terms of soft power and propaganda purposes, this is a far less efficient “colour revolution” scheme than the “Woman Life Freedom” situation was.

So far, it seems to me that the Epstein list clique in Washington DC was hoping they could swoop in and bomb Iran’s military installations with impunity, like they did in Syria after they put Al-Qaeda in power in Damascus. Now that it is clear that the Islamic Republic is as firm as ever, and backed more than before by basically the entire political spectrum of Iran, the planned military operation suddenly seems far more risky.