Trump calling for 'regime change' from Iranians still at the mercy of their government

[bigtree]

...is just his way of washing his hands of responsibility for the consequences of his blundering violence.

Most Americans familiar with Trump's prevaricating justifications and claims of successes behind essentially destructive acts in this country will recognize the bombastic buffoonery in his entreaties to Iranians to rebel and resist the government that's still actively repressing and killing the unarmed population with their brutality and small arms.

"The hour of your freedom is at hand. Stay sheltered. Don't leave your home. It's very dangerous outside. Bombs will be dropping everywhere. When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take," Trump said. "This will be, probably, your only chance for generations. For many years, you have asked for America's help, but you never got it. No President was willing to do what I am willing to do tonight. Now you have a President who is giving you what you want."

"When we are finished' is an open question which the president appears no more willing or capable of answering with any credibility than anything he explains in public; still having failed to offer more than a rambling, disconnected string of personalized grievances about Iran, like their allegedly interfering in the election he actually won in 2024 (I guess that means Joe Biden won?).

This exchange yesterday feels like either Trump's already losing interest in his new game; has no real interest in doing more than aggrandizing himself with the bombing and what he can claim afterward; or that his military leadership only gave him so much rope.

Jonathan Karl @jonkarl
I talked to the president over the phone a short while ago and asked him how long US military operations against Iran would go on.

JK: How long do you think this will last?

Trump: “As long as we want it to, actually. But it’s done such damage already. It’s like — they are incapacitated, essentially.”

I asked him what happens next if the regime falls:

JK: What do you think the next leadership looks like? Have you identified anybody?

Trump: “Yes. We have a very good idea.”

Who? How? He did not elaborate beyond that.

x.com/jonkarl/status/2027858505147765013

...he didn't elaborate because he's already said he expects Iranians, who are being picked off in the streets by the military and police he failed to disarm, to rise up and do the highly improbable and overturn their government.

He's done virtually nothing to facilitate any resistance, and apparently expects the unarmed people of Iran, those resisting or accused of dissent actively being slaughtered by what is still the bulk remaining of some 600k combined military and police forces using mostly small arms and brutality; Trump expecting us to believe the people in the streets are to be advantaged by his blowing up a handful of their buildings and further destabilizing the economic conditions they were protesting in the first place.

More importantly, there's no indication he's done anything more to address Iran's ability to enrich uranium into bombs, with his financially compromised negotiating team of Kushner and Witkoff having brushed off pledges from Iran for inspectors to return and even less uranium enrichment than Obama had negotiated; turned them down flat in favor of what is now the second time the duo abruptly dropped off from negotiating and set about bombing Iran.

Remember, Kushner promised he'd never again have any role in government when he was gifted $2b by the Saudis. But there he is driving America into war, ostensibly on behalf of Iran's rivals, Saudi Arabia.

One big (stupid) thing Trump has done is to kill their religious leader - something which should have the blundering consequence of uniting traditionally disparate factions in Iran against the 'great satan' USA, just as successive presidents, republican and Democratic created more people bent on violent resistance to America in that region, and in resistance to our flailing of U.S. military forces and bombs across sovereign borders; many, many more than they were able to put down.

That resistance Trump called for is just a throw-off line in his dissembling justifications, and is more likely to be directed from the Iranian regime he mostly left intact, than by the Iranian people he expects to clean up his destabilizing mess and destruction.

[gulliver]

1. Iranian Americans (who are currently majority Dems)

Should be consulted for advice. I hope our leaders are taking their voices into consideration (and I assume they are).

[lame54]

2. The fools think it's that easy