The mainstream media in the West is committed to portraying the protests in Iran as strictly an internal affair. The people of Iran, so the argument goes, spontaneously rose up against their government because they were in desperate straits due to their leaders’ corruption and mismanagement of the economy, as well as their oppressive policies. Virtually all the protestors in this story were peaceful, but their protests were met with government violence. Outside forces had little to do with causing the protests.

This interpretation of what happened in Iran is wrong and contradicted by an abundance of evidence. None of this is to deny that there were many peaceful protestors who had legitimate grievances against the government, but that is only part of the story.

If fact, what happened in Iran is an attempt by the Israeli & American tag team to overthrow the government in Tehran and break apart Iran, much the way the US, Turkey, and Israel fractured Syria. The playbook in Iran is one we have seen before. It has four elements.

First, the US has long been working to wreck the Iranian economy with sanctions. Indeed, President Trump redoubled those efforts after moving into the White House last January (2025). His aim was to bring “maximum pressure” to bear on Iran’s economy and he did just that. There is no question that Iran’s leaders mismanaged their economy in certain ways, but Western sanctions did far more damage than government ineptitude. The ultimate goal of the sanctions, of course, is to inflict so much pain and punishment on the Iranian people that they rise up and overthrow their government.

Second, the tag team went to work in late December 2025 to foment and support violent protests that would precipitate a violent government response, which would hopefully set off a spiral of violence that the government could not control. To be more specific, there is clear evidence that Mossad agents were on the ground in Iran and surely there were CIA operatives working alongside them. They worked closely with local agitators — the rioters who were bent on destruction and assassination — to turn the peaceful protests into violent protests, which would then lead the government to turn to violence. There is abundant video footage of the agitators at work.

Moreover, the tag team sent many thousands of Starlink terminals into Iran before the protests began. Should the government shut down the internet and the phone system – as expected – the Starlink terminals would allow the protestors to communicate among themselves and with the outside forces helping them.

Unsurprisingly, Trump was cheering on the protestors, saying on 13 January 2026: “Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING - TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!... HELP IS ON ITS WAY.” Trump’s first CIA director, Mike Pompeo, said on 2 January 2026: “Happy New Year to every Iranian in the streets. Also, to every Mossad agent walking beside them.” And just as the protests were beginning in late December 2025, Mossad sent a message in Farsi to Iranians saying: “Go out together into the streets. The time has come. We are with you. Not only from a distance and verbally. We are with you in the field.”

Third, the Western media played along with the tag team and purveyed the story that the protests were principally a response to the policies of an evil government in Tehran, not because of outside interference. Moreover, the protests were peaceful and it was the government that initiated the violence. Naturally, Israel and the US were portrayed as the good guys. This propaganda was not only designed to win over support for the protests in the West, but also to influence events inside Iran by fostering the narrative that the regime was brutal in the extreme, yet the protestors were destined to topple the government.

Fourth, the US military (and maybe the Israeli military) was primed to attack Iran once the protests had reached critical mass, finishing off the regime and creating chaos in Iran that would hopefully break the country apart. But the strategy failed, mainly because the Iranian government was able to shut down the protests quickly and decisively. A key element in the government’s success was shutting down Starlink, which made it extremely difficult for the protestors to communicate with each other and the outside world. Once that happened, the protests were doomed and both Prime Minister Netanyahu and Trump understood that the tag team could not use military force to deliver the coup de gras. The Iranian regime had survived.

I doubt you’re older than me, not that appeals to authority or seniority are worth a hill of beans.