From Moon of Alabama:
Protests against the (neo-)liberal economic policies of the Rohani government in Iran are justified. Official unemployment in Iran is above 12% and there is hardly any economic growth…
On Thursday and today the slogans of some protesters turned the call for economic relief into a call for regime change. My hunch is that the usual suspects are behind these protests. Note that these started in several cities at the same time…
Today, Friday and the weekly day off in Iran, several more protest took place in other cities…
The MEK, or its “civilian” organization National Council of Resistance of Iran , seem to be most involved in the current protests…
In 2012 it was reported that Israel had used the MEK terrorist organization to assassinate nuclear scientists in Iran…
The MEK/NCRI noted that Senator Tom Cotton, who will likely replace CIA chief Pompeo when Pompeo moves to the State Department, issued a supportive statement for the protests…
A group of Iranian exile terrorists, well known for deadly collaboration with Israeli spies as well as for having operation cells in Iran, is highly engaged in the protest from very early on…
From the comments:
[T]he crooked, duplicitous amerikan empire would never have cut a deal with Ahmadinejad – he wouldn’t have gone along with the current ‘loopholes’ in the sanctions deal/nuclear agreement which keep eurocorps rich while preventing ordinary Iranians from eating, but now the deal has been done the Rouhani crew need be shown the door – fast…
Mashhad, located in the NorthEast Iranian border with Afghanistan ( and also bordering Turkmenistán ), could well be a prefect point for infiltrating takfiri jihadists recently moved to Afghanistán by US led coalition…
ISIS in Afghanistan is US tool to cause trouble in whole region – ex-Afghan President Karzai to RT
Back to the comments:
In the photos I’ve seen of protesters in Iran, almost everyone of the placards is in English…
From Moon of Alabama:
The conservatives, or “principalists”, are cultural conservative but favor economic programs that benefit the poor. Their support base are the rural people as well as the poorer segments of the city dwellers. The last Iranian president near to them was Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. One of his major policies was the implementation of cash payments to the needy as replacement of general and expensive subsidies on oil products and foodstuff. The current Iranian president Hassan Rouhani is a member of the “reformist” camp. His support base are the merchants and the richer parts of the society. He is culturally (relative) progressive but his economic polices are neoliberal. The new budget he introduced for the next year cuts back on the subsidies for the poor Ahmedinejad had introduced. It will increase prices for fuel and basic food stuff up to 30-40%.
The protests on December 28 and 29 were about these and other economic issues. Such protests have regularly occurred in Iran throughout the decades. But the current ones were soon hijacked by small groups which chanted slogans against the Iranian system and against the strong Iranian engagement in Syria and Palestine. These are not majority positions of the 80 million inhabitants of Iran…
[Y]early pro-government demonstrations are held in Iran on each 9th of Dey (Iranian calender) since 2009 and are planned well in advance. They commemorate the defeat of the CIA color revolution attempt in 2009.
From the cited WSJ:
The Central Intelligence Agency has established an organization focused exclusively on gathering and analyzing intelligence about Iran, reflecting the Trump administration’s decision to make that country a higher priority target for American spies, according to U.S. officials.The Iran Mission Center will bring together analysts, operations personnel and specialists from across the CIA to bring to bear the range of the agency’s capabilities, including covert action…
To lead the new group, Mr. Pompeo picked a veteran intelligence officer, Michael D’Andrea, who recently oversaw the agency’s program of lethal drone strikes and has been credited by many of his peers for successes against al Qaeda in the U.S.’s long campaign against the terrorist group.
…
Mr. D’Andrea, a former director of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, is known among peers as a demanding but effective manager, and a convert to Islam who works long hours. Some U.S. officials have expressed concern over what they perceive as his aggressive stance toward Iran…Last night groups of 20 to 50 young men appeared in some 20 cities and towns of Iran and started to vandalize (vid) the streets…
The groups, their appearance in some 20 cities and what they did was clearly coordinated.
From the comments:
All the frustration and rage at losing Syria is now the psychological fuel for destroying the Iranian government…
This will be the largest campaign and the most intensive in US history…
This is for everything. If you notice the ideological goal of the new neocons, you will see that they make negotiation, diplomacy and compromise impossible.
From the cited Alexander Mercouris:
The reality is that contrary to some reports Iran’s economy is currently doing very well and after several years of recession which did cause living standards to fall is now actually in the throws of a boom, with double digit growth rates being recorded during the last two years…
[T]he situation under President Rouhani is better on the inflation front than it has been at any time since the early 1970s…
[T]he single factor which almost certainly set the scene for the protests is that this is a time of the year when large numbers of Iranians are likely to be on the streets anyway.
The day which in the Western calendar is 30th December is the day when conservative supporters of the Iranian government annually mobilise in their millions to commemorate a large demonstration staged on 30th December 2009 in response to the so-called ‘Green Revolution’ protests which took place in Iran in 2009.
Bad Republic 