Trump team gearing up to confront terrorist Iran

January 29, 2025 by Rowan Scarborough; Washington Times 

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's regime is vulnerable

Any week now, President Trump is going to approve renewed hard-line strategies against the terrorist state Iran after President Biden spent four years coddling the mullahs.

The president’s close advisers are signaling it’s get-tough time again and that Iran’s dictatorship is vulnerable.

 The historical irony is this: Mr. Biden’s goodwill convinced Iran that it was invincible. It’s backing of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, Jewish carnage stirred Israel to decimate Iran’s two most important terrorist clients, Hamas and Hezbollah. Amid the Iran empire debacle, anti-Syrian regime Islamists mounted offensives that ousted Bashar Assad, a key Iran geopolitical ally.

On Jan. 11, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the principal opposition group to over 40 years of hard-line Islamic rule, held a conference in Paris on the way forward.

In the post-Oct. 7 era, guarded optimism filled the air. Maybe, just maybe, this is the time Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will fall after his security forces brutally crushed four popular uprisings since 2017.

NCRI officials say a new citizens’ revolt is coming soon.

As a link to the Trump world, the most important speaker on Jan. 11 was retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, who boasts a Trump portfolio in the first administration and a new one in 2025. Mr. Trump named the 80-year-old as an assistant to the president and special envoy for Ukraine and Russia.

What Mr. Kellogg says about Mr. Trump and Iran matters.

“The regime in Iran is weaker and more vulnerable than it has been in decades,” Mr. Kellogg said. “It should not be feared but challenged, and change must occur, and it must occur now.”

He added, “For the United States, a policy of maximum pressure must be reinstated.”

Four days later, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at his Senate confirmation hearing, “What could not be allowed under any circumstances is an Iran and an Iranian regime that has the resources and the capability to restart and continue their sponsorship of terrorism.”

The night-and-day approach to Iran.

Trump 1.0 broke out of the gate punishing Iran for years of war-making, which included specifically targeting and killing hundreds of American troops in Iraq under the direction of chief Tehran terrorist Qassem Soleimani.

Mr. Trump abandoned Obama-era nuke talks and imposed economic sanctions that drained Iran’s oil money. Iran’s foreign reserves plunged from $122 billion to $14 billion. This, in turn, crimped the regime’s ability to fund and supply surrogates Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen and militias in Iraq.

When Soleimani arrived in Iraq on Jan. 3, 2020, to consult with his American-killing militia leaders, President Trump ordered his death by drone missile as his car left Baghdad International Airport.

“I can tell you it impacted Iranian behavior for a substantial period of time,” Mr. Rubio testified. “No matter how tough they talked, it impacted their behavior.”

In 2021, President Biden went soft on all that. He restarted the Obama-Biden nuclear talks, dropped sanctions that then paved the way for an oil gusher and freed up billions of dollars for Iran’s lethal coffers. Mr. Biden made the mullahs richer, stronger and more confident. He was the American lackey they needed.
As we know four years later, Iran went hog-wild but then overplayed its hand. Hamas’s Oct. 7 atrocities brought a ferocious Israeli counterattack.

“Iran and that regime is at its weakest point in recent memory, maybe ever,” Mr. Rubio testified. “Their air defenses have been badly damaged. Their Shia crescent that they were trying to create has been badly damaged in Lebanon and Syria, where they’ve been basically forced and driven out.”

What’s next?

Maryam Rajavi, NCRI president-elect, delivered a Jan. 11 speech whose theme was “The overthrow of the ruling theocracy is the only path to freedom in Iran and peace in the region.”

She said millions of Iranians in a country of nearly 90 million want the dictatorship removed.

“The regime’s leader, in one of his recent speeches, threatened the people of Iran, saying that if they create unrest, they will be crushed,” she said. “This is an admission by Khamenei that Iranian society is ready to rise and overthrow the regime.”

There has been, she said, an “expansion of the organized resistance which is preparing for an uprising.”

She listed Khamenei’s setbacks. With the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Hezbollah tied up in Lebanon, there was no backup force to keep Mr. Assad in power. With Mr. Assad gone, Tehran lost its land corridors to export terrorism.

“With the fall of Bashar Assad, everyone witnessed the collapse of the regime’s forces in Syria,” Ms. Rajavi said. “They saw how weak and fragile the IRGC is. … Today, another decisive moment in the history of Iran has arrived. The Iranian people are prepared to overthrow the regime.”

The NCRI’s plan is to form a transitional government for up to six months, during which time free elections would be held for a truly democratic assembly.

• Rowan Scarborough is a columnist with The Washington Times.