Trump's Strategic Pause: If Trump Betrays Iran's Protesters, Russia and China will Celebrate

by Con Coughlin  •  January 21, 2026 at 5:00 am

• What is not in dispute is that, despite Trump's claim that regime officials have told him they will not exact reprisals against the protestors, telling the White House they will not execute them, the killing has continued unabated.

• Trump's intense involvement in diplomatic efforts to end the Ukraine war has so far achieved little, with Russian President Vladimir Putin promising peace while continuing merciless attacks on Ukraine, making no credible effort to engage with the Trump administration's various peace initiatives.

• As former Chief of Romanian intelligence Ion Mihai Pacepa noted decades ago: "[I]nstructions on how to behave in Washington. 'You simply have to keep on pretending that you'll break with terrorism... over, and over, and over'" -- and then presumably do whatever you want.

• While it can be argued that removing Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro and protecting Greenland from the nefarious designs of China and Russia are all worthy objectives, if Trump is serious about reasserting America's dominant role in world affairs, then he needs to show that he genuinely means business when dealing with implacable foes such as Russia, China and Iran.

Iran's Islamic regime is basically employing the same tactics of brutal repression that it used during similar anti-government protests, such as during the 2009 Green Movement and more recent protests in 2022. The risk for US President Donald Trump is that, having raised the prospect of launching a regime change in Iran, his failure to do so will seriously undermine his own credibility and, with it, the effectiveness of American deterrence. Pictured: Security forces detain protesters in Mashhad, Iran on January 3, 2026. (Photo by Anonymous/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)

US president Donald J. Trump's delay in delivering on his "locked and loaded" promise to Iran's brave protestors, it appears, is merely the result of placing the final touches on his "It's time to look for new leadership in Iran."

From the moment a fresh wave of anti-government protests erupted throughout Iran at the start of the year, Trump has made numerous threats to intervene if Tehran's theocratic regime continued to resort to acts of extreme violence to suppress the will of the Iranian people.

Trump's most explicit warning to the ayatollahs came at the height of the recent disturbances, when it became clear the regime was resorting to extreme violence to crush the protestors.

The president urged Iranians to keep protesting, declaring that help was on its way, without saying what that help might be:

Continue Reading Article