Cluck, cluck, cluck – is Trump about to chicken out?

Friday blog

On Tuesday, Trump promised the Iranian protestors that “help is on its way”. He then threatened the murderous mad Ayatollahs that the US would attack with overwhelming force if the shooting of protestors continued and if executions of protestors started.

So, proving they’re not totally mad, the mad mullahs stopped shooting protestors and delayed the first public hangings of protestors. There are now two main possibilities:

• this puts Trump in a quandry as he has no obvious reason to launch a military strike on Iran
• this allows Trump to chicken out as he can now claim it was he and he alone who put a stop to the mad mullahs’ mass murdering and therefore he has no need to launch a military strike.

I have absolutely no idea which of the above two possibilities is the most likely. But I believe this is a disaster for the Middle East and even the whole world. The mad mullahs’ murderous regime was on the ropes. Possibly more than 12,000 protestors had been killed demanding their freedom. Over $1 billion was secretly moved out of Iran (mainly through London) as Iran’s leaders prepared to flee the country if their regime collapsed. The mad mullahs had about 135,000 armed lunatics in the IRGC. But the Iranian army has over 650,000 men. All it needed was a US attack and the army to defect to the Shah’s son and the mullahs would be toast.

If the mad mullahs were overthrown, Iran could become free, wealthy and westerrnised. The Iranian nuclear programame could be abandonned. There could be peace between Iran and Israel. And Iran’s proxies – Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis and others – would be defanged as they would lose their main sponsor.

But it looks like the mad mullahs’ murderous regime will survive, re-arm with the help of Russia, China and South Africa and continue handing Iran’s oil wealth to its terrorist proxies. As for ordinary Iranians, there will be a brutal and vengeful nationwide clampdown with mass arrests, torture and executions.

The opportunity of a lifetime to bring peace to the Middle East looks like it has been missed. This is a sad week for the whole world.

As for Trump, he will be remembered for chickening out – not the legacy he wanted.