Iran protests
Iran protestsReuters

Rod Reuven Dovid Bryant and Jerry Gordon interviewed veteran Iran-watcher, best-selling author and investigative journalist Ken Timmerman to address the recent violent protests in Iran, Iraq and Lebanon directed at the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Then there are the problematic relationships between President Trump and Turkey’s Islamist President Erdogan and Russia’s Putin Along the way we learn of Timmerman personal association with the last Israeli Ambassador to Iran, the late Uri Lubrani and Lebanon’s Christian President Michel Aoum, the latter who sold out to Hezbollah and Iran.

Timmerman had worked with Lubrani and Israeli Intelligence to develop a plan to foster an internal insurrection in Iran to oust the country’s Shi’ite Supremacist mullahcracy. The problem was organization inside Iran and communications. Dan Diker who we recently interviewed referenced a former US official who estimated it might cost upwards of $150 million to do that. Timmerman and Lubrani had proposed a program of $300 million to achieve that objective.

The two and a half weeks of violent protests and suppression by the IRGC and paramilitaries may have killed 400, injured 4,000 and detained hundreds, while shutting down the internet for over 113 hours.

Timmerman noted Secretary of State Pompeo’s recent news conference in which US information services rebroadcast over 20,00 notes, email, tweets and videos – the first time the US government has done that. Timmerman believes that fostering and organizing internal revolt among Iranian opposition is a vastly cheaper alternative to a ‘full throated kinetic war”.

He notes that President Trump has no desire to enmesh the US in another Middle East War. It is clear he believes that the Iranian people are fed up billions diverted for foreign adventures and corruption, while the economy is being crushed by the Trump “maximum Pressure campaign of sanctions”. The flash point for the recent wave of protests across Iran was a 50% increase in gas prices and rationing.