Reuters has reported attacks on police stations in Iran. Attacks like that occurred in Syria at the outset of that war. They suggest organized rebellious elements or instigators with a planned road map to cause the governing system to fall. Such attacks are not the usual instruments of peaceful protests. They cause the police to use greater force in defense. That makes the state’s forces look repressive, which helps to spiral resistance and chaos upwards, the goal being to create a revolutionary environment. In the Syrian case, suicide bombers also entered the fray, killing police and civilians, even though the Syrian case began with relatively peaceful protests.
I take the attacks on police as evidence that some serious revolutionary instigators are at work stoking the protests. Circumstantial evidence of policy changes in the U.S. preceding the violence does suggest the hidden hands of U.S. and Israeli providing money, guidance and organization to agents provocateurs within Iran. I would not expect “ordinary” economics based protests to attack police and military bases. It would not, however, be surprising for crowds to be brought to a point of chanting anti-regime slogans, as crowds afford individuals with a feeling of courage and anonymity.
Further evidence of U.S. involvement at a deep level is U.S. open support of the protesters. Not only is Trump tweeting on this, but also see this article in which Undersecretary of State Steve Goldstein makes a number of statements on the record that basically call for regime change in coded language.
3:08 pm on January 2, 2018
