As of January 10, 217 protesters are reported to have been killed in Iran. President Trump warned a week ago, and repeated that warning since, that he was prepared to attack the Iranian regime if “they start to kill protesters” and “we will hit them very very hard.” He has said that his administration was “locked and loaded and ready to go.” On January 11 at 6:44 a.m., he posted a photo of himself with the single word “Soon.” The implication was clear, yet still non-specific. He did not give a figure, but he must have meant that the deaths of “a large number of protesters” would trigger an American response. Aren’t 217 dead protesters enough? More on the latest figures on casualties in Iran can be found here: “Iranian doctors say hundreds killed in protests, hospitals in Tehran enter crisis mode – report,” by Tobias Holcman, Jerusalem Post, January
Hundreds of people were reportedly killed during the ongoing protests in Iran, according to Iranian doctors who spoke to Time magazine and the BBC.
The Time report mentioned that a doctor from Tehran, who spoke on condition of anonymity, stated that Iranian hospitals have recorded some 217 protesters killed since the protests began two weeks ago.
According to the doctor, most of the victims were killed by live ammunition, and authorities are removing the deceased from the hospitals.
The BBC report assured that two other doctors reported critical situations in the Iranian capital, with hospitals going into crisis mode and not enough surgeons to cope with the influx of patients.
The first doctor, who contacted the BBC via the Starlink satellite internet service, said that Farabi Hospital, Tehran’s main eye treatment center, was overwhelmed with wounded patients and had gone into crisis mode.
And what of the wounded? If the main eye treatment center is overwhelmed with patients, one can assume most of these are serious injuries, possibly involving the blinding of those whose eyes have been struck. If there have been 217 protesters killed, there must have been a great many more — several thousand — wounded Iranians. In recent U.S. conflicts the ratio of wounded to killed has been more than 10 to 1; at the very least, there should have been 2200 protesters wounded, many of them seriously, so far.
After his last message urging protesters to gather on Thursday and Friday nights in several cities, the Iranian Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi called for two more days of protests to pursue “the revolution’s victory.”
All of a sudden, support for the crown prince has exploded in Iran. On the streets of Iran, the protesters do not just shout “Death to the dictator! Death to Khamenei!” but also, with increasing frequency, “Reza, Reza Pahlavi.” After all, the crown prince is the only opposition leader who has name recognition among the Iranians both inside and outside Iran, and could serve as a unifying head of state after the current regime is toppled. Reza Pahlavi has made clear he does not want to rule the way his father did, but instead to be a constitutional monarch, a figurehead akin to the British monarch.
217 Iranian protesters are now dead. That is a large number by anyone’s calculation. If Trump continues to refrain from carrying out his threat to respond with violence if the Iranian government “kills more protesters,” the Iranian regime will simply feel emboldened to kill even more protesters.
By the time this piece is posted, I hope we will all have heard that from the skies over Iran, American F-35s have attacked the headquarters of the IRGC and the Basiji, and perhaps have persuaded the Supreme Leader to take a plane to Moscow, the only place in the world where his safety can be assured. 217 Iranian protesters killed is quite enough. Where’s that deadly response President Trump promised “soon”?
Hugh Fitzgerald says
Now the figure being provided by websites run by Iranian exiles is 2,000 dead.
Is that enough for President Trump to do something?
somehistory says
Compare those numbers to Nigeria and the tens of thousands who weren’t even *protesting* the nigerian government, but have been massacred while that government approved and even furthered the persecution.
OLD GUY says
Sadly vary true, Nigeria is destroying the Christian religion and its followers within it’s borders.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
The numbers are all over the place, but I do think they should plan what they are doing before execution. That’s probably what the meeting b/w Trump, Rubio, Hegseth and Caine would be about
Taking out IRGC command centers in Tehran, as well as the main broadcasting station in Tehran would be a good start
Keys says
Several days ago I saw a report that the IRGC centers were being abandoned (reported as if that were a good thing for protestors, as if that was evidence protestors are “winning”).
I think, if the report was true, that abandoning IRGC centers was done in case of airstrikes to spread out those soldiers. The regime has had lots of time to prepare for threatened strikes, but in either case taking them out would still be good.
Then there are the Basij.
“Estimates of the number of Basij vary, with its leadership giving higher figures than outside commentators. Official estimates are as high as 23.8 million. A scholar of the Basij, Saeid Golkar, estimates their total membership at approximately one million, and their security forces in the tens of thousands. As of 2020 there were reportedly between 40,000 and 54,000 Basij bases (Paygha-e Basij) around Iran.” – from Wikipedia
Are any IRGC or Basij supporting protestors?
࿗Infidel࿘ says
In some cities, IRGC/Basij personnel have switched sides, while in others, when overcome, they have fled. But in other places, where they are armed, they are opening fire. The numbers killed vary from the hundreds to the thousands, depending on who you listen to
Keys says
Thanks, Infidel.
What a terrible mess for Iran.
“Give me liberty or give me death” – easy to say.
James Lincoln says
Infidel,
I am very confident that the Trump administration will act – and follow through – decisively.
Perhaps in a matter of days.
They just want to make sure that they get this right.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
🤞
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Now 12,000
truth says
but why is it on trump to do something?? Why can’t he just arm israelis and let them do it.?? We americans are sick of being the world’s police.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
I’m fine w/ either. In fact, given how long it’s taking them, I wish he had simply told the Israelis, behind closed doors, to support the Iranians in overthrowing Khamenei, and bringing in Reza Pahlavi. The latter would have done it a lot sooner, w/o thousands of Iranians getting massacred
Westman says
One should fear that Trump’s rhetoric rises higher than action.
The time for action is closing if a professor of Tehran University, Seyed Mohammad Marandi, is right. In an interview with Glenn Diesen, he claims the protestors(he considers them thugs) are supported and paid by the West and doing so much infrastucture and random damage that the internet was shut down to stop them from organizing.
He claims that millions of government supporters are now on the streets since Monday and the Western media isn’t showing it. He also claims that the woman arrested for not wearing a hijab, causing the last protest, simply collapsed in prison, an “immaculate” death. Yeah, right.
He says every 3 or 4 years the West foments an Iranian uprising and because of the size of the recent one, it won’t happen again because the people will will support the government. He claims Iran might attack first and is prepared to “go all out” and it will destroy the Western economy. He says, “The fate of the West is in the hands of the Iranians” …. “This is war the US cannot win.” He also claimed that Iraq would come to Iran’s defense, and began to sound like Saddam’s minister bragging about his military before Iraq was crushed.
That Diesen would simply wimp while this obvious propagandist sold the Regime and then agreed on points was nauseating. Diesen has generally been a good Podcaster yet he obviously has little understanding of how Islam is a ready-made instrument of oppression and a capture-cult that restrains cultural development.
Greg says
Kick the tyres and light the fires!
Westman says
It may be too late for now. Alexander Mercouris’ sources have reported that the murderous Iranian Regime has scheduled executions of protest “leaders” for Wednesday.
Mercouris thinks the US is not able to respond now due to lack of carriers in the region and a shortage of high-tech missiles and arms, which take years to replace under the US procurement system – which were spent in Ukraine.
He thinks that the US government is committed to war with Iran, and it will proceed within some weeks, after political media brawling and preparations for war are made on both sides.
He also thinks after request from Iran that both China and Russia will be willing to save the Iranian currency for some trade advantages.
Who knows? The longer it takes the more Iranian lives the Mullahs will destroy.
Walter Sieruk says
President Trump is 100% right for siding the Iranian people in their righteous and just revolt against the brutal cruel oppressive and murderous tyrannical Islamic regime of Iran.
Back in time with President Trump’s first term of his administration on the date of 4/22/19 the US Secretary of State ,Michael Pompeo spoke of that brutal and oppressive tyranny which oppresses the people of Iran and said “We will not appease their oppressors as that last administration did .” Pompeo then stated, “We will support the Iranian people.”
As far back as on Tuesday, 2/5/ 19 in his second State on the Union a speech President Trump ,wisely, spoke of that Islamic tyranny of Iran as well as those in total power and complete of that tyrannical rogue state. For the President declared “It is a radical regime, they do bad, bad things.”
Moreover, an author of an article on a Freedom Site, Dariush Afshar, had explained the reality of the situation well when he wrote that the “People of Iran who fight for freedom in Iran and abroad put a huge gap and draw a prominent line between Iran and the Islamic regime in Tehran.”
This is sadly and tragically the terrible reality of this Islamic tyrannical regime of Iran. This Islamic tyranny has been well nicknamed “the mullahs regime” in which them mullahs and ayatollahs as well as other fiendish and fanatical Muslims in power have a strong and awful control of the Islamic regime of Iran and through their band of Islamic state “police” , who are called the “Revolutionary Guards “come down hard human rights of the Iranian people .
Therefore, the Iranian people who are trapped and forced to exist in this Islamic tyranny live in terrible fear of the mullahs and others in power in Iran. This is a tragic and sad reminder of the wisdom that was printed in the periodical of Benjamin Franklin which is entitled POOR RICHARDS’ ALMANAC that reads “Those who are feared are also hated.”
It also should be added, to this that the actual word “Republic” has on origin the Latin meaning “Of the people” With the mullahs ayatollahs in so much power and even influencing the parliament of this Islamic regime is tyranny is hardly a real republic .Furthermore the ruthless gang of thugs who are the stooges of those Muslim clerics, called the “Revolutionary Guards,” those Islamic State “police” come down hard on the human rights and freedoms of the Iranian people. Therefore the people do have the right to overthrow a tyranny. This reality had even been expressed and described by men of great intelligence .For example, the philosopher .John Locke. This is wisdom that mullahs and other villains in power in that Islamic tyranny don’t want the Iranian people to know about or understand.
Walter Sieruk says
Most of the readers of this site are well aware that back when Joe Biden was sitting in the Oval Office of the White House masquerading as a genuine m real US President , he, quickly caved ,to those Muslim despots of that Islamic tyranny of Iran giving in and granting them everything they demanded. Therefore ,, straightening the oppressive grip of those islamic tyrants on the Iranian people.
Consequently the people trapped in that brutal cruel death inflecting Islamic tyrannical regime didn’t dare endeavor into the righteous attempt to have their basic human rights and freedom to overthrow that horrendous “mullah regime” of Iran.
Now , with President Trump in Office , a real US President, ,who is not supporting and upholding those dictators of Iran but opposes them , unlike bogus “president ” Biden, the Iranian people are engaging in their noble action and quest to free themselves from the oppressive and deadly bondage of that horrific Islamic tyranny of Iran.