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** 'Locked and Loaded'?: Is Trump Abandoning the Courageous Iranians – Again? ([link removed])
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by Robert Williams • January 16, 2026 at 5:00 am
* Despite encouraging Iran's protesters to carry on and assuring them that American "help is on its way," Trump has done nothing to compel the regime to permanently stop the killing or its other atrocities.
* The question becomes: Is Trump actually going to leave these psychopaths in power and effectively thwart the brave, unarmed Iranians from ridding themselves of an armed government that has been suppressing, torturing and slaughtering them in the streets over the past 47 years?
* For reasons that are entirely unclear, Trump already has a history, unfortunately, of rescuing the Iranian regime -- called by the US State Department 39 years in a row, since 1984 the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism.
* Trump first said he did not want regime change in Iran; then posted that he might want regime change if it could "Make Iran Great Again: MIGA!!!", before turning around, yet again, and reimposing the ceasefire. Trump also seems constantly to be "forgetting" that Iran has been attacking the US since 1979...
* Every US adversary -- from Russian President Vladimir Putin to Chinese President Xi Jinping -- can now assume that the Trump administration, while giving diplomacy so much of a chance that it is effectively no help at all, is primarily just huffing and puffing, while every US ally can now assume that the US no longer can be trusted.
* The Trump administration's dawdling appears virtually the same as that of President Joe Biden.... Such acoustics with no follow-up destroy US deterrence and paint the Trump administration as weak and dithering at a time when the future of American preeminence is at stake. That is a terrible look.

Despite encouraging Iran's protesters to carry on and assuring them that American "help is on its way," President Donald Trump has done nothing to compel the regime to permanently stop the killing or its other atrocities. Pictured: Iranians protest against their regime on January 8, 2026 in Tehran, Iran. (Photo by Anonymous/Getty Images)

It has been nearly two weeks since US President Donald J. Trump threatened the Iranian regime with military intervention for killing its demonstrating citizens.

"If Iran shoots and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue," the president wrote in a post on Truth Social on January 2, about five days into the Iranian protests. "We are locked and loaded and ready to go."

Since then, according to Iran International, the regime has killed "at least 12,000," and according to CBS News, "possibly as many as 20,000 people." According to the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), as of January 14, "[at] 617 protest gatherings in 187 cities across the country, the arrest of at least 18,470 people [was reported]."

On January 13, Trump wrote:

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