It’s been five weeks since President Donald Trump first drew his redline on the Iranian uprising. On January 2, he posted on Truth Social that if Iran shot the protesters flooding the streets of its cities and towns, “we are locked and loaded and ready to go.”
The warning did not prevent a bloodbath. A week later, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s goons massacred protesters in the most violent crackdown since the regime took power. Today human rights groups who have monitored the state-backed carnage estimate the dead could number more than 30,000. But no U.S. strike followed. Now, the president’s top envoys will meet their Iranian interlocutors in Oman on Friday. The talks are not about the terms of Khamenei’s surrender or the fate of Iranian demonstrators. Rather, the negotiations are about the regime’s nuclear program and support for terror in the Middle East.
Has Trump pulled a Barack Obama, warning a Middle Eastern despot not to attack civilians, only to flinch and reverse course?
