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As Trump Threatens Iran, Most Of The US Navy Strike Group Remains In Caribbean

Tyler Durden's Photo
by Tyler Durden
Tuesday, Jan 13, 2026 - 08:45 PM

Update(1420ET): President Trump just said something very revealing while in Michigan. He admitted he really doesn't know the death toll in Iran after a couple weeks of raging protests and violence. In classic Trump fashion, he started the morning by issuing direct threats of military intervention, but now seems to obfuscate, keeping Iranian leaders and the world guessing...

But there's reason to believe that even if Trump wanted to order some kind of 'kinetic strikes' on the Islamic Republic, it may not be imminent. Regional analyst Levent Kemal has observed:

I don't think help is on the way. And no matter how much Trump threatens, most of the US Navy strike group is still in the Caribbean. The matter of F15 or F22 aircraft accompanying the plan to strike Khamenei with B52s remains unclear. Maybe Israeli F35 can escort and support them. Even if he did something limited, there doesn't seem to be any capacity ready to defend against the response that would follow. He needs, I think, at least 5 days.

Kemal concludes by pointing out that anything within this window would have to involve Israel doing a lot of heavy lifting. Meanwhile, the following won't happen anytime soon (driving oil down) if Trump keeps threatening Iran with military intervention:

  • TRUMP: WE'LL GET OIL PRICES DOWN EVEN FURTHER
  • TRUMP'S ENVOY SECRETLY MET IRAN'S EXILED CROWN PRINCE -AXIOS
  • WITKOFF MET IRAN'S EXILED CROWN PRINCE OVER THE WEEKEND: AXIOS
AFP/Getty Images

There's reason to believe that the White House is not close to ordering fresh attacks on Iran.

"What you’re hearing publicly from the Iranian regime is quite different from the messages the administration is receiving privately, and I think the president has an interest in exploring those messages," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Monday. "However, with that said, the president has shown he’s unafraid to use military options if and when he deems necessary, and nobody knows that better than Iran." But that seemed to reveal the administration's real thinking on the issue.

On this question of casualty numbers in Iran...

* * *

Update(0953ET): President Trump on Tuesday morning has called on Iranians to keep protesting in the streets, where clashes with security services have spiraled and turned violent - but in some locations have waned. He's told Iranians to "take over your institutions" - which is essentially a call for coup or armed insurrection.

Trump further said he has canceled all meetings with Iranian officials, after yesterday's reports that the two sides were looking to jump-start diplomacy of official contacts if Tehran leaders cooperate, and don't kill any protesters. But now Trump is doing his typical thing of quickly ratcheting pressure to the max. He's reiterated that HELP IS ON THE WAY - suggesting military intervention could be imminent, in the following Truth Social statement.

This resulted in an immediate spike in oil prices, already amid war rumors, as the Commander-in-Chief has been briefed on military "options" - despite the Islamic Republic not having attacked the United States or any of its regional bases.

We detailed below that Iran's government has begun to face a potential deadly insurgency, and even anti-Tehran NGOs have admitted that dozens of police and security personnel have been killed - and even knifed and shot.

* * *

Facing global condemnation and threats of US intervention over casualties associated with anti-government protests, the Iranian government summoned French, German, Italian and British ambassadors in Tehran and screened a collection of videos purportedly showing "armed violence carried out by protesters." Saying the images belie the notion that protests have been uniformly peaceful, Iran demanded that the envoys share the videos with their respective governments and stop voicing support of the "rioters."  

In a screenshot of the video presented to a roomful of European diplomats, a masked individual fires a pump-action shotgun

The ambassadors' Monday matinee coincided with massive pro-government demonstrations in Iran. The presentation included imagery of individuals firing pump-action shotguns and pistols. Other clips showed makeshift barricades on city streets, and groups of people vandalizing cars and flipping them over. There were also multiple apparent examples of arson, including burnt-out buildings, cars and buses. There's also testimony given by a bloodied man, identified as a law enforcement officer, on a hospital gurney. Asked what he was hit by, he replies: 

"I don't know. Knives and things. I was holding my helmet to guard my head...then they pulled off my pants, dragged me," reads the on-screen transcription. "I was told to get up and go. I couldn't. Told them to help me. Then they dragged me toward the square so I got run over by cars." 

Attempting to portray the US government as hypocritical, the video presentation included a clip of anti-ICE activist Renee Good being shot in the head by ICE agents in Minneapolis last week, along with President Trump's reaction. "The woman screaming was, obviously, a professional agitator, and the woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting," Trump said, adding that the ICE officer "seems to have shot her in self-defense." The presentation closed with another quote from Trump, when he warned that, "If Iran shots [sic] and violently kills peaceful protesters, the United States of America will come to their rescue." 

Iran's foreign ministry directed the assembled diplomats to "hand over these videos to their governments and stop supporting the protesters," saying that foreign governments giving "any form of political or information support for rioters" represents wrongful interference with Iran's internal affairs.

According to Iranian state news outlet Press TV, President Masoud Pezeshkian accused US and Israeli intelligence agencies of training armed units, with that training happening both inside and outside the country. If outside governments are directly aiding the agitators, it wouldn't be the first time that technique was used in an attempt to impose regime change on Iran. In 1953, US and British intelligence engineered a coup d'etat that ousted Iran's democratically-elected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh. "Operation Ajax" involved the use of CIA-funded Iranian agents and "rented" crowds of anti-government demonstrators.

Soon after the presentation in Tehran, the European Parliament announced a "ban [of] all diplomatic staff and any other representatives of the Islamic Republic of Iran from all European Parliament premises," to avoid support the "brave people of Iran" and to avoid "aid[ing] in legitimising this regime that has sustained itself through torture, repression and murder." 

Fueling diplomatic disputes, the American son of the deposed Shah of Iran urged members of the Iranian diaspora to replace the "disgraceful" flag of the Islamic Republic of Iran at the country's diplomatic facilities. That exhortation came after a video went viral over the weekend, showing a protester scaling a balcony of Iran's London embassy and replacing the flag with the version used during the Shah's rule. Iran separately summoned the UK ambassador and formally protested "the desecration of the Iranian flag." The former shah's son, Reza Pahlavi, is aggressively pushing for US intervention and promoting himself as the best "transitional figure" after regime change.   

On Sunday, Vice President Mohammad‑Reza Aref portrayed the discord as a new phase of Israel's confrontation with Iran, after June's 12-day war. "The enemies made a mistake by starting the riots through their key agents who were arrested by Iran’s security forces," following which "they had no option but to accelerate their plots, which led to violent incidents in the last few nights," Aref said. He added that Iran's enemies have sought to thwart each of the country's attempts to overcome foreign sanctions.

The Iranian protests began on Dec 29, with merchants railing against the plunging value of Iran's currency -- the rial now trades at 1.4 million to the dollar. More than two weeks later, the death toll is widely reported to be several hundred. Many US outlets are relying on numbers from the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA). The group, which is a subsidiary of Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRA), says 646 people have been killed through Monday, including 505 protesters, 133 security personnel, a prosecutor and seven civilian bystanders.    

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