Rod Reuven Dovid Bryant and Jerry Gordon interviewed veteran Iran-watcher, best-selling author and investigative journalist Ken Timmerman to address the recent violent protests in Iran, Iraq and Lebanon directed at the Islamic Republic of Iran. Then there are the problematic relationships between President Trump and Turkey’s Islamist President Erdogan and Russia’s Putin Along the way we learn of Timmerman personal association with the last Israeli Ambassador to Iran, the late Uri Lubrani and Lebanon’s Christian President Michel Aoum, the latter who sold out to Hezbollah and Iran.
Timmerman had worked with Lubrani and Israeli Intelligence to develop a plan to foster an internal insurrection in Iran to oust the country’s Shi’ite Supremacist mullahcracy. The problem was organization inside Iran and communications. Dan Diker who we recently interviewed referenced a former US official who estimated it might cost upwards of $150 million to do that. Timmerman and Lubrani had proposed a program of $300 million to achieve that objective.
The two and a half weeks of violent protests and suppression by the IRGC and paramilitaries may have killed 400, injured 4,000 and detained hundreds, while shutting down the internet for over 113 hours.
Timmerman noted Secretary of State Pompeo’s recent news conference in which US information services rebroadcast over 20,00 notes, email, tweets and videos – the first time the US government has done that. Timmerman believes that fostering and organizing internal revolt among Iranian opposition is a vastly cheaper alternative to a ‘full throated kinetic war”. Timmerman notes that President Trump has no desire to enmesh the US in another Middle East War. It is clear he believes that the Iranian people are fed up billions diverted for foreign adventures and corruption, while the economy is being crushed by the Trump “maximum Pressure campaign of sanctions”. The flash point for the recent wave of protests across Iran was a 50% increase in gas prices and rationing.
President Trump’s pullout of US Troops from northeastern Syria abandoning Kurdish allies of the Syrian Democratic Force triggered the October 9th incursion by Erdogan’s Turkish military and Jihadis, Syrian National Army composed of Al Nusrah and former ISIS fighters. Timmerman cited the evidence of war crimes committed against Kurds, Christians and other minorities. The Turkish and Jihadist proxies have forced out over 200,00 from their homes, killing and raping women imposing sharia law. He connected this to the recent US House sanctions against Erdogan’s incursion creating a 120-kilometer-long by 30-kilometer-deep Orwellian “safe zone” with 1915 Armenian Genocide Resolution Congressional Resolution. Timmerman believes this stems from a deeply anti-Christian historical ethnic cleansing by Turkish regimes in the 19th to 21st Centuries against Armenians, Syriac Orthodox, Assyrians and now Kurds and Yazidis. He contends that Erdogan is a force for evil.
Timmerman is perplexed as to why President Trump has a blind spot for both Erdogan and Russian President Putin. He noted that Trump’s sending a US armored force into eastern Syria’s Deir Ezzor province to protect oil wells from a resurgent ISIS and the Assad Regime backed by Russia was transactional to provide funds to support Kurdish – led SDF operations against encroachment by Iran. He noted that Erdogan and his family benefitted financially from brokering sales of oil from these same wells previously controlled by ISIS. Timmerman, while suggesting that Putin is not a friend of the US may be useful in its role in the Middle East policing these conflict areas.
Timmerman referred to the recent release of 700 documents by Iran’s MIOS intelligence that demonstrated the overarching control of Iraq by Iran, now in turmoil of violent protests over Iranian influence, corruption, high unemployment.
In Lebanon’s case, he recalled during his years there during the Reagan era that Lebanon’s Army was divided into sectarian units of Christians, Sunni and Shia. Now it is clear that with Christian President Michael Aoun allied with both Hezbollah and Iran, the US should not continue military assistance for Lebanon Forces dominated by Hezbollah.
When asked about the recent Pompeo ruling on Israel Jewish Settlement in the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria, Timmerman said that after all it is the Land of Israel, that US evangelical Christians revere through the Old Testament. The threat of violence erupting because of the Pompeo legal ruling is not evident in the regional reaction of Trump’s US Embassy in 2017, endorsement of Golan sovereignty. The PA- PLO he considers a corrupt “mafia clan”. That application of Israeli law will benefit and lead to peace through prosperity and eventual sovereignty for Palestinians.
On the domestic matter of the current House Impeachment Inquiry and possible Senate Trial, he contends that polls show waning interest among US voters in the upcoming 2020 national elections. Instead, domestic issues like health care, a US Canada Mexico and China trade agreement are of primary interest.
Watch for a new Timmerman novel of how Trump lost the 2020 because of a team of a Democratic operative and hackers who meddle in the election in key states.