Trump Again Issues Veiled Regime Change Threat: “Make Iran Great Again”

(Update1618ET): President Trump in a widely circulating photo held up a ballcap which says “Make Iran Great Again” cap in a photo alongside Republican Senator Lindsey Graham on Monday, and he also posted this message:

Indeed these are some bizarre times we’re living in. Let’s hope he doesn’t spend too much time with Graham, who is probably lobbying hard for ‘muscular action’ against Tehran…

You can’t make this up pic.twitter.com/1z11Ky0yyq

— Liam McCollum (@MLiamMcCollum) January 5, 2026

And there’s this unexpected and rare headline today:

Israeli PM Netanyahu asked President Putin to reassure Iran, “We will not attack them”: KANN

The Iranians have every reason not to believe Netanyahu.

* * *

Three Iranian officials have told Reuters that Tehran leadership believes the United States or Israel may take military action against the Islamic Republic soon, coming off the heels of the US intervention to remove Venezuela’s Maduro.

There are reports of Iranian ‘emergency meetings’ of top leadership to examining options for self-defense, and the country overnight engaged in fresh ballistic missile drills to signal its preparedness. 

The NY Times has separately cited Iranian officials who view the country as being in “survival mode” - amid a week of economic protests driven largely by the impact of US sanctions: currency collapse and soaring prices.

The past two years has seen Hezbollah leadership decimated, Assad removed in Syria, and now Iran-ally Maduro taken out - he’s now facing federal charges in a New York court. 

Islamic Republic leadership is fully aware that it remains in a very delicate position:

Ali Gholhaki, a hard-line pundit in Iran, said in a phone interview that the dire state of the economy had played a central role in the downfall of the leaders in both Venezuela and Syria, creating a maelstrom of public discontent and dispirited security forces. “The lesson for Iran is that we must be extremely careful that the same scenario does not happen here,” Mr. Gholhaki said. “When the anti-riot police, security forces and the military are struggling for their livelihood, the defense lines collapse.”

The large-scale internal protests come at the worst possible time, the NY Times continues:

The three officials said that as the protests raged, senior officials in private meetings and conversations had acknowledged that the Islamic Republic had been thrust into survival mode. Officials appear to have few tools at their disposal to deal with either the pressing challenges of a tanking economy fueling unrest or the threat of further conflict with Israel and the United States. President Masoud Pezeshkian has repeatedly said as much publicly in recent weeks, at one point announcing that he had “no ideas” for solving Iran’s many problems.

“Any policy in the society that is unjust is doomed to fail,” Mr. Pezeshkian said in a speech on Thursday, his first public address since the protests began. “Accept that we must listen to the people.”

While at least a dozen people have died amid clashes with police (including at least one security forces member), the ongoing protests still aren’t as big as the 2022 wave.

But Iran also has to always be on the lookout for subversion from the outside, as even Israeli media has increasingly acknowledged…

Jpost has indications that calculations about intervening in Iran to actively help the protesters may have changed: https://t.co/eDFVISIaMM

— Yonah Jeremy Bob (@jeremybob1) January 5, 2026

Mossad has long acknowledged that it has many assets inside Iran, and already Israeli officials have expressed that they ‘stand with’ the Iranian people. Of course, even the protesters themselves are wary of being coopted by outside intelligence. And then there’s the professional activists and subversives of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (MEK) – which is believed to frequently coordinate action with the Israelis and Americans.