US 'Mulling Options' for Iran, Forgetting Its Own History
Bloomberg reports that Trump's administration is 'closely monitoring' protests in Iran and 'mulling potential options,' framing it as a thoughtful deliberation. (2026-01-12, Bloomberg Politics). What they omit is the US's long, documented history of 'options' in Iran, stretching back to the 1953 CIA-orchestrated coup against democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh. This ushered in
decades of brutal dictatorship under the Shah, sparking the very revolutionary fervor the US now 'monitors.' One might wonder if 'mulling options' is just code for dusting off the old regime-change playbook, perhaps updating it for the digital age, complete with 'support for democracy' messaging that conveniently ignores the historical precedent of destabilization. Funny how 'monitoring' protests
in Iran always seems to include a careful omission of America's own historical footprint in creating the conditions for those very protests.