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from
https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2025/01/27/iran-retreats-n3799212

Ch-ch-ch-Changes: Iran Tells Proxies to Cool It in Trump Era
Ch-ch-ch-Changes: Iran Tells Proxies to Cool It in Trump Era
Ed Morrissey 12:00 PM | January 27, 2025

Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP
Looks like Gustavo Petro isn't the only world leader taking a belated
lesson about American power as Donald Trump returns to office. Iran's
Ali Khamenei has even sported a new look while out in public, the
Telegraph reports, donning a stylish flak jacket at a recent funeral -- although that may be out of newfound respect for Israel's re-established
air and intel dominance.

However, the Telegraph also reports that Khamenei and his puppet
government have ordered its proxies to shut down offensive operations
for a while. And that's a direct response to the return of Trump and the unleashing of American military power. They suddenly recognize this as
an "existential" threat, a feeling that they clearly haven't had for the
last four years:

Iran has ordered its proxy forces across the Middle East to exercise
caution as the Islamic Republic fears an existential threat following
Donald Trump’s return to the White House, The Telegraph has learned.

Officials have told commanders of Iran-backed militias to avoid
provocative actions that could escalate regional tensions. ...

“Forces and allies in the region have been instructed to act with
caution as [the regime] feels an existential threat with Trump’s
return,” one senior Iranian official told The Telegraph from Tehran.

“In Iraq and Yemen, forces have been told not to target any American
assets, and if they do, they are explicitly warned against using Iranian weapons,” the official added.

“They have been told to keep defensive positions for a while and to
avoid any actions that might provoke the Americans.”

What a difference a week makes, eh? As one friend quipped over the
weekend on social media, "Forget the first 100 days. What about the
first 100 hours?"

The interesting point about this is that the policies of Trump regarding military intervention in that region aren't all that much different than
Joe Biden's -- at least on the surface. Trump may even have been more
opposed to using American troops in military action there than Biden.
Biden did order some limited strikes on the Houthis, although he was
hardly enthusiastic about it. The real differences have been in
leadership, as well as a refusal to be ashamed to project American power
for American interests. We saw that in spades yesterday as Trump
humiliated Petro on the world stage for his attempt to grandstand over immigration, and now South America as a whole has to recalculate their
own approaches in a hurry.

South American leaders don't have to worry about those changes being "existential," although perhaps Petro may need to worry about the
existential impact his bizarre behavior will have on his political
career. Iran very much understands that Trump has made the US into a
truly existential threat to their regime, and that he's probably just
waiting for an excuse to make that point clear. Trump spent his first
term underscoring that point, pulling the US out of a shamefully supine
deal with Tehran and then taking out Qassem Suleimani when the IRGC
killed American troops. After seeing the results of four more years of appeasement, Trump will look for ways to impress upon the mullahs that
he means business, and will take any excuse to make those impressions as painful as possible.

No one took Joe Biden seriously, least of all the mullahs Biden tried to appease. That's why the Houthis have been attacking Red Sea maritime
traffic for the last 16 months, with Iranian military support, as a
means to punish the West for supporting Israel. Everyone takes Trump
seriously, if not literally, which is why Tehran is now saying ixnay on
the ed-Ray ea-Say issiles-may.

Are the Houthis listening? Maybe:

For more than a year, the Houthis have used missiles and drones to
target commercial ships and naval vessels sent to protect them in the
Red Sea, once one of the world’s busiest trade routes. Shippers have
taken to sending vessels around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern
tip of Africa instead.

The Houthis have attacked more than 100 vessels in the Red Sea since
Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel sparked the war in Gaza.

In an email to shippers, the Houthis said they wouldn’t attack U.S. and British vessels while a cease-fire was in effect. The group also this
month released 25 crew members of the cargo vessel Galaxy Leader, which
they had seized in November 2023.

The rebels, however, said they would still target Israeli vessels. The
Houthis in the past have attacked ships that they have claimed to be
Israeli but which have had limited or no ties to Israel. Houthi leader
Abdul Malik al-Houthi said the group could resume its attacks if the
cease-fire agreement fails.

They'd better pay more attention, lest they hand Trump another FAFO opportunity. The next time they attack Western shipping, the Iranian
naval spotters might get the FO part of that equation.

Again, the real difference is in leadership, which has been missing in
the US for the last four years. Biden's "Don't" doctrine was a bitter
joke, and his Weekend At Bernie's presidency left an obvious vacancy and
vacuum at the top of the Western coalition. That was as true at home as
well as abroad, and leadership vacuums have serious consequences. Biden,
or the marionette committee that ran Biden, dithered as they tried to
manage a decline. Trump has embraced governance in a muscular way, and
that has consequences for everyone who took advantage of that vacuum.

Yesterday, Zaid Jilani explained it in a pithy series of posts on Twitter/X:



Jilani is not a fan of Trump, but he's also not blinded by the American
Left's self-loathing, either. A country without leadership is a country
in decline, and a world without leadership is a world at war. Trump got
more accomplished in a single week for American national security than
Biden even tried over four years.

That's leadership. The only question will be how many FAFO opportunities
Trump will have left once everyone realizes that America has it again.

Update: I couldn't recall who had quipped about the 100 hours, but it
turned out to be ... the friend who's done a weekly podcast with me for
the last 16 years. Andrew Malcolm has a great VIP column up about it too.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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