See this for Iran’s plans that didn’t come to fruition.

HC68:

They don’t press that button because they don’t have that button – although not from lack of trying.

— neo

They don’t have the nuclear button, or not enough to be useful to them. They absolutely do have other buttons they could press, and could have pressed at any time over the last several decades. They didn’t, as I said, precisely because the buttons they had were not sufficient. If they pressed, Iran would be wiped out and Israel and America would be hurt but survive.

But there are people who would have pressed those buttons anyway.

For one ex, when Israel bombed Iran not long ago, the mullahs could have retaliated harder, and set the Middle East on fire, with them in it. They didn’t. Instead they launched an entirely ineffectual missile barrage and declared victory.

I agree completely that the moment the mullahs think they have a button that will do the job, (i.e. wipe us out while letting them survive), they’ll press it.

The situation in Iran seems to have come to the current point rather quickly, having only gone kinetic two weeks ago on December 28, 2025, although they came on “gradually, and then suddenly.”
https://www.britannica.com/event/2026-Iranian-Protests

We have seen posts on what the forces sent to Venezuela had to do in preparation, and that took a fairly lengthy time (although we haven’t been given enough info to know exactly how long, AFAIK).

It will take some time to develop a plan, practice it, and put people and material in position to accomplish it.

IMO, President Trump will not randomly bomb the Mullahs’ assets, which is about all he could do given the abruptness of the protests, because of the danger to civilians. I expect something eventually along the lines of Israel’s surgical strikes on Hamas (missiles through the leadership’s living room windows). But that takes intel even the IDF / Mossad may not have yet, although it’s clear that they have spies in Iran who might be able to deliver it.

Trump probably won’t do an extraction of Khamenei, ala Maduro, but anyone who can predict Trump’s actions with any certainty has my applause.

PS The Britannica article is very comprehensive, with history and interactive maps.

They don’t press that button because they don’t have that button – although not from lack of trying.

On 14 December [2001, former president of Iran] Rafsanjani declared before a crowd in Teheran that the Islamic world is arming itself with nuclear weapons in order to destroy Israel and undermine Western interests in the region.

In his speech, delivered on the occasion of the Iranian “Jerusalem Day”, Rafsanjani emphasized the following themes:

“The establishment of Israel is the most hideous occurrence in history. The Islamic world will not tolerate the continued existence of Israel in the region, and will vomit it out from its midst.

“The Jihad operations against Israel must continue unrelentingly until victory is achieved. Therefore, all Palestinian Authority actions against the Jihad organizations are unacceptable. When the Islamic world acquires atomic weapons, the strategy of the West will hit a dead-end — since the use of a single atomic bomb has the power to destroy Israel completely, while it will only cause partial damage to the Islamic world.

“The West’s support for Israel is liable to bring about World War III, which will be fought between those believers who seek a martyr’s death, on the one hand, and those who represent the epitome of arrogance on the other hand.”

No, they are worst case for Iran.

— Don

And we know this how?

The Iranian people rising up clearly want a more secular society and many are openly pro US and pro Israel.

— Don

Do they? Or do they just want the mullahs gone? Or do some of them want a secular society and some of them want neither that nor the mullahs? Or is this an outburst of anger with little ideological or logical thought behind it? Do some of them like the theocratic state but just want different theocrats? Do some of the rebels hate each other almost as much as they do the mullahs? What is the attitude of the general public? How much of this is an elite movement and how much is popular groundswell?

I don’t know. Neither does anyone else, really. I detest the mullah regime but that doesn’t keep me from recognizing that we’re in unknown waters here.

HJ68:

You write:

I can easily imagine something worse than the mullahs. They are at least self-preserving and sort of sane and pragmatic.

— HC68

Accent on the word “imagine.” They are not those things. See this post, and watch the 2-minute video clip there as well.

— neo

I’m well aware of it. That’s why I say the mullahs in Iran have been relatively pragmatic. They plot constantly to destroy Israel and America, but when one or the other or both slaps them down, they stop short of blowing the Middle East up with them in it. As we watched Israel dismantle their proxy network over the last few years, and fire on Iran itself, they contented themselves with ineffectual responses and claims of success.

No doubt the mullahs long to destroy both America and Israel, and would press the button in a heart beat to make it happen. But I ascribe sanity to them because they recognize that, at least for the moment, that button would end with America and Israel destroying them and surviving. So they haven’t pressed it.

There’s a breed of fanatic that would say ‘so what’ and press it anyway in that situation.

That’s not a defense of the mullahs, merely a recognition that even worse possibilities do exist.

it they feel cornered now, it’ll be interesting and scary to see what they do.

It took Reagan and Bush the Elder to get the US standing in the world back from President Peanut. After George Bush, The Lightbringer undid all of that and piled on wth intentional domestic ruin and treasonous administrative state aparachtnics that hobbled Trump’s first administration. So the US standing in the world was that of an ox, (devoid of testicles). FJB just continued The Lightbringer’s policies, parasitizing the ox to further enfeeble it. Putin runs amok, Iran continues with its nuclear bomb program, China does its Can Do goodness, and open the doors tear down the fences for all yea undocumented Democrat voters.

Standing in the world.

Russian/Venezualian tankers being seized, Finland seizing Russian anchor draggers/undersea cable cutters. Europe waking up to the concept that they have to be serious about keeping Russia out of Europe.

Standing in the world indeed.

However, Steve Witkoff has no business in foreign policy whatsoever (he’s Russia’s best voice in DC).

So he’s not being hasty.