Trump's new plan for Iran doomed to backfire

[marmar]

Trump’s new plan for Iran doomed to backfire
As the administration reportedly prepares to arm Kurds, history shows the risks of using militias for regime change

By Heather Digby Parton
Columnist
Published March 5, 2026 6:45AM (EST)


(Salon) In 2018, on the eve of the massive blue wave in the midterms that gave the Democrats a congressional majority, Donald Trump seemed to acknowledge for the first time that Republicans might actually lose. At a rally in Huntington, West Virginia, airport hangar, he told the ecstatic crowd, “It could happen. And you know what you do? My whole life, you know what I say? ‘Don’t worry about it, I’ll just figure it out.’”

....(snip)....

Now, as he wages war against Iran in a widening conflict that is quickly engulfing the entire Middle East, Trump is putting that preternatural resilience to what may be its greatest test. The Islamic Republic is proving an able military enemy, and with only one ally — Israel — at his side and tepid public support, the president has no plan for how win or for what comes next. Apparently, he’s just going to “figure it out.”

Part of that, the nation discovered on Tuesday, is an old method: using the CIA to arm and train unorganized opposition. The Wall Street Journal reported that the administration is in talks about arming Kurdish forces to lead an effort to “dislodge the regime.” According to CNN, the CIA is already engaged on the ground and Trump has been speaking with Kurdish leaders.

....(snip)....

Trump has said that he hopes Iran will be another Venezuela, a simple decapitation mission in which the people who replace Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the regime’s supreme leader who was killed on Saturday in an air strike, would be eager to be bought off and do his bidding under threat of more bombing and carnage. But a problem emerged. Trump complained that the people he’d apparently been told were good candidates to become his puppets have all been killed. “I guess the worst case is we do this and then somebody takes over who is as bad as the previous person,” he said to reporters in the Oval Office. “That could happen.” ....................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2026/03/05/trumps-new-plan-for-iran-doomed-to-backfire/

[surfered]

1. An idiot who thinks he's a genius.

[Ocelot II]

2. Is there an actual plan at all? Whatever it is seems to change daily.

[Blues Heron]

3. The Kurds are a small population isolated in the far western edge of the country. Iran is huge.

The Kurds are hardly going to rise up an overthrow Iran. That’s like expecting the lobstermen of Maine to overthrow the US if Canada decided to arm them.

[Deminpenn]

4. The Kurds are able fighters, but they don't want all of Iran

just as they didn't want all of Iraq. Kurds only want that parts of the Iran/Iraq/Turkey that they consider their ancestral birthright.

The CIA has such a dismal track record of these proxy wars, a future Congress would be wise to ban the practice.

[dutch777]

5. This would have been good to have teed up months ago, not as an after thought. Turkey, Iraq and others....

have serious issue with armed Kurds. Both have been trying to keep their restive Kurd minorities from breaking off a chunk of their country and inciting rebellion as they do so. I get why the Israeli's don't care, they just want to do everything possible to hurt Iran, damn the consequences. It is a bigger issue for us and the region and even NATO given Turkey is strategic to NATO's southern flank.

[dalton99a]

6. Trump will entice them with U.S. immigrant visas and cash.

[Cosmocat]

7. This is as idiotic having teachers strap guns

to protect schools ...

[C_U_L8R]

8. I guess they never read up on The Fall of Rome

Or maybe they're stuck in a mindnumbing loop... magamagamagamagamagamagamagamagamaga

[Solly Mack]

9. "How did this happen, Mr. President?". "I don't know. I just wanted to push the pretty red button".

[Rob H.]

10. "Trump complained that the people...

...he’d apparently been told were good candidates to become his puppets have all been killed.

Salon should point out that they were killed during the opening wave of strikes because we put buffoons in charge of them.