Iran, Pakistan, Washington D.C., the blue state west coast

At Ace of Spades, JJ Sefton writes a "Morning Rant" column giving us his views on events of the day, then he provides links on the same subjects. Here is his Morning Rant from today.

Good morning kids. The holiday is now over and the work week begins in earnest. The top story continues to be the developing situation in Iran. As the protests head into their fifth day, the regime senses the potential for an existential threat and is clamping down hard. The death toll stands at 12 with, doubtless, many more injured as well as arrested, though I can't get any numbers on either. There was a leaked report from Israeli intelligence to suggest that though the protests are widespread and serious, the Regime is not in peril just yet. That story, of course, could be planted by Israeli or other sources or it could be a real leak. And considering the decades-long track record of those in the journalism racket to undermine America, its allies and their own political enemies, that cannot be discounted either.

What is certain is that unlike 2009, President Trump is taking a firm and unequivocal stand with the people. Several good analyses of the situation both on the ground and looking more long-term to the bigger picture. No doubt in my mind at all; if the Mullahs are overthrown, it will be an historic event of a magnitude like that of the Berlin Wall coming down and the collapse of the Soviet Union. We cannot know exactly what a post-Islamic state Iran will look like and considering what became of Europe and Russia after the collapse of the Soviets, I don't want to Fukuyama myself in the foot making a prediction. But minimally, we will have removed the biggest exporter of global terrorism for nearly 40 years and prevented an annihilationist theocracy with Armageddon as its chief political aim from obtaining nuclear weapons and using them. In human terms, a people who have roots that are indeed more western than Islamic/Middle Eastern, and a strategic country that was once a solid US ally will have been liberated from a tyranny that Jimmy Carter aided in establishing. I hope this President does all he can diplomatically as well as behind the scenes with our allies in the region and rebels in-country to bring the whole rotten edifice down as quickly and cleanly as possible.

Continuing in the foreign policy vein, the President is continuing to piss off all the right wrong people by hitting them with the truth hammer. This time it's the Pakistanis reacting with the phony indignation to being called out for the liars and terrorists they are. Meanwhile, a few thousand miles to the east, Whoa, Fat! made some conciliatory remarks to South Korea vis a vis talks about future Olympic games. Is this a sign that he blinked at the President or is it just a ruse?

Closer to home, with the President back in Washington, and with the slimmest of margins now in the Senate, the GOP looks to parlay its last-minute legislative success with Tax Reform into moving ahead on immigration (hopefully what we want and not the Chamber of Cronies), real Obamacare repeal, infrastructure (meh and/or feh depending on your outlook), spending and debt and entitlement reform. Add to that, it's also the start of midterm election season, so hopefully with a bit of political wind at his back and as the economy continues to boom, one more agenda item in the win column could seal the deal for '18 and perhaps beyond.

In news from the Insurrection, Devin Nunes at House Intel is expanding his probe into the FBI and DoJ vis a vis their knowingly using the "dossier" as a political weapon to destroy then-candidate and now President Trump. Naturally, the Democrat-Media complex is revving up the smear machine to try and take out Nunes. In a related story, we're learning that former Weiner-mama and Muslim Brotherhood affiliate Huma Danger had sensitive e-mails and passwords to State Department servers on her Yahoo account at the time every one of Yahoo's subscribers was hacked by foreign cyber-warriors/criminals. Sheesh.

Lastly, a couple of depressing pieces about the blue state west coast; first, the land of Moonbeam has some insane laws that kicked in yesterday and our friends over at City Journal take us to Oregon to look at the consequences of urban leftist land and environmental policy on the lives of those trying to earn a living in the countryside. Spoiler Alert: Meh, as if you need one.

Read his links here.