Do Iran’s Leaders Smell the Coffee Yet? Has the regime’s Supreme Leader made his escape plans? by Kenneth R. Timmerman

https://www.frontpagemag.com/do-irans-leaders-smell-the-coffee-yet/

You can say a lot of things, most of them unpleasant, about former Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad. But you can’t say he didn’t have a nose for coffee.

He knew what was coming once the Syrian rebel fighters took Aleppo, more than 200 miles to the north.

He flew to Moscow the next day, on November 28, begging for Russian military support, but was given the cold shoulder. By the time the Iranian foreign minister visited him in Damascus on December 2, the rebels were moving south toward Hama and Assad knew it was only a matter of time — and not much of it — before they reached Damascus. Assad was so despondent he didn’t even ask the Iranians for help.

We now know that he secretly flew to Moscow in the wee hours of Sunday morning, December 8, after telling his top generals that help was on the way from Russia. He wasn’t going to get Qaddafied by his own people.

Now the question is, will Iran be next?

The regime’s Supreme Leader has undoubtedly already made his escape plans. Some of my Iranian sources believe he’s got a jet gassed and ready, but that could just be wishful thinking on their part.

What’s sure is this: all those surrounding Khamenei and his generals have been wearing adult diapers for the past week. They are terrified that they could be next.

Once the sleeping giant of the Iranian people awakens and starts to pursue them, they won’t have time to get to the airport. And they know it.

We are living through a momentous upheaval in the Middle East, greater even than the Arab Spring disaster set in motion by Barack Obama.

As President Trump remarked repeatedly to his advisors during his first term, whenever bad things happened in the Middle East, Iran is at the center of it. And now, the Iranian regime has suffered three huge defeats in a matter of weeks, which the legacy media continues to paper over, for reasons that are beyond me.

First, is the defeat in Gaza. Yes, Hamas has been smashed. They still believe they will live to fight another day, but not without Iranian regime assistance. That is why last week we heard rumors that they were getting ready to negotiate with Israel and possibly even release the hostages before Trump is inaugurated.

Second is the defeat in Lebanon. The Israelis smashed Hezbollah, and smashed enough of Lebanon that the Lebanese people and their normally weak-kneed leaders demanded that Hezbollah end their attacks on Israel and get the hell away from the border.

And third, of course, is the fall of Assad.

All three of these defeats involved Iranian proxies, but proxies that the Iranian regime was using to demonstrate their power at home.

The Iranian people can smell the coffee, too.

When the strong horse becomes weak and falters, the vultures swoop down. And they will pick its bones clean. I can’t think of a more fitting demise for the Iranian mullahs.

It reminds me of these words from Rudyard Kipling, when describing the disastrous British retreat from Afghanistan after the battle of Gandamak in 1842:

When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.

I won’t be saying prayers for the mullahs when it happens.

Ken Timmerman is a senior fellow at the America First Policy Institute. His latest work of non-fiction, The Iran House: Tales of Revolution, Persecution, War, and Intrigue, was recently published by Bombardier Books.

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