X Files

Just as they long to use Ofcom to shut down GB News, the centrists have always hated Twitter because they could not control it. But do not hold your breath for American sanctions if Britain blocked X. The killing of protesters was supposed to have been Donald Trump's red line in Iran, not that he objects to it at home, and we are well past that.

I wish I could believe, I really do. I would rejoice if it worked out. But did Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya or Syria? The last Iranian Revolution did not create a democracy, so why should this one? Like the last one, this one features the PMOI/MEK, but this time after it had fought for Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War. If the IRGC is to be proscribed, then so should be the PMOI/MEK, as it used to be. Indeed, it should be, anyway.

As already in Venezuela, Trump will back whoever would give him control of who got the oil and gas, with or without the American oil companies. Just as he has installed a diehard Chavista in Caracas, he could in principle cope with any of the three options in Tehran.

Against the Islamo-Marxist Saddamists who were the darlings of the people who falsely accused us of being those things 23 years ago, we have the heir to a dynasty of, well, look it up and try not to laugh. And against both are those whose version of velayat-e faqih was even more recent and self-serving than the pretensions of the Pahlavis.

It is those last who are experienced in these matters, and the economic woes under them are largely the result of the sanctions that would of course be lifted if it suited Trump to lift them. Nor did the huge pro-Government demonstrations begin today. They have been going on throughout. At least 20 per cent of the population would remain loyal to the regime that had of course organised those events. After the Charlie Hebdo attack, the French Government flew in client dictators from Africa to walk at the head of its march. Nothing requires more planning than a spontaneous outpouring. Or uprising. Think on.