Leo Hohmann – Leo’s Newletter Jan 15, 2026

It’s starting to feel a lot like the summer of 2003. You can feel it in the air. The war drums are beating. The pressure building.

For those of you old enough to remember, the U.S. government in the runup to the Iraq war used politicians, the media and the evangelical community to spread fear and loathing of the Saddam Hussein regime. Our government was in a mad dash to war and wars are always accompanied with massive disinformation campaigns. Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and was ready to use them at any moment, we were told. Babies were being slaughtered and all kinds of sensational stories were being spread by the media, both mainstream and alternative. Anyone who stood in their way with uncomfortable questions was deemed unpatriotic and drowned out by the raging noise of pro-war hysteria.

Switch Iraq out for Iran and I’m afraid we may be in for a repeat performance, only possibly worse this time around because the world power structure, both militarily and economically, has changed dramatically since 2003.

The U.S. is no longer the sole superpower capable of crushing any country that dares to challenge it. We have BRICS and we have a battle-tested Russian military, thanks to the U.S. funding and supplying their enemy in Ukraine. Russia is revved up and primed for a fight after four years of attacks from the West, both economically and militarily through the Ukrainian proxy. And we now have to contend with China, which is a thousand times more technologically and militarily advanced than they were 23 years ago. Like with Russia, we have no one to blame but ourselves for the rise of China.

We isolated Russia and forced them into a military posture and we partnered with China to make them rich. The Chinese have invested their American-fueled wealth wisely, as they are now technologically our equal and industrially our superior.

So before you click off this article in anger and dismiss me as a commie or someone who doesn’t understand the evils of the Islamic Republic of Iran, please hear me out.

I absolutely am horrified by what’s going on in Iran. The innocent deaths stacking up there are unconscionable. I’ve heard estimates of anywhere from three to five thousand dead Iranians to 20,000 or more. Who knows what the actual number is. But the regime there is brutal and will use everything at its disposal to smash the uprising. I get that. It’s horrible.

But I also am a journalist predisposed to geopolitical realism who doesn’t base my analysis on the emotion of the moment. I look at history and America’s track record in these types of operations. I see a trail of misery left behind by U.S. military/CIA interventions, whether directly or through proxies, in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Somalia, Libya and now Ukraine.

I don’t believe those encouraging our president to use U.S. military force to “finish the job” of crushing the Islamic Republic of Iran have fully thought through the potential for this operation to blow up in our faces. I’m talking about a bloodbath that will make the current situation look like a preschool picnic in the park.

There are a couple of ways this operation could go sideways and make the situation worse for both the people of Iran, the Mideast region and the world.

First, organizing an attack of this nature takes time and time is not on our side.

We have to get all of the military assets in place. We have to make sure our allies in the Arab world are solidly on board, or at least give assurance they won’t work against us. All of the different forces needed for a successful regime-change operation are really too numerous and complicated to go into here but suffice it to say, it doesn’t come together overnight.

Simply bombing the regime into smithereens is likely not going to be enough. I believe it will take boots on the ground to search and destroy the regime’s IRGC troops and their sympathizers, a mission that could take months or years.

Given that fact, and President Trump’s propensity to avoid long, drawn-out wars, we could end up offering too little too late for the Iranian people. So, in this scenario, not much changes in the end. The regime is temporarily weakened but not defeated and perhaps the country devolves into civil war, an outcome similar to what we saw take place in Syria. Years later Iran could have a new leader who is just as bad as the old leader.

In this scenario, we need to seriously question the role of the CIA and Mossad in the Iranian uprising. Protests are one thing. Protests are meant to affect change in one’s government. An uprising is aimed at overthrowing the government. Big difference. When you promise something and don’t deliver, you become a paper tiger that the world no longer respects.

And it was the CIA and Mossad that encouraged the Iranians to move beyond protest and into the more dangerous realm of full-blown uprising.

The Mossad openly took credit for instigating the uprising in an article in the Jerusalem Post, which is a longtime mouthpiece for hardline Israeli positions when it comes to geostrategic military operations that Israel’s government sees as necessary for its defense. We are not talking about liberal papers like Ha’aretz or the Guardian. This is the Jerusalem Post, and they spilled the beans in an article posted on December 29, less than three weeks ago, that ran under this headline: “Mossad spurs Iran protests, says agents with demonstrators in Farsi message.”

The article spells out in no uncertain terms why we saw the protests spread and move beyond just people marching around with signs. Some were given guns and instructed how to use them against Iranian police.

The article stated that “As protests grow across Iran, the Mossad posted an unusual Farsi message urging demonstrators to act, saying it is with them in the streets, amid rising economic pressure and public unrest.”

“Go out together into the streets. The time has come,” the Mossad wrote in a December 29 post to X, adding, “We are with you. Not only from a distance and verbally. We are with you in the field.”

The article went on to say that “In June, the Mossad had hundreds of agents involved in Israel’s 12-day war, which set back Iran’s nuclear program, ballistic missiles program, air-defense systems, and killed dozens of its top military and intelligence officials.”

Former U.S. Secretary of State and ex-CIA boss Mike Pompeo also admitted the Mossad’s involvement in stoking the Iranian protests. Appearing again in the Jerusalem Post, an X post from Pompeo was cited in a January 3 article saying, “Happy New Year to every Iranian in the streets. Also to every Mossad agent walking beside them.”

So, the Mossad/CIA element was there, egging the Iranians on and promising the moon.

Then President Trump weighed in with his own bold and very public promises, writing in a January 13 Truth Social post:

“Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING – TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!… HELP IS ON ITS WAY.”

He said help is on the way. Now he must deliver. If Trump’s help doesn’t arrive, or arrives too late or in insufficient amounts, he’s going to be accused of baiting the Iranian people into an uprising doomed to fail. Another case of American bluster without the firepower to back it up?

It remains to be seen how well Trump’s plan will succeed, but every Christian should be praying that it works out to the benefit of the Iranian people. I’m afraid they may have been sold a bill of goods and left holding the bag. Because when help finally does arrive, it may not be enough to dislodge the mullahs from power.

As bad as this first scenario sounds, the second one is much worse.

The second scenario is that the U.S. and Israel team up to wage a more full-scale war against Iran. Israel itself is not capable of this, as they don’t have the manpower as a tiny nation of less than 10 million people. Iran has more than 93 million people. Iran also has a vast missile arsenal that in the 12-day war of June 2025 proved formidable at evading Israel’s vaunted Iron Dome.

While it was not widely reported at the time, it was not Iran who was losing that war, it was Israel. That’s why Trump stepped in to stop it. Israel was running out of Patriot missile interceptors and Iran still had hundreds, if not thousands, of missiles left in its arsenal. There is some speculation that Israel’s newly deployed Iron Beam defensive shield is fully operational and may be able to fill in the gaps that exist in the Patriot Missile System. If that is indeed the case, Israel’s new laser-beam defense system is going to get an early test of its effectiveness.

The danger in this second scenario is that the war spreads beyond just Iran, Israel and the U.S., and that Russia, China and North Korea get involved. This means we will live through World War III and all bets are off that it will not go nuclear.

I shudder to think what life will be like if that happens because it will mean war coming to U.S. soil. That may be in the form of Islamic terror cells being activated, but it may also involve direct military engagement with the Russians and Chinese and North Koreans – missiles scoring direct hits on U.S. cities. Utilities, bridges and other infrastructure being knocked out. Are Americans ready for that?

The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on January 14 warning Donald Trump and the United States of America.

“Those who plan to use externally inspired unrest as a pretext for repeating the aggression against Iran committed in June 2025 must be aware of the disastrous consequences of such actions for the situation in the Middle East and global international security,” the statement read, as reported by The Times of Russia.

Military experts I trust, men like Col. Douglas McGregor and the late great Dr. Peter Pry, have said the United States is not positioned to fight a world war on several fronts. It’s better positioned for short, in-and-out operations carried out by special forces. Not the grind-it-out war of attrition like we’ve seen in Ukraine.

So, despite all of the emotion-based cheering for a U.S. intervention to “bring democracy” to Iran, I would urge caution and for folks to take a deep breath and be careful what they wish for. It could be worse than what we are seeing now.

Of course, the third scenario is that my concerns are completely unwarranted, that the regime-change operation goes off without a hitch and we end up with a democratic Iran whose people live in peace and freedom. I hope I am wrong to be questioning the validity of another regime-change in the Middle East and that all of my concerns are unfounded. But given the United States’ track record with regime-change operations, I don’t think I am.

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