INTREP360 INTELLIGENCE REPORT
01.13.2026
January 13th, 2026
Greetings! There are times in this gig that nothing adds up. It is fair to say, that is where things stand now in Iran as we pen this INTREP360 Intelligence Report Tuesday evening.
All we know with certainty is that we are at an inflection point in Tehran. The perfect storm is here & it is fierce.
Photo credit: Reuters. Iranian security forces guarding a pro-Khamenei rally in Tehran today.
Bazaaris, students, women & nationalists continue joining together in the streets of Iran to protest Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei & his regime. Tragically, they are already paying a heavy price for their bravery.
12,000 Iranian civilians – if not more – are dead. Savagely murdered at the hands of Khamenei & his thugs. Plus, U.S.-based Human Rights Activist News Agency (HRANA) is reporting as many as 18,434 arrests.
Many of these protesters were likely emboldened to take to the streets believing that the U.S. somehow could protect them. Several days back Mark attempted to warn in X spaces & during TV hits that the U.S. simply didn’t have sufficient military assets in the region to protect Iranian civilians at a street level.
He was concerned that U.S. resources could not possibly meet expectations. That was the first thing that wasn’t adding up.
It still doesn’t.
Tragically, the scores of pictures of murdered bodies strewn about in Iranian morgues are testimony enough of that.
Perhaps – and it is just too soon to know – a well-intentioned exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, for all of the right reasons but to the wrong effect, simply jumped the gun on January 6th in calling for widespread demonstrations throughout Iran.
Or did Team Trump send him the wrong signals?
Either way, they need to get on the same page. To be clear, we are not playing a blame game here. Nor are we trying to start one.
Doing so would be a waste of time.
Our goal is simple. Sync the White House with Pahlavi & others to achieve the downfall of Khamenei & his regime. To that end, it is encouraging that Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, purportedly “met secretly” with Pahlavi over the weekend.
Initially, Trump was skeptical that Pahlavi is the man for the moment. Last week, Trump conceded the crown prince was a “nice person” but that it wasn’t necessarily appropriate to anoint him as a successor.
Days later, as we noted here yesterday on the INTREP360 Intelligence Report, the White House was re-evaluating that stance. Chiefly because Pahlavi has been able to “convene” a large number of protesters in the streets.
No one else, to date, has been able to achieve that same scale. Plus, to his great credit, Pahlavi is recognizing the opening Trump is giving him. Pahlavi is now positioning himself – at least initially – as a transitional leader should Khamenei & his regime fall.
In that vein, going forward, Pahlavi – ditto the protesters – must not get ahead of Washington’s ability to militarily respond. Nor must they get ahead of the nature of that response should Trump decide to intervene.
Especially since Khamenei still maintains tight command & control of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). As the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) notes, the IRGC is still a potent military force spanning the width & length of Iran.
Used with ISW permission. Credit: Institute for the Study of War and AEI’s Critical Threats Project.
Significantly, neither we nor the ISW has been able to detect any sizable build-up of U.S. military assets in the region.
That doesn’t mean Trump doesn’t have options.
He does.
But it does tell us — at least for now — that one of his options will not be of the kind that can protect protestors at a street level. Yet, here too, this is not adding up either given that it is out of sync with Trump’s Truth Social post today encouraging Iranians to “KEEP PROTESTING” & assuring them that “HELP IS ON THE WAY.”
Screenshot: Trump Truth Social Post. January 13th, 2026.
Nonetheless, there are plausible military alternatives. One is that Trump is planning a layered approached to striking Khamenei and his command & control
These types of strikes could include military- & cyber-attacks on regime targets including the IRGC, Basij & law enforcement agencies. They could also include hits on key infrastructure to paralyze the regime.
Death by a thousand cuts, if you will.
Doing so, however, would take time & arguably wouldn’t be effective in an immediate sense of helping protesters. Plus, that type of layered approach – thus far – has not been Trump’s modus operandi when it comes to military strikes.
He tends to go big & for the dramatic.
E.g., killing Qasem Soleimani, the head of the IRGC-Quds Force, in January 2020. Or before that, ordering the operation that led to the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi – the founder of ISIS – in October 2019.
Ditto the operation in Venezuela that led to the capture & arrest of Nicolás Maduro. And, of course, last June’s strategic bombing of Iran’s nuclear weapons program facilities in Fordo, Natanz & Isfahan.
Big & dramatic in Iran might mean Trump going after Khamenei himself. Either kinetically or far less likely a Maduro-type operation. That said, like in Venezuela, Khamenei’s decapitation wouldn’t necessarily lead to regime change in Iran.
Yet even here, things don’t add up. Turkey, Qatar & Saudi Arabia do not want to see a de-stabilized Iran. They prefer to manage a perpetually weakened Tehran.
Given all of these competing contradictions – plus breaking reports that Israel may be seeking to delay any U.S. action until they can replenish their missile defense munitions – don’t be shocked if a lull sets in (even if just temporarily).
None of this adds up. Yet. Eventually it will. However, when it does, Khamenei & his regime must not still be standing.
Iran must be freed from tyranny.
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Jon & Mark
Follow Jon on X at @JESweet2022 or on Bluesky at @JonSweet.bsky.social.
Follow Mark on X at @MCTothSTL or on Bluesky at @MarkToth.bsky.social.