03 World

After weeks of escalating tension, U.S. and Iranian officials faced each other Thursday at the U.N. Security Council, where America’s envoy renewed threats against the Islamic Republic despite U.S. President Donald Trump’s efforts to lower the temperature between the two adversaries.

The U.S. was joined by Iranian dissidents in rebuking the government’s bloody crackdown on nationwide protests that activists say has killed at least 2,637 people.

“Colleagues, let me be clear: President Trump is a man of action, not endless talk like we see at the United Nations,” Mike Waltz, U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said in a statement. “He has made it clear that all options are on the table to stop the slaughter. And no one should know that better than the leadership of the Iranian regime.”

Iran medics: hospitals overwhelmed with dead and injured protesters. There were “direct shots to the heads of the young people, to their hearts as well.”
“There wasn’t enough space in the morgue, so bodies were stacked one on top of another. https://t.co/qNwHtRdttJ

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) January 11, 2026

“We are now seeing the rats fleeing the ship, because we can see millions, tens of millions of dollars being wired out of the country, snuck out of the country by the Iranian leadership,” Bessent said. “So they are abandoning ship, and we are seeing it come into banks and financial institutions all over the world.”

Not exactly a vote of confidence for the regime’s future.

While the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reports that the mass demonstrations like those of January 8-11 may have disappeared, Iran is like a simmering pot ready to boil over. The American Enterprise Institute’s (AEI) Critical Threat Project (CTP), partnering with ISW, reports that the horrific slaughter carried out by regime forces and foreign militias on January 8-9 has been effective in clearing the streets, but the revolutionary fervor has not been dimmed.

CTP-ISW recorded zero protests on January 14, but the regime is sustaining repressive measures that impose a significant cost on the regime. This suggests that the regime does not perceive that the threat from protests has subsided. The regime is maintaining security force mobilizations, which risks exhausting and burning out these forces. Security forces are patrolling streets in towns and cities across Iran to prevent Iranians from holding demonstrations.[8] Sources in Chalus, Mazandaran Province, for example, told a BBC Persian reporter on January 11 that “security forces with machine guns have been stationed in all streets.”[9] The widespread deployment of security patrols is likely contributing to the decrease in recorded protest activity because these patrols are likely deterring some Iranians from participating in protests.