On January 7, 2026, events took place in Tehran that may be necessary for a better understanding of the political and social conditions in the Islamic world and the relations between nations, especially Iran and other Islamic countries, with the West. On that day, a number of business owners protested against the economic situation and high inflation. Subsequently, exploiting these conditions, certain foreign spy networks, by providing financial resources and support, turned the protests into violent actions. During this time, much public and private property was set on fire inside Iran by terrorist agents.
In this context, some of the opinions expressed by various individuals, including Alastair Crooke, a former MI6 officer and advisor to the European Union on foreign policy, in interviews with the media, are noteworthy.
In an interview with international media Based on sources and a survey by MuslimPress.com, Crooke stated:
“In my view, this episode had two phases. The first phase related to June. At that time, a surprise move occurred. It was truly a surprise attack because Trump had just announced that they wanted to negotiate with Iran. But two days later, on Friday, June 13, the attack took place, precisely when Witkoff and his team were supposed to resume negotiations with Iran. This act was completely deceitful. Its aim was to catch Iran off guard, to ensure it was not on alert. However, the current situation is entirely different.
During the June war, small teams had infiltrated Iran—not large, equipped units, but small groups armed with attack drones and anti-tank missiles. Their mission was to try to disable Iran’s early warning radars and blind the main radar system, especially the local radars, making it seem as though the attack was originating from within Iran itself. In other words, the attacking forces were already stationed near the bases. They were the ones, as I mentioned, using anti-tank weapons and small drones that could be carried in suitcases. This equipment had been smuggled into Iran beforehand for this very purpose.
After that, to control the situation, Iran cut off the international internet. This internet blackout prevented these groups from receiving the necessary data from American satellites. Those satellites would create a simulated image of the battlefield in the cloud and would feed the positions of Iranian radars to these groups right up to the last moment for targeting.
Well, cutting the internet largely severed this connection. I won’t go into too much detail, but Israel requested help from Trump and called for a ceasefire. The reason was that Israel was attacked in a way it had never experienced before. Israel’s air defense systems were also powerless against Iran’s missile attacks.
Regarding the recent events, the type of attack was different. There was a surprise of another kind: the infiltration of trained insurgents into Iran. Some of these insurgents were individuals trained either in camps in Albania or in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq—I’m not sure which—and some were members of the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK) organization present in those same camps in Albania. This is a place where about 3,000 members of the so-called MEK are trained by the CIA specifically for such missions. These individuals were completely organized and took orders. They were told precisely where to go and what to do. I must say, their method was, to some extent, unexpected for me. There was a text called ‘The Management of Savagery,’ which was a guide for ISIS to create absolute chaos in society through unbridled and brutal violence. This method was ISIS’s approach, used all over the world. Its aim was to make violence as extreme as possible and to carry out attacks in unexpected places, like banks, mosques, and any government symbol. This is why, in the recent attacks, these insurgents attacked innocent Iranians as well—with great violence and in a completely brutal manner. Some of the images I saw from these attacks were truly heart-wrenching.
The goal of this plan was to create the impression that the Iranian government was collapsing, as if everyone was fleeing a burning building. I think Netanyahu and the Israelis had convinced the Americans to intervene under those circumstances. Because when a government is collapsing, military intervention becomes easy. They would have entered Iran with a small military operation, helped the insurgents, and the government would have quickly fallen, and it would have been over. Ultimately, Iran would have become something like Syria after the fall of Bashar al-Assad. That was precisely the aim, which, of course, failed.
In my opinion, there are many reasons for the failure of this scenario, but the primary reason, I believe, was that Iran reacted very quickly and cut off international communications. It severed the international internet, leaving only the domestic network accessible to the government and people inside Iran, but connection with the outside world was completely cut off. The crucial and surprising point that the Israelis and the CIA did not expect was the disruption of Starlink communications. They relied on Starlink and the internet to command their forces on where to go, how to act, and how to regroup.
I think another plan was also underway behind the scenes: the plan to disintegrate Iran. Elements who entered Kermanshah province were reportedly told to establish a new constitution and government structure inside Iran. It was clear that this was part of Israel’s plan, perhaps even more than America’s. The US was still thinking about regime change in Iran, but Israel’s plan was not that. Israel’s plan was the disintegration and division of Iran along ethnic lines and the complete weakening of this country, exactly the conditions we witnessed in Syria. However, after Starlink was cut off, the unrest was contained to that same Thursday and Friday, and then the entire protest movement subsided and ended within a day or two.
This matter was truly surprising, and its significance is very striking. Even the Israelis themselves have confirmed this—I mean their professional experts, not their propagandists. When Israeli analysts examined the situation, they said, ‘Well, we proceeded according to plan, but where was the flight of the political elite? Who fled the parliament and joined the protesters? Who from the army, the IRGC, or the Basij defected?’ No one. There is no real opposition inside Iran, and no rift or rupture occurred in the government’s structure. The government was not harmed at all. And now the Israelis acknowledge this in their own intelligence assessments.
Today, I was writing about this very topic and quoted Ronen Bergman, one of the most famous and prominent investigative journalists and Israeli writers on military and intelligence affairs, who said the assessment is that the insurgency simply did not happen; it was stopped. He even adds that the question is whether it was even possible for an insurgency to form or succeed in the first place. He’s essentially saying a repeat attempt in this direction would be futile. This is a very important analysis that Israeli intelligence has arrived at. Now, whether Washington has the same analysis is another matter, because Washington is still trapped in certain mental frameworks regarding Iran.
Recently, David Barnea, the former head of the Mossad, met with Trump. Of course, we don’t know exactly what was said, but I suspect Trump knows this operation failed. Naturally, they are trying to compensate. They are engaging in a kind of psychological adaptation, which is why they say, ‘Well, we didn’t actually send very large forces to the region, and now we have to send more because we miscalculated, and we need more forces for success that we didn’t have in the region.’ This is more of a psychological coping mechanism. Because military experts, like Will Schriver, whom I mentioned in the article and who is a knowledgeable person, say that the talk of a massive force being deployed to the region and around Iran, with ships and missiles arriving, is just propaganda.
America claims, for the first time, forces are coming to the Middle East in unprecedented numbers. But according to these experts, these statements are nonsense and have no basis. The ships and units arriving off the coast of Iran might, at most, have around 350 Tomahawk cruise missiles that can be launched from ships. Because after launching, they cannot replace these missiles and would have to return to port for reloading. He says 350 missiles over Iran, considering the vastness of Iran and the missile systems spread across the country—a nation roughly the size of Europe—with these parameters, 350 Tomahawks could cause some damage. But does it destroy Iran? No. That’s why one could say these statements and claims are more of a psychological adaptation mechanism to keep Trump satisfied.
I think the important point is that Trump is probably beginning to understand that their intelligence was flawed. This idea that Iran is a small house of cards, that you can start an insurgency and topple the system, that a small force can go in and out quickly as Trump likes, get the job done swiftly, and achieve a clean operation, a great victory, and a dazzling event—such a thing does not exist. The issue is not that simple. Iran is not Venezuela. An operation like the one against Maduro won’t work here. You can’t have a few Delta Force operators come in, arrest the president, and take him to a New York court for trial the next day. That kind of thing won’t happen.
Well, one of the key points you mentioned was the effort by the Swedes, along with this intelligence network, to create a rift within the Iranian government, the establishment, and the leadership. In fact, it was the same strategy they employed against Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria, and they voiced these lies to mislead public opinion. This plan had been in the works and on the agenda for a long time. We can prove this with evidence, for example, by the fact that individuals were sent into Iran beforehand, who knew exactly what to do. They were primarily sent to small towns first, where people had started the initial protests. Then, American and Israeli agents tried to take over these demonstrations, provoke the people, and inflame the crowd. After that, armed individuals and snipers started shooting at security forces. This was the work of elements present on the scene, backed by America and Israel.”
Summary :
Alastair Warren Crooke (born 30 June 1949) is a former British diplomat and a former senior figure in the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). He is the founder and director of the Beirut-based Conflicts Forum, an organization that advocates for engagement between political Islam and the West .
Key Career Highlights:
- MI6 Service: Crooke worked for nearly 30 years in MI6 under diplomatic cover in various regions, including Northern Ireland, South Africa, Colombia, Pakistan, and the Middle East. His early work involved providing weapons to jihadists fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan and assisting in the Northern Ireland peace process .
- EU Security Adviser (1997-2003): He served as a security adviser to the EU Special Envoy to the Middle East. Operating out of the British Embassy in Tel Aviv, he was involved in British efforts to bring Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other Palestinian groups into the political process .
- Conflict Mediation: Crooke played a key role in negotiations to end the Israeli army’s siege of Yasser Arafat’s compound in Ramallah and the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. He also assisted in negotiating several local truces between Israelis and Palestinians in the early 2000s and was central to establishing a Hamas ceasefire in 2002 .
- Mitchell Committee Member: He was a member of the fact-finding committee led by Senator George Mitchell that investigated the causes of the Second Intifada in 2000 .
- Founding Conflicts Forum: In 2004, he established Conflicts Forum in Beirut. The organization aims to help Western governments better understand Islamist groups and their perspective on military resistance against Israel .
- Author and Analyst: He is the author of the 2009 book “Resistance: The Essence of the Islamist Revolution,” which explores the origins and logic of Islamist resistance movements like Hamas and Hezbollah . Since 2018, he has been a regular contributor to the Russian-affiliated Strategic Culture Foundation website .
Honour:
In the 2004 New Year Honours, he was appointed a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) for his services to the Middle East peace process .
