The Trump Effect: One Day After Maduro Capture, Reports Say Iran's Supreme Leader Preparing to Flee Country to Moscow
By C. Douglas Golden
January 5, 2026 at 6:29am
Call it the Trump Effect. Or the Maduro Effect, if you don’t like naming it after Orange Man Bad.
The point is, if a report in Sunday’s Times of London is to be believed, it’s very real — and it could mean regime change is coming to Iran the same way it came to Venezuela.
Just one day after the daring capture of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro in an early-morning raid, the Times quoted intelligence sources which said that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the 86-year-old supreme leader of Iran’s theocratic regime, had formulated a back-up plan to get out of Dodge (or Tehran, in this case) if the protests against his regime, which began in late December, intensified.
Mass uprisings in Iran have been nothing new, especially under Khamenei. In 1999, 2009, 2017, 2019, and 2022, Khamenei’s government has faced massive popular opposition; it’s as regular as the swallows returning to San Juan Capistrano, almost, only if the swallows were forced to wear the niqab and were gunned down by the IRGC if they did not disperse.
https://www.westernjournal.com/trump-effect-one-day-maduro-capture-reports-say-irans-supreme-leader-preparing-flee-country-moscow/
