Trita Parsi@tparsi
Wow!
Trump tells Fox News that the US "sent a lot of guns to the Iranian protesters, we sent guns through the Kurds, I think the Kurds kept them."
Trump reportedly said the weapons were sent after the Iranian gov started killing protesters in large numbers. Not sure that makes a lot of sense since the Internet was completely shut down at the time, and the US had very limited insight into what was happening.
I suspect he misspoke: The weapons were sent through Kurdish groups BEFORE the January 8-9 clampdown.
Either way, this admission by Trump rewrites the history of these dark days.
My suspicion is that the US and Israel had armed specific groups that infiltrated Iran but could not operate until large protests had erupted. When that happened - both organically and with the encouragement of Reza Pahlavi - these groups were activated and began using systematic violence against the state apparatus as well as civilian targets (banks, mosques etc).
The vast majority of Iranian protesters had nothing to do with or even awareness of this US/Israeli armed group. They were protesting peacefully. But the Iranian government appears to have made little distinction between the two and killed armed and peaceful protesters alike on a large scale - probably around 7,000.
