In recent weeks, Donald Trump and a large section of the international media have pushed a familiar storyline: that protesters in Iran want the United States to step in militarily and bring down the country’s leadership.

Trump has paired that messaging with threats of major military action. He has not limited his demands to how Iranian authorities treat demonstrators. He has also insisted that Iran abandon what he describes as a nuclear weapons pursuit and give up long-range missiles and other defensive capabilities.

None of this changes a basic reality inside Iran. Many Iranians have taken to the streets because daily life has become punishing. Prices have surged, the currency has lost value and families have watched wages fall behind the cost of food, housing and medicine. The Trump administration’s sanctions have played a central role in tightening that vice, sharply restricting Iran’s ability to trade and access global markets, and adding momentum to inflation and financial instability.

Yet public discussion often stops there, as if economic pain tells the whole story. It does not. A second layer matters for anyone trying to understand what is happening, and for anyone tempted to treat escalation as “support for the Iranian people”: the question of foreign encouragement and involvement.

Mossad’s messaging and Israel’s public claims

Israel’s intelligence service, Mossad, has not confined itself to quiet signals. Mossad used social media to urge Iranians to mobilise, writing: “Go out together into the streets. The time has come… We are with you in the field.”

Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu also spoke in unusually direct terms, referring to an operation he called “Rising Lion” and saying that Israeli forces had operated on Iranian soil and had people active there “right now”.

Former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo........

© Middle East Monitor