movement

Iranian authorities have been increasingly clear that they believe foreign countries are behind the unrest sweeping the country – and are involved in fomenting unrest on the ground.

On Monday, President Masoud Pezeshkian shifted focus away from Iran’s stuttering economy and suppression of dissent and towards his country’s longstanding geopolitical adversaries, Israel and the United States.

Speaking on state broadcaster IRIB, Pezeshkian claimed that “the same people that struck this country” during Israel’s 12-day war last June were now “trying to escalate these unrests with regard to the economic discussion”.

“They have trained some people inside and outside the country; they have brought in some terrorists from outside,” he said, alleging that those responsible had attacked a bazaar in the northern city of Rasht and set “mosques on fire”.

The prospect of direct foreign intervention in support of Iran’s protesters appears to be growing daily, with US President Donald Trump repeatedly signalling a readiness to attack.

In Israel, far-right Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu told Army Radio last week, “When we attacked in Iran during ‘Rising Lion’ [Israel’s June attack on Iran], we were on its soil and knew how to lay the groundwork for a strike. I can assure you that we have some of our people operating there right now,” stopping short of claiming that Israeli agents were seeking regime change.

Writing on social media earlier this month, former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is also a former director of the CIA, did acknowledge the presence of Israeli agents operating on the ground in Iran, wishing “Happy New Year to every Iranian in the streets. Also to every Mossad agent walking beside them.”

Israel’s enemy

Despite its wars with Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and the genocide it has unleashed on Gaza, it is Iran that looms largest in the minds of many Israelis as the most deadly of the many enemies they face.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly claimed that Tehran stands on the brink of developing nuclear weapons and is responsible for backing Israel’s opponents across the region.

“I don’t know if it’s Netanyahu pushing it or the whole of society,” Israeli political scientist Ori Goldberg said. “Israelis are desperate for any sign of a … masterplan in which they … will unite against any foe threatening their destruction.”

Israel has a history of covert operations in Iran.

Previous Israeli operations have targeted Iran’s nuclear and missile programmes and embedded agents and weapons systems inside Iranian territory.

Israeli intelligence has also exploited its presence within Iran to conduct a series of high-profile assassinations of nuclear scientists and politicians, including the Palestinian group Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed while attending Pezeshkian’s inauguration ceremony in July 2024.

Israel is also widely acknowledged to have infiltrated deep into Iran and its security networks in the weeks before the June war. At that time, Israel was not only able to target scientists and officials involved in the country’s nuclear programme for assassination, but also to assemble and launch drones from within Iranian territory.

“My assumption is that the Mossad is active in Tehran behind the scenes,” said Ahron Bregman, who teaches at King’s College London and has written extensively on Israeli intelligence operations. “Israeli officials are unusually quiet. [There are] clear instructions not to talk [and] not to be seen to be involved in any way.”

“I assume there are Israeli agents on the ground, reporting back on the situation from the streets, particularly now that the internet in Iran is down,” he continued. “Operationally, it is easier to do things on the ground as it is so chaotic now.”

In the eyes of many analysts, Iran’s internal cohesion has been fundamentally undermined by the long-running series of protests and unrest, which has allowed for the infiltration of foreign security services.

Exacerbating those fissures has been the toxic mixture of crippling sanctions, corruption and the deaths of protesters.

“I’d be very surprised if Israeli agents were not active within Iran right now,” defence analyst Hamze Attar said. “They’re going to be doing everything they can to make sure these protests continue and escalate.”

“Principally, they’re going to try to provide the demonstrators with what they need most: exposure,” Attar continued. “People have come to expect violence from the Iranian regime. What [the protesters] need is to know it’s not for nothing. That’s what Israel and the US will be focusing on: providing the internet access that will allow people to share footage of what’s happening to them. The protesters will know where [what countries that support] is coming from, but right now – in the midst of the chaos – they’re very unlikely to care.”

PHOENIX — Vice President JD Vance said Sunday that the conservative movement should be open to everyone as long as they “love America,” declining to condemn a streak of antisemitism that has divided the Republican Party and roiled the opening days of Turning Point USA’s annual convention.

After a long weekend of debates about whether the movement should exclude figures such as bigoted podcaster Nick Fuentes, Vance came down firmly against “purity tests.”

“I didn’t bring a list of conservatives to denounce or to de-platform,” Vance said during the Phoenix convention’s closing speech.

Turning Point leader Erika Kirk, who took the helm after the fatal shooting of her husband, Charlie Kirk, has endorsed Vance as a potential successor to President Trump, a helpful nod from an influential group with an army of volunteers.

But the tension on display at the four-day gathering foreshadowed the treacherous political waters that Vance, or anyone else who seeks the next Republican presidential nomination, will need to navigate in the coming years. Top voices in the “Make America Great Again” movement are jockeying for influence as Republicans begin considering a future without Trump, and there is no clear path to holding his coalition together.

Defining a post-Trump GOP

The Republican Party’s identity has been intertwined with Trump for a decade, but he’s constitutionally ineligible to run for reelection despite his musings about serving a third term. Tucker Carlson said people are wondering, “who gets the machinery when the president exits the scene?”

So far, it looks like settling that question will come with a lot of fighting among conservatives. The Turning Point conference featured arguments about antisemitism, Israel and environmental regulations, not to mention rivalries among leading commentators.

Ben Shapiro, co-founder of the conservative media outlet Daily Wire, used his speech on the conference’s opening night to denounce “charlatans who claim to speak in the name of principle but actually traffic in conspiracism and dishonesty.”

“These people are frauds and they are grifters and they do not deserve your time,” Shapiro said. He specifically called out Carlson for hosting Fuentes for a friendly interview on his podcast.

Carlson brushed off the criticism when he took the stage barely an hour later, and he said the idea of a Republican “civil war” was “totally fake.”

“There are people who are mad at JD Vance, and they’re stirring up a lot of this in order to make sure he doesn’t get the nomination,” he said. Carlson described Vance as “the one person” who subscribes to the “core idea of the Trump coalition,” which Carlson said was “America first.”

Turning Point spokesperson Andrew Kolvet framed the discord as a healthy debate about the future of the movement, an uncomfortable but necessary process of finding consensus.

“We’re not hive-minded commies,” he wrote on social media. “Let it play out.”

‘You don’t have to apologize for being white anymore’

Vance acknowledged the controversies that dominated the Turning Point conference, but he did not define any boundaries for the conservative movement besides patriotism.

“We don’t care if you’re white or black, rich or poor, young or old, rural or urban, controversial or a little bit boring, or somewhere in between,” he said.

Vance didn’t name anyone, but his comments came in the midst of an increasingly contentious debate over whether the right should give a platform to commentators espousing antisemitic views, particularly Fuentes, whose followers see themselves as working to preserve America’s white, Christian identity. Fuentes has a growing audience, as does top-rated podcaster Candace Owens, who routinely shares antisemitic conspiracy theories.

“We have far more important work to do than canceling each other,” he said.

Vance ticked off what he said were the accomplishments of the administration as it approaches the one-year mark, noting its efforts at the border and on the economy. He emphasized efforts to end diversity, equity and inclusion policies, drawing applause by saying they had been relegated to the “dustbin of history.”

“In the United States of America, you don’t have to apologize for being white anymore,” he said.

Vance also said the U.S. “always will be a Christian nation,” adding that “Christianity is America’s creed, the shared moral language from the Revolution to the Civil War and beyond.”

Those comments resonated with Isaiah White-Diller, an 18-year-old from Yuma, Ariz., who said he would support Vance if he runs for president.

“I have my right to be Christian here, I have my right to say whatever I want,” White-Diller said.

Turning Point backs Vance

Vance hasn’t disclosed his future plans, but Erika Kirk said Thursday that Turning Point wanted Vance “elected for 48 in the most resounding way possible.” The next president will be the 48th in U.S. history.

Turning Point is a major force on the right, with a nationwide volunteer network that can be especially helpful in early primary states, when candidates rely on grassroots energy to build momentum. In a surprise appearance, rapper Nicki Minaj spoke effusively about Trump and Vance.

Vance was close with Charlie Kirk, and they supported each other over the years. After Kirk’s killing on a college campus in Utah in September, the vice president flew out on Air Force Two to collect Kirk’s remains and bring them home to Arizona. Vance helped uniformed service members carry the casket to the plane.

Emily Meck, 18, from Pine City, N.Y., said she appreciated Vance making space for what she called a wide variety of views.

“We are free-thinkers, we’re going to have these disagreements, we’re going to have our own thoughts,” Meck said.

Trump has spoken highly of both Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio as potential successors, even suggesting they could form a future Republican ticket. Rubio has said he would support Vance.

Asked in August whether Vance was the “heir apparent,” Trump said, “Most likely.”

“It’s too early, obviously, to talk about it, but certainly he’s doing a great job, and he would be probably [the] favorite at this point,” he said.

Cooper and Govindarao write for the Associated Press.

In 2017, a reckoning over sexual violence called “#MeToo” swept the globe. Eight years later, has the movement done enough for survivors? And what will it take for some of the world’s most powerful men accused of sexual misconduct to face consequences?

This week on UpFront Marc Lamont Hill speaks to founder of the Me Too movement, Tarana Burke.

The Department of Justice has released files related to the late convicted sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein after mounting pressure led President Donald Trump to sign the Epstein Files Transparency Act last month. Trump, who himself has been accused dozens of times of sexual assault and misconduct, has already appeared in photos, emails and other documents in connection with Epstein, causing a rift in his base. Other business elites, academics, politicians and world leaders have also been named in connection to Epstein. While some have faced minor consequences, only Ghislaine Maxwell has been criminally convicted as part of Epstein’s sex trafficking of minors. Will newly released documents lead to new convictions and genuine accountability for survivors?