Curious Case of Left’s Dark Money and the Metamorphosis of Iran’s Crisis
By Saswat Pattanayak
New York, 01/16/26
Many people on the left/liberal side are upset that Trump didn’t outright invade Iran and enact a regime change by installing the so-called Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi who had remarkably and boastfully succeeded in turning a small protest movement into a massive one that resulted in global outcries against Iranian regime.
During his first term too, these folks were pretty upset that Trump didn’t launch a full-scale war against Iran. Whether Wolf Blitzer or Christiane Amanpour, liberal pundits have for decades psychologically brainwashed Americans into thinking that a war with Iran was not only desirable, it was necessary.
Also, these are the same folks who have been for years demanding a war with Russia and failing which they describe Trump as “Putin’s bitch”. And yet, they have never depicted Trump as “Netanyuhu’s bitch”, even as Trump continues to fund Israel and has not lifted sanctions off Russia. If one can recall, even mild criticisms of Ukraine used to be penalized during Biden’s administration. Twitter (before X) would ban accounts if anyone dared to question Zelenskyy’s intent. But Putin was fair game. So was Maduro. And today, so is Khamenei.
Liberals who claim to be agents of peace have proved themselves to be warmongers time and again. Whether the killing of Gaddafi, ouster of Assad or the justifications for Gaza Holocaust, liberals have lost no opportunity. They raised the bounty on Maduro’s head and kept describing him as a dictator until he was finally kidnapped by Trump. Next in line is the hope that Trump gives Iran a Venezuela treatment, if not more.
Maybe Trump will eventually invade Iran, topple Putin and do a regime change in Venezuela. Maybe the plan is already underway. We don’t know that as yet. But what we know is folks who are supposed to be his fiercest critics, folks who have officially a Nobel Peace Prize on their side, they are the ones who should be demanding for an end to endless wars, foreign interventions, and to end funding of genocides.
Yet, the critics of Trump are having none of that. They openly want a more militarized NATO - whereas they couldn’t come in support of Maduro, they have created a united front to fly to Denmark next week to assure that Trump has no support in DC when it comes to invading Greenland. Yet, they could not make a united front to visit Palestine to assure folks there about zero support in DC for Trump’s plan to turn Gaza into a casino. They could not visit Venezuela to assure Maduro that he shall not be captured because there is zero support for Trump in DC. Why are Danish people more deserving of support even before any invasion, compared to Latino or Arab people even after they have been invaded? Isn’t Trump the one who is supposed to be the racist here? Why are his critics outperforming him in this domain?
Let’s look for some answers. First stop on this journey is the Prince. Why does Trump find him unfit to replace Khamenei? And more importantly, why does the liberal media think he is the right man for the job? No opinion poll has ever revealed there is public support inside Iran for the return of the Prince. So why are the liberals so keen to position him as the main guy? It is public knowledge that Pahlavi from the US had called for the small protest in January to turn into a justification for regime change in Iran. There was a noticeable metamorphosis in the protest itself. In other words, there were possibly foreign-led orchestration of protests driven by motives.
Could it have anything to do with Israel? Because the Prince has publicly declared his support for Israel and his eagerness to normalize Iran’s relations with Israel the moment he takes charge. Surely that cannot be a good thing - since many liberals (even as they have voted to fund genocide) have been critical of human rights violations (if G-word is too accurate to repeat) committed by Israel. So a country - Israel - accused of having committed war crimes by international courts can be supported by the liberals and their Prince. And yet it is Iran that needs a regime change so bad because of unverifiable numbers that appear in the media about how many were killed by Iran’s unpopular regime? Of course international bodies must investigate and determine the actual number of deaths and find out who were behind the killings. But given that Internet access is limited and sources have not yet been verified to be credible, the rush with which regime change is being justified merely points to levels of hypocrisy that have been on display so much by now that its too redundant to be mentioned.
Or is it that, this goes beyond moral investigations of hypocrisy standards? Especially if a genocide could not manage to awaken the conscience? Could it be that Trump is not happy with the Prince because the Prince and his supporters materially support the liberals in the US owing to their eagerness for regime change? Is it possible that the No-Kings protests and 50501 movements are echoing the Prince’s take on Iran? After all, numerous shares over social media shows collaborations between anti-Iran influencers and 50501 accounts.
xxxxxxx
Marxists (or any critical thinker by another name) need to follow the money trail. And that journey indeed shows the biggest supporters of Netanyahu regime are one and the same - the folks who desperately want regime change in Iran. While Trump was busy impressing his Qatari, Saudi and Russian friends, much to the chagrin of the liberals, time was running out on controlling the narrative over the other “axis of evil”, Iran. By and large, it won’t be an exaggeration to say that the folks who support Ukraine over Russia also happen to be supporting Israel over Hamas (aka Palestinian resistance) and they happen to be supporting regime changes in Syria, Venezuela and Iran.
Traditional critique of American foreign policy or of its presidents by the likes of Chomsky, Blum or Woodward have focused on the rightwing thirst for imperialism. This has resulted in a partisan interpretation that prevents an understanding of interventionism as quintessentially “American”. Therefore it is important to dig deeper into the so-called Left (although it’s just a meaningless word in US context) politics that justifies and continues the rightwing legacies. That will present a more holistic picture of a continuous tradition of “American Exceptionalism”.
The foremost question to answer is the presence, role and impact of “dark money” that funds the so-called Left in America. One curious link that CNN and the likes do not want to highlight is the role of the Iranian-American wealthy class who are desperate to seize back Iran once again. One such entity is Iranian-American tech billionaire and a leading donor to Democratic Party, Pierre Omidyar - whose family was directly tied to the rise of Pahlavi dynasty.
So-called Left’s dark money has helped organize protests not just inside the US (No Kings Rally, 50501 Movement etc) but it also has been used to intervene and create worldwide protests in support of their political agendas. While masquerading as left-liberal, they have consistently been anticommunist. Whether funding of so-called Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria to topple the communist party, or Romanian anti-communist Revolution, or so-called Singing Revolution of Baltic States, or another Nobel Peace(sic!) Winner Lech Wałęsa being funded by George Soros to lead the biggest anticommunist takeover in Poland (just as Soros had funded Vaclav Havel in Czechoslovakia) - while rightwing keeps claiming Soros to be a leftist, the truth is in the guise of being on left the dark money of billionaires like Soros have targeted and destroyed communism world over. It is therefore logical to find Trump and Soros more similar than different, given their mutual disdain towards Communism. How can one forget then the Clintons (who till date parrot Israeli talking points and blame Chinese Communist Party for making students support Palestine)? Clinton appointee Eric Kessler in modern times has led similar so-called left but anticommunist movements that have been in turn funded by the likes of Omidyar.
Maybe Trump knows about this trail of money. Maybe he doesn’t. That is immaterial. But it is the role of the journalists to follow the trail and to at the very least, present it in front of the audience who then can make up their mind as to whether or not they want to believe in Khamenei’s propaganda or in Pahlavi’s.
Because the so-called Left’s dark money has also been used to legitimize genocide in Gaza, it has been used to sanitize Netanyahu the war criminal, it has been used to villainize anti-zionist political candidates, and it has been used to misrepresent (in their mainstream media channels) people’s dissatisfaction with their governments (which is and should be a natural thing) in foreign lands as a call for regime change and American takeover.
Whether Clinton did that in Libya or Trump did it in Venezuela- Left’s dark money propaganda helped normalize such hostile interventions as normal, if not moral. Among the dark money organizations (some of which are funded by folks who desperately want regime change in Iran in order to install the exiled Prince there) include Sixteen Thirty Fund, the New Venture Fund, the Hopewell Fund, the Windward Fund, the North Fund, and the Telescope Fund.
Sixteen Thirty Fund is heavily funded by Swiss billionaire Hansjorg Wyss whose creation “The Hub Project” is a project to penetrate media for the benefit of Democratic Party. In turn, Sixteen Thirty Fund is part of Arabella Advisors who are funded directly by many venture capitalists as well as corporate czars such as George Soros, Bill Gates and yes, Pierre Omidyar. Omidyar has hardly been neutral - he has donated the most money to two anti-Trump PACs. Likewise, his founded company eBay’s first president, billionaire Jeffrey Skoll has also been a mega donor to so-called Left causes.
There is nothing wrong with billionaires funding political agendas. But in the guise of “Left” causes if they fund wars and interventions abroad, then there lies a cause for concern. Especially when the source remains dark money. Then the distinction between “right” and the “left” becomes blurry. And this is what has happened with the United States today. Billionaires - whether Koch Brothers or George Soros or Bill Gates and Pierre Omidyar - its the money of the 1% that continues to determine the fate of the 99%. Elections have been turned into farcical ceremonies where every duopolistic outcome benefits the 1%.
And that evangelistic courtesy of money influencing regime change has extended to Ukraine, Palestine and Iran alike. One has to remain wary of the intent of the oligarchy and not remain content with the absolutely fake sloganeering that some social-democrats make with “fight the oligarchy” posters and “tax the rich” dresses while enacting performative politics. Its little wonder AOC today doesn’t want to abolish ICE as she used to demand while gathering votes - today, she merely wants to reduce the budget. Duh.
American politicians can’t convince their own voters. So let the Iranians decide the fate of their country. It is not the role of the American Right or American Left to intervene or justify or exaggerate what is happening in Iran. For a society deeply complicit in the massacres of hundreds of thousands of children within two years of genocide that still shows no signs of subsiding, it is more than hypocritical on our part to put spotlight on Iran with absolutely insincere “free the women” agenda to justify yet another imperialistic aggression. The root cause of Iran’s financial crisis that led to the protests have everything to do with decades-long economic sanctions and isolation. That crisis has impacted not just men, but also women and children of Iran. If Western concerns are genuine, then they should be focused on lifting of sanctions so that the people are not subjected to collective punishment. Alas, the concerns are self-serving, as historically evidenced, time and again.
As a matter of fact, the Genocide in Gaza has not ended even a little bit. Israel continues to starve and kill civilians there flouting all “ceasefire” terms. Unless one really wants to distract folks away from the ethnic cleansing that is going on in West Bank and all of Palestine, there is no reason why the so-called Left with all its dark money influence over media cannot demand accountability from Netanyahu the way it appears to be obsessed with Khamenei. Or just maybe, the truth is stranger than conspiracies, as distraction is quite literally the catalyst for generating consensus for another so-called Revolution, by the so-called Left.
