<![CDATA[Ayatollah Ali Khamenei]]><![CDATA[Bret Baier]]><![CDATA[Donald Trump]]><![CDATA[Fox News]]><![CDATA[Iran]]>Featured

Baghdad Bob, Meet Tehran Tim – HotAir

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January 15, 2026
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Baghdad Bob, Meet Tehran Tim – HotAir


In the first full week of April, 2003, George W. Bush authorized U.S. and allied forces to begin Operation Iraqi Freedom to depose Saddam Hussein once and for all. The invasion campaign itself, led by General Tommy Franks, was a marvel at the time in speed and lethality as Baghdad was surrounded and penetrated within six days, far sooner than many military experts thought possible. The more pessimistic pundits feared it would take weeks into months, and would devolve into a house-to-house quagmire. The initial campaign, at least, surpassed the most optimistic of predictions. 



One of the riotously funny recurring moments as Baghdad was surrounded and eventually controlled by American and allied power was the daily press briefings of the official Iraqi Information Minister, Muhammad Saeed al‑Sahhaf. In the States, he was quickly nicknamed Baghdad Bob. Our friends across the pond liked to refer to him as Comical Ali. 

Baghdad Bob, in some sense, is the O.G. of memes because of how cartoonishly foolish the lies he spun as propaganda looked and sounded to Western audiences. In case you were too young to see it in real time, here’s a clip to give you a sample. 

Yes, the Iraqi phase of the Global War On Terror was badly managed after Hussein fell, and yes, there were too many casualties in the advance on Baghdad, including Michael Kelly, who was embedding for The Atlantic and lost his life when the Humvee in which he was traveling overturned on open terrain. But few can criticize how successful the mission was to invade Baghdad and overthrow Hussein. And it was surreal, and yes, wildly hysterical, to see the extent to which a regime loyalist was willing to go in order to pretend what every Iraqi citizen could see with their own eyes was not really taking place. 

Shortly after this series of press statements, and especially when the Hussein regime did fall, Baghdad Bob quietly left the public stage and hung out in the United Arab Emirates for the next decade or so. His work in Iraq was clearly finished.

Flash forward to almost 23 years later, and the spirit of Baghdad Bob is alive and well in the embodiment of the current Iranian Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi. All credit goes to America’s Anchorman, Bret Baier at Fox News, for landing what easily is the wildest interview of the year thus far, and one that might make the top ten list at the end of 2026. The result? Baghdad Bob, meet Tehran Tim. Except unlike Minnesota’s Tim, who also lies and spins in the same way you and I breathe, Araghchi does not suffer from Governor Walz’ jazz hands condition.  



Baier began the interview by asking about the massacre of Iranian protesters in the streets of Tehran. Minimum estimates over the last few days are around 2,000 unarmed Iranian citizens yearning for freedom were mowed down by a combination of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Basij forces. Exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi made the high end claim to Baier Tuesday afternoon that when all is said and done, the numbers of dead are north of 12,000. Here is how Tehran Tim responded Wednesday afternoon. 

‘We’re not kililng anyone.’ ‘It’s a plot devised by the Jooos.’ 

Of course. Why didn’t I think of that? Oh, now I remember why not. I’m not Candace Owens, that’s why. 

Baier is the equal of any interviewer out there, Hugh Hewitt included. And being the producer of the Hugh Hewitt Show, I’m kind of partial to Hugh. I can only imagine the thoughts going through Bret’s head when Araghchi went down this road of blaming Israel for the carnage the regime for which he speaks committed. To his great credit, Baier didn’t let him off the hook and pressed him. Hard. 





Over a million brave Iranians, or what Tehran Tim would refer to as Israeli cannon fodder, are literally putting their lives on the line every night by marching in the street and demanding freedom. Except Iran’s Foreign Minister, out of the other corner of his mouth, also says the streets are perfectly peaceful and there is no massacre. Baghdad Bob, who in all likelihood is still somewhere in exile in the Middle East alive and well, being that there’s never been any official reports of his demise, has to be out there watching this interview on satellite, doing the Dicaprio thing. 

On Iran’s terrorist proxies throughout the Middle East – Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis in Yemen, Shiite militias in Iraq, Tehran Tim denies it all. We don’t fund them, we just suport them. 

On Donald Trump’s decision to take out Iran’s nuclear program by destroying four sites with enough bunker busters to change the elevation of the mountain under which Fordow once resided, Tehran Tim demonstrated he must have watched Monty Python And The Holy Grail a few times in his life. 






How much closer to sounding like the Black Knight can this guy get? 

You’ll notice that in the last week, outside of social media posts that obviously could be written by anyone, Khamenei, 86-years-old, has not been seen or heard. Bret Baier noticed that, too, and asked Tehran Tim about it. 

That’s not really an answer. That’s spin. Bret pushed one more time at the end of the interview. The pregnant pause at the end was telling. 

The seeming reversal by President Trump in the Oval Office Wednesday is actually classic Trump. There have already been several times he uses rhetorical head fakes in order to preserve the element of surprise and not tip his hand on when or if action is coming. My suspicion is the President was deploying tough guy Trump on social media Tuesday in order to head fake Khamenei out of the country and into the Moscow Motel 6 of deposed dictators so that he wouldn’t have to act. Maybe the softening of the rhetoric Wednesday was because there were indications that the mullahcracy was in the process of bugging out. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent indicated that it looked that way to him, being that he follows the money trail. 





I have no knowledge of when or if President Trump will act. Were I king of the forest, not duke, not earl, it would seem to me to be a pivotal moment in history not to be missed. I’d take the shot. But there is one thing that is consistent when it comes to kinetic action with Donald Trump, and that is he brings a MOAB to a knife fight whenever possible. He uses overwhelming force, even if it takes an extra day, week, or month in order to get the resources in place to deal a decisive blow and get out. He did that with the Iranian nuclear sites, and he did that in Venezuela. He spent several weeks staging assets in the Caribbean in order to raise the odds of success about as high as it gets before giving the order to proceed. 

At this moment, the Lincoln carrier group has has been under sail with haste from the South China Sea to the Middle East. Best estimates are that the extra firepower will be on station by this weekend. Could Trump be planning to use resources in that armada in combination with other air assets recently deployed to Europe for something big? 

A little pre-Islamic Republic of Iran trivia for you. The previous ruler, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, a strongman to be sure, but one that was much friendlier to Western countries including the United States, bugged out on January 16th, 1979. He called it at the time a little vacation trip. He never returned. The 46th anniversary of Jimmy Carter’s single greatest foreign policy disaster is this Friday, right around the time when the aircraft carrier is within a day or so of being in position to assist. Could Trump be buying some time until he gets the assurance from the Department of War that a proper tail-kicking can be issued? 

The array of options, should the President make the decision to topple this evil regime once and for all, might just be precision strikes on Khamenei himself and IRGC/Basij commanders. We do have boots on the ground, but not ones controlled by the Pentagon. The boots on the people we have in country were issued at Langley, and in combination with intelligence gathering and sharing being provided by the Israelis, one would have to think that we have eyes on wherever the juiciest targets happen to be at any given time. And in the case of Khamenei, at his vintage, he can’t be all that mobile. I’m not saying he’s Joe Biden in a robe and long beard, but he doesn’t strike me as someone who is very spry these days. 

Open source chatter the last 24 hours showed a ton of airspace around Tehran was suddenly cleared out for half a day. Other chatter showed a ton of high-altitude jet traffic in Eastern Iraq headed toward Iran. Most of the major commercial airline carriers have made the decision to give a very wide berth to Iran in their flight plans for the foreseeable future, and the U.S. State Department, as well as Donald Trump himself, have warned any American in or around Iran to find somewhere else to be immediately. 

If the President acts and Khamenei is permanently dispatched, or the Supreme Leader folds his weak poker hand and uses all his unspent travel points for a one-way trip to Russia, I cannot wait to see the next interview given by Tehran Tim. It will be absolute fire.  












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