January 29, 2026 | Thursday
Tags: larry-ellison, tom-homan
The article examines escalating U.S. military options and a heightened risk of follow-on strikes against Iran. It also covers a localized ICE drawdown in Minneapolis and the sale of TikTok’s U.S. business that spurred the emergence of a rival platform, UpScroll.
The United States has assembled an expanded list of kinetic and non-kinetic options against Iran that go beyond the limited strikes carried out last year. Officials presented proposals that include additional strikes on nuclear and missile infrastructure, attacks on Iran’s internal security services, and the potential for covert special operations raids deep inside Iranian territory to damage facilities not hit in the June campaign, a program repeatedly referred to in reporting as Operation Midnight Hammer. The posture change coincided with deployment moves: the carrier strike group centered on the USS Abraham Lincoln was redirected into the Arabian Sea accompanied by three missile-firing destroyers, additional F-15E strike aircraft were placed in theater, F/A-18 and F-35 assets were staged for potential strikes, and Patriot and THAAD air defenses were moved to protect forward U.S. bases. Public reporting has also cited a specific U.S. demand catalog presented to Tehran that would require a permanent end to uranium enrichment, surrender of current enriched stockpiles including “more than 960 pounds” of near-bomb-grade uranium, limits on ballistic missile range and numbers, and the cessation of support to proxy forces such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis.
The analysis of the operational logic is categorical: the initial June strikes stripped Iran of a core deterrent but simultaneously narrowed Washington’s strategic options. Destroying centrifuges and some stockpiles removed an immediate threshold concern but did not neutralize Iran’s other strategic instruments: ballistic missiles, proxy networks across Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Yemen, and deep underground or undisclosed enrichment sites. From the U.S. and Israeli perspective the clock now runs in both directions. If Iran reconstitutes centrifuges, re-masses enriched uranium, and rebuilds missile inventories, the administration faces two practical choices: negotiate a verifiable reversal of those capabilities under terms that leave Iran defenseless, or conduct follow-on military operations on a larger scale. Diplomatic options have been weakened by the U.S. decision to have conducted strikes during negotiations and by reported intelligence operations that Tehran views as duplicity. Given that perception, the analysis concludes that diplomacy is unlikely to produce Iran’s full surrender on the demanded terms, and the militarized option is therefore now presented inside the White House as the default corridor.
Operational risk calculations underpin the current posture. Officials postponed an immediate January follow-up strike at the last minute because deployed forces were insufficient to absorb Iran’s potential second-order reactions, specifically Iranian missile salvos that could strike Israel and forward-deployed U.S. bases. That risk calculus produced an interim mobilization: more carrier air power, refueling and transport aircraft, and additional missile defenses. The added option of clandestine commando raids creates an asymmetric choice set but also raises the cost in personnel and potential attribution. My assessment is that the combination of Israeli pressure, donor commitments to military options, and the narrowing of diplomatic pathways has placed the United States on a collision course with Iran. The current force posture and the explicit set of demands make a second wave of strikes highly likely within the short, weeks-to-months timeframe now signaled by senior officials.
Federal immigration enforcement policy underwent a visible operational reassessment in Minneapolis after a high-profile killing at a protest and a subsequent public outcry. Tom Homan, a senior Border Patrol figure, was dispatched to the city to review local actions and to conduct outreach with municipal leadership and community groups. At a press briefing he announced a “draw down” in the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents operating inside Minneapolis and signaled a shift in operational priorities toward targeted enforcement of criminal aliens rather than broad, sweeping removals. The announcement arrived after city and state officials, including Mayor Jacob Frey and Minnesota’s governor, criticized enforcement tactics and demanded accountability; Homan’s remarks emphasized de-escalation, acknowledgment of mistakes, and a reorientation toward cases involving serious criminality.
The operational change matters because it formalizes a tactical retreat from the large-scale, mass-deportation posture that was publicly championed earlier in the presidential term. Enforcement authorities reported previously successful high-volume sweeps and claimed deportation totals measured in the hundreds of thousands; the new directive narrows the criteria for active field operations and reduces agent presence where public resistance and political friction are highest. That narrowing has immediate consequences: detained populations will face different intake criteria, local law enforcement cooperation is likely to change, and the pace of removals for non-criminal immigration violations will slow. From a policy analysis perspective this represents a tactical concession by the enforcement apparatus to political and media pressure, not a structural rollback of federal immigration law. The result will be an operational environment in which ICE concentrates on fugitives, recent border-crossers suspected of trafficking or violent crime, and cases with clear national security profiles.
The political analysis of this drawdown reads it as a tradeoff with other priorities. The administration’s strategic capital appears to have been reallocated: resources that earlier were devoted to mass interior enforcement are now being diverted to global projection of force in the Middle East. That reallocation is explicit in contemporaneous force movements and in the administration’s public statements about Iran. For enforcement stakeholders and political constituencies that expected a comprehensive, rapid deportation program, the Minneapolis drawdown is presented as a capitulation to local political pressure. My interpretation is that enforcement policy will continue to oscillate between episodic high-intensity actions and politically sensitive retrenchments, with the practical effect that neither a full-scale mass deportation nor the status quo is sustainable given competing national security demands and donor-driven foreign policy priorities.
The U.S. business of TikTok was formally sold into a domestic consortium that includes major U.S. technology and financial interests, with Larry Ellison and Oracle reported as key stakeholders and with installation of a new chief executive announced by the buyer. That corporate transfer followed years of negotiation between Washington and ByteDance and resulted in explicit governance changes aimed at limiting mainland China’s operational control. One immediate industry reaction was the rapid emergence of UpScroll, an alternative short-form video platform reportedly founded by left-leaning and pro-Palestine developers and gaining traction among users seeking an escape from the new ownership and moderation regime of TikTok’s U.S. operations. UpScroll’s initial growth attracted creators and commentators who criticized the sale as a consolidation under pro-Israel and pro-establishment influences.
The platform-policy intersection became immediate and consequential. UpScroll, after a spike in viral anti-Israel content, instituted hate speech and targeted harassment guidelines through its trust and safety team. Those rules banned hate speech, bullying, and targeted harassment, mirroring policies that the newly structured U.S.-centric TikTok leadership had already been pressured to enforce. This sequence illustrates a core analytical point: platform governance decisions are rapidly compressed into a competitive marketplace where alternate entrants often replicate the same content moderation frameworks once they attract scale. That reproduced moderation regime undercuts the tactical utility of platform migration as an unfiltered public square for political messaging, because scale creates incentives to formalize content standards and to curtail incendiary material that attracts regulatory and advertiser attention.
From a strategic media-analysis perspective, the TikTok sale and the UpScroll episode reveal how geopolitical, donor, and corporate influences shape the domestic information environment in direct, measurable ways. Ownership changes translate into executive changes which then quickly translate into editorial and moderation policy shifts. Creators and movements that treat platform migration as a permanent escape from Big Tech governance will find this assumption unreliable. My assessment is that the ecosystem will continue to consolidate around a handful of regulated platforms where moderation choices reflect a mix of commercial incentives, donor influence, and national security considerations. For political movements that rely on unmoderated virality, the lesson is operational: platform choice is ephemeral and content strategy must adapt to governance realities rather than presuppose permanent refuge from moderation.