President Donald Trump appears to be embroiled in a fateful new chapter in America’s bitter duel with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The rationale for US military strikes to help Iran’s protesters at a time of crisis for the theocratic regime is becoming more urgent and compelling by the hour.
Trump continues to draw new red lines after Iran’s leaders defied his earlier warning that if they started firing, he would too. The president warned in an interview with CBS News on Tuesday that if Iran executes protesters as planned, he will take “strong action.” This does not preclude a US military response. But any combat operations that appear merely symbolic could lose its authority to deter Tehran.
“The president has told the Iranian people that aid is on the way. And so I think it’s incumbent on the president to take some action here,” Leon Panetta told CNN News Central on Tuesday. The former US defense secretary and CIA director did not specify the need for a full military attack. But he added: “I think the credibility of the United States at this point requires that the United States do something to show support for the protesters.”
Humanitarian actions are also on the rise. An internet blackout still hides the full horror of an authoritarian crackdown. But emerging footage suggests carnage. 2,400 people are said to have died. If the regime survives, many will second-guess powerful foreigners who stood by and watched.
Trump’s repeated warnings may also have raised expectations among protesters to risk their lives. A president who recently said that the only limitation on his power abroad is his “morality” might perceive a moral obligation to act.
“I counted today that seven times in the last two weeks, President Trump has threatened to take military action against Iran if it kills peaceful protesters,” Karim Sadjadpour, one of the leading US Iran experts, told CNN’s Erin Burnett. “That was over 2,000 deaths ago … I think many took his words to heart and are hoping, at least, for an American shield to help protect them against this very brutal regime,” said Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Iranians gather as they block a street during a protest in Tehran, Iran on January 9, 2026. – MAHSA/Middle East Images/AFP/Getty Images
An opening to end a repressive regime
There are tantalizing strategic reasons why Trump might seek to nudge history.
► Iran’s clerical dictatorship has rarely been as weak, at home or abroad. Heartbreaking economic shortages mean they are struggling with the basic task of feeding their people. Desperation is a powerful organizing force for protesters.
► Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is 86 years old, and a destabilizing succession drama is unfolding apart from the recent turmoil and raising the possibility of a new political dawn.
► A significant number of Iran’s top leaders and military and intelligence supremacists were killed during Israel’s 12-day war with Iran last year.
► And a multi-front war after the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas on Israel have crippled Iran’s regional influence and ability to retaliate against Israel or US regional bases in retaliation for US military actions.
So why wouldn’t the United States seize the chance to end a regime that has killed thousands of Americans, including in the 1983 bombing of the Beirut embassy by its proxies and the militias that have targeted American troops for years in Iraq?
A Middle East freed from the destabilizing influence of the Islamic regime would make Israel safer and advance Trump’s vision of a wealthy, peaceful and integrated region, which he presented last year in Saudi Arabia.
A president who brags boldly and ignores the limits that previous presidents have imposed on him must be sorely tempted to fire.
After all, he’s been on a roll and he’s getting a taste for action. He’s fresh off a daring U.S. military raid that ousted Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, with no U.S. combat deaths. He likes to remember the worldwide stealth bombing that badly damaged Iran’s nuclear sites last year.
Trump also hears from his hawk friends that greatness attracts. “This is President Trump’s Ronald Reagan moment on steroids,” South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham wrote on X. “(Iran) will be the Berlin Wall moment a thousand times over.”
It is unlikely to be as easy as Venezuela
Trump met with senior officials of the National Security Administration on Tuesday after a trip to Michigan. Asked what he would do about Iran, the president, wearing a white baseball cap emblazoned with the letters USA, left everyone guessing. “I can’t tell you that. I know exactly what it would be.”
But ultimately, presidential threats must be backed up by the use of force if future hostilities are to mean anything. Many former foreign officials and diplomats have concluded that President Barack Obama’s failure to enforce his red line against Syria’s use of chemical weapons in 2013 emboldened US adversaries, including Russia, in its aggression in Ukraine and Syria.
But history echoes with bad omens.
The rationale for US military interventions from Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan to Libya often seemed sound from Washington. But the world and America’s enemies have their say. And the consequences of the use of American force are rarely as clean as presidents expect. Trump knows this better than anyone—he probably would never have been president if he hadn’t exhausted Americans from the perpetual wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
U.S. Marines from 2nd Battalion, 8th Regiment enter the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah, where allied troops have met stiff resistance in their advance north toward the Iraqi capital Baghdad, March 23, 2003. – Eric Feferberg/AFP/Getty Images
This dismal history points to two questions that are not receiving much attention in Washington, which is once again experiencing war fever.
► Is there good reason to believe that new US strikes on Iran would help the protesters and boost their hopes of toppling the regime?
► Or could it intensify the reaction against the counter-revolution?
Previous administrations have struggled with this dilemma.
During the 2009 Green Movement protests in Iran, then-President Obama treaded carefully — angering GOP critics — because he wanted to avoid giving Iranian authorities an excuse for brutality. He called for freedom of speech, dissent and a democratic process. But he also said: “It is up to Iranians to make decisions about who the leaders of Iran will be.” He added that he wanted to “avoid the United States being the problem inside Iran” and become a “handy political football.”
Presidents, like the rest of us, cannot know exactly how their decisions will turn out. In retrospect, Obama has regrets. He told the “Pod Save America” podcast in 2022 that “every time we see a glimmer, a glimmer of hope, of people longing for freedom, I think we need to point it out. We need to put a spotlight on it. We need to express some solidarity about it.”
The 44th president did not suggest that he would stage military strikes – that was unthinkable with the US mired in the quagmire of Iraq and Afghanistan. But presidents have plenty of other options.
“You never know”
Trump, with his blunt language, love of threats and aversion to details, often exacerbates the superficiality of debates in Washington.
The situation in Iran is deeply complex. He cannot bomb Iran in a democracy. They may not even be able to do enough damage to protect the demonstrators. Cyber attacks could thwart the command and control capability of the regime’s security forces. But can US air power really save protesters who are gunned down in the streets by Basij internal security forces tasked with enforcing theocratic rule?
The daring special forces raid in Venezuela that ousted Maduro seems unlikely to be repeated in Iran, where the risks of inserting US personnel into a strike to decapitate the regime appear prohibitive. US or Israeli missile or drone strikes could do the trick. But rooting out Iran’s religious leaders might just empower a hard-line secular strongman.
Despite the sudden prominence of exiled dissident Reza Pahlavi – a descendant of Iran’s last shah, who was ousted in the 1979 Islamic Revolution – there is little sign of credible opposition forces in Iran that could lead a transition. And generations of meddling by imperialist powers like Britain, Russia and the US in Iran show that outsiders cannot chart its future.
Hundreds of people take part in a protest against the Iranian government and call for regime change in Sydney, Australia on January 11, 2026. – Norvik Alaverdian/NurPhoto/Getty Images
Iran, unlike many states in the Middle East, is not a creation of colonialist cartographers. His enduring Persian civilization and national identity could spare him the agony of dividing Syria. But a fall in authority is possible if a regime that has ruled repressively since 1979 is ousted. Any further refugee flows and instability would not be welcomed by US regional allies any more than they would welcome the demise of the revolutionary Shiite regime.
Then there is the issue of US capacity. Naval forces are stretched by the massive armada that Trump has deployed off Venezuela. Many military aircraft are stationed at US bases in the Middle East. But according to the nonprofit US Naval Institute, the closest aircraft carrier strike group is with the USS Abraham Lincoln in the South China Sea.
It is also fair to question how much an administration can take on. Trump just captured Maduro, a Western Hemisphere dictator; he demands that the US take ownership of Greenland; he should rule Gaza in accordance with his Israel-Hamas peace plan. The White House loves spectacular foreign policy victories, but they seem to be lacking.
There is also a fascinating contradiction in which Trump is apparently pushing for democracy in Iran while marginalizing the democratic opposition in Caracas after Maduro’s ouster. However, recent history and the weight of his rhetoric suggest it may be impossible to deny his love of action.
But he would be taking another huge risk.
A reporter asked the president on Tuesday if he could be sure that US airstrikes would protect the protesters. “Well, you never know,” he replied.
“So far my record has been excellent, but you never know.”
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