There was a discernible disconnect between U.S. President Donald Trump’s fiery rhetoric to intervene in Iran’s anti-government protests and his failure to act on his threats.
According to Iran Human Rights, at least 3,428 Iranian protesters were killed and thousands were injured during the nation-wide demonstrations. Convulsing the country for about two weeks from December 28 onward, they were brutally quelled a few days ago.
The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency reported that 2,500 were killed during the protests, the most serious internal challenge to face Iran since the formation of the Islamic Republic in 1979. Still other Iranian exiles claimed that the death toll is actually much higher.
Accurate figures are hard to come by due to the internet blackout imposed by the regime.
As Iran’s crackdown proceeded, Trump threatened to come to the aid of the protesters. They were enraged by the catastrophic increase in the cost of living, the dramatic fall in value of the national currency, and the rigidly theocratic and authoritarian nature of the regime.
On January 2, Trump said he was ready to intervene if security forces continued firing on protesters. “We are locked and loaded and ready to go,” he wrote in a social media post.
Buoyed by his comment, Iran’s exiled crown prince, Reza Pahlavi, whose name was chanted by some demonstrators, urged Trump to make good on his pledge to intervene. In what was perhaps a naive comment, he suggested that Trump was “a man of his word.”
The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told reporters that Trump was “unafraid to use military force,” though she noted that diplomacy remained his “first option.”
“Airstrikes would be one of the many, many options that are on the table for the commander-in-chief,” she went open to say. “He’s made it quite clear he certainly doesn’t want to see people being killed in the streets of Tehran, and unfortunately, that’s something we’re seeing right now.”
Subsequently, Trump assured protesters that “help is on its way,” warning the regime that those responsible for killing demonstrators would “pay a big price.”
Trump’s posts and Leavitt’s comments were carried on Persian-language satellite news channels, which remained available despite the regime’s draconian decision to shut down the internet.
His bombastic statements may well have emboldened some Iranians to take to the streets, a risky undertaking in light of the regime’s absolute determination to crush dissidents and survive.
Yet, by the time the protests subsided, Trump had not followed through on his threats, thereby bitterly disappointing legions of Iranians who thought or hoped he would deploy military force to usher in a new era in Iran.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, blamed Trump for the high number of casualties.
In a speech broadcast by state television on January 17, Khamenei admitted that “several thousand” people had been killed. It was the first time the Iranian leadership had acknowledged the scale of the bloodbath.
Claiming that Trump was responsible for it, Khamenei said, “In this revolt, the U.S. president made remarks in person, encouraged seditious people to go ahead and said: ‘We do support you, we do support you militarily.’”
He added, “We do consider the U.S. president a criminal, because of casualties and damages, because of accusations against the Iranian nation.” Khamenei lambasted the protesters as “foot soldiers” of the United States and Israel, saying they had destroyed mosques and educational centers.
“The regime’s response to the decrease in protests indicates that it has no intention of solving the root causes of the protest movement, which will make the next round of protests almost a certainty,” said the U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War in an analysis on January 17. “Khamenei has continued to claim that the United States and Israel are supporting the protests to deflect responsibility for the root causes of the protests … Khamenei’s words are reflective of the regime’s long-running inability to recognize and respond to the demands of its population.”
Khamenei’s reaction was hardly unusual. Iranian officials from Khamenei on down have repeatedly held the United States and Israel responsible for the mass demonstrations, which they have denounced as “riots” and “terrorist” operations.
For now, Trump has rejected intervention. But on January 17, he seemed to call for Khamenei’s removal. “It’s time to look for new leadership in Iran,” he told Politico, the closest he has come to advocating regime change in Iran.
Judging by his record, Trump has not been loathe to act aggressively toward Iran.
In 2020, two years after he unilaterally pulled out of the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, he ordered the assassination of Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani, who was instrumental in the creation of the anti-Israel Axis of Resistance alliance.
Last June, during the 12-day Israel-Iran war, the first of its kind, he launched damaging air and submarine strikes on Iran’s nuclear enrichment sites.
Trump, in dealing with the crisis set off by the Iranian protests, proceeded cautiously, NBC News reports. While he apparently sought to inflict a swift and decisive blow on the regime, he did not want to be drawn into an interminable conflict. Trump’s advisers could not guarantee such a neat and tidy outcome, telling him that the United States did not have the military assets in place across the Middle East to fend off an Iranian retaliatory response.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a hawk on Iran, reportedly asked Trump to delay a potential U.S. strike to give Israel more time to prepare for Iranian reprisals. During last year’s war, Iran fired a barrage of ballistic missiles at cities and military bases in Israel, killing 31 Israelis, displacing some 13,000 civilians, and causing considerable property damage.
Israel, too, expressed doubt whether the Iranian regime was on the brink of collapse.
In addition, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Egypt urged the Trump administration to refrain from launching an attack, warning that it could precipitate a wider regional conflict.
Trump took their advice to heart. By then, he had imposed a 25 percent tariff on countries trading with Iran.
On January 15, U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff told Trump that Iran had cancelled planned executions against 800 protesters. This convinced Trump that intervention in Iran would not be necessary.
He claimed that neither Arab leaders nor Netanyahu had persuaded him not to bomb Iran. “Nobody convinced me. I convinced myself. You had yesterday scheduled over 800 hangings. They didn’t hang anyone. They cancelled the hangings. That had a big impact.”
Witkoff has confirmed that the Trump administration prefers diplomacy to war. Asked if a U.S. military strike on Iran is likely, he said, “I hope there’s a diplomatic resolution. I really do.”
Witkoff said that a political agreement with Iran would be possible if it seriously addresses four issues. These concern the enrichment of uranium, the amount of highly enriched uranium that Iran already possesses, the size of its ballistic missile arsenal, and the fate of its Axis of Resistance, which consists of Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis of Yemen and pro-Iranian militias in Iraq.
If the past is any guide, Iran would be reluctant to compromise on any these key issues, let alone capitulate to the protesters’ demands.
It is safe to say that the bitter conflict pitting the United States against Iran, which has been simmering and boiling over for the past four decades, is far from over.
Stay tuned for fresh developments.