THE OPTIONS AMERICA FACES IN IRAN / THE ECONOMIST

Trump threatens the mullahs

The options America faces in Iran

Donald Trump promises to “rescue” Iranian protesters. How could he try?

Protests-in-Iran-January-2026 / Photograph: Middle East Images/AFP via Getty

TO HEAR DONALD TRUMP tell it, the end of the Islamic Republic is nigh. 

“Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before,” he announced on social media on January 10th. 

“The USA stands ready to help!” 

The American president has made similar pronouncements every few days since a wave of protest began sweeping Iran on December 28th. 

He warned that America is “locked and loaded and ready” to intervene if the regime kills demonstrators. 

“If they do that, they’re going to have to pay hell,” he said.

Predictably, Iran’s leaders have not heeded his warnings. 

What began as a strike by shopkeepers in Tehran has snowballed into a profound crisis of legitimacy for the regime, one that has even some insiders wondering if change is afoot. 

Unable to appease the protesters with meagre handouts, the Islamic Republic has instead murdered hundreds of them. 

A Washington-based human-rights group says it has confirmed 490 deaths, a figure that is almost certainly an undercount.

This leaves Mr Trump with a dilemma. 

As much as he may want to follow through on his threats he has limited options for doing so. 

There is little precedent for launching a military offensive in support of peaceful protesters. 

The unrest in Iran is still leaderless and disorganised, and it still has not convinced regime bigwigs—particularly the ones with guns—to defect. 

America can give the opposition a boost, but it is unlikely to be a decisive one.

It is impossible to say just how violent the regime’s crackdown has been, because it largely disabled Iran’s access to the global internet on Thursday night. 

Even old-fashioned phone calls from abroad do not connect. 

The blackout does not only hobble protesters; it also imposes big costs on Iran’s economy. 

That it has gone on for more than 72 hours is a sign of how nervous the regime has become. 

Disinformation is rife, but the credible stories that have emerged from Iran are harrowing: hospitals overwhelmed with gunshot victims, bodies piled up in morgues.

Some Iranians wonder if the violence would have been worse without Mr Trump’s threats. 

As time goes on, though, they may lose whatever deterrent value they once had. 

As protests enter their third week, Mr Trump is under pressure to convert his words into actions. 

He has met advisers in recent days to discuss his options, though sources in Washington say he has yet to make a decision (he is expected to meet with aides again on Tuesday).

Options are limited. At one end of the spectrum is a symbolic strike against the regime. 

That could galvanise bigger protests, at least for a time. 

But it could just as easily backfire, because it might signal that Mr Trump is not really serious about following through more significantly on his threats. 

Protesters would be demoralised, while the regime would feel emboldened to crack down harder.

Mr Trump might instead consider a more expansive attack against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the regime’s sword and shield, which was a significant target of Israel’s war last summer. 

That would be a tangible blow, and a psychological boost for the opposition. 

Still, a bombing campaign cannot stop the IRGC—and related groups like the Basij, a paramilitary force—from shooting protesters in the streets. 

It could also alienate some Iranians who fear the sort of state collapse that has occurred in other Middle Eastern countries.

The most radical option would be to target senior regime figures, perhaps even the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. 

Mr Trump might be tempted to try a commando raid, given his recent success in Venezuela, but such a mission would be far more complicated in Iran. 

He could also bomb officials from the air, as Israel did in June. 

Either, if successful, would certainly force political change. 

In the ensuing scramble for power, however, a disorganised protest movement would be at a disadvantage. 

The most probable winners would be the IRGC and their political allies.

For now, there are also practical constraints on what America can do: it would probably struggle to keep up a prolonged campaign in Iran. 

The Pentagon has no aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf; its nearest one, the USS Abraham Lincoln, is thousands of miles away in the South China Sea. 

It does have warplanes at bases around the region, but host countries may not allow their use. 

Gulf states are nervous about both possible retaliation and the prospect of chaos in Iran should the regime fall. 

On Sunday Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s parliament, warned that America’s regional bases would be targeted in response to any attack. 

The regime would almost certainly launch missiles at Israel, too.

All of these complications may steer Mr Trump toward what officials call a “non-kinetic” response. 

America could send more Starlink terminals to Iran, for example, which would allow more Iranians to bypass the internet shutdown (though the regime is labouring to jam it). 

It might also have offensive cyber capabilities that hinder Iran from shutting off terrestrial connections.

Reconnecting the country would be valuable. 

It would help Iranians to organise, and to share evidence of regime atrocities with the rest of the world. 

But it would not stop the regime from committing those atrocities in the first place.

Nor would the other options being discussed, such as tougher enforcement of economic sanctions.

History offers little guidance. 

By the time America and its allies intervened in Libya in 2011, the opposition to Muammar Gaddafi’s regime was already armed. 

The coalition wound up providing air support for a rebel offensive (the outcome of which, 15 years of civil war and chaos, is not something anyone seeks to emulate). 

When America, Britain and France bombed Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria in 2018, it was merely to enforce a prohibition on chemical-weapons use. 

They did not try to stop Mr Assad from murdering his people with conventional weapons. 

With his pledge to “rescue” protesters from the regime’s depredations, Mr Trump has set himself a much loftier goal—and a much harder one.