After days of threatening to attack Iran in support of protesters challenging the government in Tehran, US President Donald Trump appeared to dial back the rhetoric on Wednesday evening.
The killings in Iran have stopped, Trump said, adding that Tehran told his administration that arrested protesters would not be executed.
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Trump did not rule out the possibility of an attack on Iran, but actually denied the reason for such an attack.
Still, as Trump winds down the first year of his second term, his track record suggests that the prospect of a US military strike against Iran in the coming days is a real threat.
We take a look:
Maduro’s kidnapping – between diplomacy and limited strikes
Beginning in August, the United States conducted its largest military deployment in the Caribbean Sea in decades.
The US military bombed more than 30 boats that it claimed – without providing evidence – were carrying drugs to the United States, killing more than 100 people in the attacks. For months, Trump and his team accused Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro of large-scale drug trafficking, again without evidence. Amidst the boat bombings, Trump also said that the US may attack Venezuelan soil next.
But in late November, Trump revealed to reporters that he had spoken with the Venezuelan leader. A few days later, the call was confirmed by Maduro himself, who described it as “gentle”.
Trump described the US as a docking facility for alleged drug boats in Venezuela. Then, on January 1, Maduro offered an olive branch to Trump, saying he was open to talks with Washington on drug trafficking and enabling US access to oil. Access to Venezuelan oil and blocks on the country’s drugs — Trump appeared to be getting what he wanted.
Yet hours later, US forces targeted the capital, abducting Maduro and his wife on drug-trafficking charges and taking them to the United States.
Iran bombed – as ‘two weeks’ of diplomacy draws to a close
Venezuela wasn’t the first time Trump had made a dramatic attack on a diplomatic grab.
Iran learned in June that Trump’s words and actions did not match.
Washington and Tehran have been in heated negotiations for weeks, amid rising tensions over US allegations that Iran is racing to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. Trump repeatedly warned Iran that time was running out to strike a deal, but then returned to talks.
On June 13, he wrote on Truth Social that his team was “committed to a diplomatic solution to the Iran nuclear issue.”
He said his “entire” administration had been “directed to negotiate with Iran”.
But just a few hours later, America’s ally Israel attacked Iran. Most experts believe that Israel would not have attacked Iran without Trump’s consent.
As Israel and Iran exchanged fire in the days that followed, Trump questioned whether the U.S. would bomb Iran.
On June 20, White House Press Secretary Carolyn Levitt quoted Trump as saying “I will make a decision in the next two weeks whether to go”.
Far from using the full two weeks he gave himself, Trump made the decision in two days.
In the early hours of June 22, US B-2 Spirit bombers dropped fourteen bunker-busting bombs on Iran’s Fordow nuclear facility, which was buried deep inside a mountain near Qom. The US bombed the nuclear facilities in Natanz and Isfahan using the most powerful conventional bombs in the US arsenal.
The attack shocked many observers, in part because it appeared to be an elaborate diplomatic maneuver that preceded it.
The Iran Prohibition Calculus: What’s Trump’s Plan?
Now all eyes are on Iran again, where Demonstrations Anti-government protests have been ongoing for the past two weeks before calming down earlier this week.
As unrest escalated last week, Trump urged Iranians to continue their protests.
“Iranian patriots, keep protesting – take over your institutions!!!… Aid is on the way,” Truth said in a Jan. 13 post on Truth Social, without specifying what form that aid might take.
But within 24 hours, during a meeting with reporters in Washington DC, Trump said he had been assured that the killing of protesters in Iran had stopped.
“They’ve said the killings have stopped and there won’t be executions — there were going to be a lot of executions today, and there won’t be executions — and we’re going to find out,” Trump said Wednesday.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Aragh In an interview Along with Fox TV, Tehran denied that it planned to execute anti-government protesters. “Hanging is out of the question,” he said.
What other countries is Trump threatening?
Beyond Iran and Venezuela, America’s longtime rivals, Trump’s aggression has extended to Washington’s own allies, including Canada and Greenland.
The most prominent example of this is Trump eagerness to possess Greenland, a Danish territory that has gone from a campaign talking point to a central component of his administration’s Western Hemisphere policy.
On January 5, the State Department posted a black-and-white image of Trump on social media and declared: “This is our hemisphere and we will not allow President Trump to threaten our security.”
While the president has refused to rule out the use of military force, administration officials have openly discussed Greenland’s strategic location and US interests in its mineral resources.
Denmark categorically denies any sale Leadership of Greenland Insists that the territory is not for sale.
But experts such as Jeremy Shapiro, director of research at the European Council on Foreign Relations, argue that Trump uses threats to intimidate adversaries and generally only uses force against weak targets.
In a Paper published Last May, in The Bully’s Pulpit: Exploring Patterns in Trump’s Use of Military Force, Shapiro suggested that Trump frequently makes military threats but fails to follow through.
According to Shapiro, Trump is more likely to act when the threats carry “low escalation risk,” while threats against nuclear-armed or militarily strong states serve a largely rhetorical purpose. The most extreme or dramatic warnings, he argues, function as “political signaling tools rather than precursors to actual military action”.
“Trump often deploys grandiose threats but embraces only limited, low-risk military operations. He uses foreign policy as political theater, targeting his domestic bases and media circles as much as threats to foreign adversaries,” Shapiro writes.
Unpredictability calculated?
Some analysts believe that Trump’s approach offers strategic advantages.
“The intention is to balance the adversaries, increase psychological pressure and maximize strategic leverage,” a Pakistani government official told Al Jazeera, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media. “Even its European allies aren’t always sure what to expect.”
Others remain skeptical. Qandeel Abbas, a Middle East expert at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad, described Trump’s behavior as erratic, citing repeated threats against several countries.
“Look at his threats against Cuba, or Iran, or Venezuela, and yet this is the same president who wants to win the Nobel Prize and is desperate for it,” Abbas told Al Jazeera.
So is Trump really backing away from the prospect of attacking Iran — or is he bluffing?
According to Abbas, Trump’s apparent change in tone may be the result of feedback from US allies in the region that “attacking Iran is not smart”.
Still, Abbas said that “with Israel’s support, I think he will find a way to attack the country.”