Washington, DC – Donald Trump says Goal in Iran is “winning”.
But there is no easy way for the president of the United States to win against an ideological Iranian regime fighting for survival, analysts say.
Recommended stories
3 List of itemsEnd of list
Unlike the US bombing of the country’s nuclear facilities in June and the largely symbolic response to the 2020 assassination of top general Qassem Soleimani, Iran is unlikely to meaningfully retaliate against any attack on its central government.
Beheading to kill the supreme leader Ali Khamenei And other top officials could fail to bring down the regime and cause further instability, and a protracted US war could prove catastrophic and costly for Washington and the region.
“All the options are pretty dire,” said Barbara Slavin, distinguished fellow at the Stimson Center think tank.
“It’s very difficult to know what will happen if you do ‘A’ or ‘B’. What will be the consequences? And especially if the regime feels that its back is against the wall, it can attack in a really terrible way against US forces in the region, against allies.”
Since the beginning of the year, therefore A A wave of anti-government protests Sweep Iran, Trump has threatened military intervention against the country if its authorities kill protesters.
“If Iran shoots and violently kills peaceful protesters, as is their practice, the United States of America will come to their rescue. We are locked and loaded and ready to go,” Trump wrote In a social media post on January 2.
In the past two weeks, he repeated that threat several times and called on protesters to occupy state institutions, Promised them That “help is on”.
But the government has taken a deadly crackdown, and activist groups say the death toll has run into the thousands. As Iranian authorities imposed a total internet blackout on the country, Trump appeared to be dialing back his stance.
Trump presented on Wednesday Tehran version Incident – Armed protesters were targeting security forces.
“They (Iranian officials) said people were shooting at them and they were shooting back,” Trump said. “And you know, it’s one of those things, but they told me there’s not going to be an execution, and so I hope that’s true.”
Two days later, Trump expressed his “respect” and gratitude to Iran for canceling 800 death sentences on Thursday.
‘More sugar from Venezuela’
Some reports also suggest that the protest movement appears to be on the wane for now, although it is difficult to verify the situation on the ground as Iranians cannot access the internet.
But experts warn that the crisis is not over and the situation could change quickly. Protests could flare up again, and Trump has not ruled out a military option off the table.
Several US media outlets reported Friday that the Pentagon has begun increasing military assets in the Middle East, including an aircraft carrier strike group.
Trump has shown a willingness to deploy the brute force of the US military to advance his strategic goals.
He has bragged about killing an ISIL (ISIS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi In 2019, the Soleimani assassination and the bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities last year. Just this month, he ordered the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
But according to experts, Trump’s chances of a Quick operational victory Iran has slimmer.
“This is not Venezuela,” Slavin said of Iran.
“It’s not a one-and-done, and given all the other crises, many of them self-inflicted, that he’s facing — Venezuela, this ridiculous effort. Occupy Greenland – Does he really want a major crisis in the Middle East after campaigning against this kind of adventure?”
Just two months ago, the Trump administration released a national security policy that sought to divest foreign policy resources. Middle East. It said the past considerations that made the region so important to the US – namely, energy production and widespread conflict – “will no longer hold”.
The document also reiterated Trump’s commitment to non-interference.
“We seek good relations and peaceful commercial relations with the nations of the world, not imposing on them democracy or other social changes that differ widely from their traditions and history,” it read.
However, the Iranian government Brutal crackdown On the protests, Trump may have “made himself a humanitarian interventionist,” according to Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute, a think tank that focuses on diplomacy.
“It can be on the sugar from Venezuela, but it cannot be replicated in Iran in the same way and it would require an enormous amount of military power,” Parsi told Al Jazeera.
How Iran might respond
Tehran’s reaction to the June 2025 attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities was relatively restrained. Iranian forces fired missiles at the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, which hosts US forces, without causing any casualties.
But Parsi said Iranian officials have come to the conclusion that they will not tolerate further attacks to avoid a major conflict with Washington.
“While it would be very bad for them, of course, Trump’s metric of success and Iran’s metric of success may be very different,” he said.
“Trump may need to take over the entire kingdom. The Iranians can’t win the war, but they don’t have to. They need to make sure they destroy Trump’s presidency before they lose a weeks-long war. Rising oil prices, rising inflation around the world, including the United States, could be enough to destroy Trump’s presidency.”
Naison Rafati, a senior Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group think tank, said Iranian officials were willing to tolerate both. Killing Soleimani and attacks on nuclear facilities due to the limited nature of the attacks.
But the government sees anti-government protests as an existential threat, and a limited U.S. strike could provoke a strong response from Tehran.
“If the Iranian people are convinced that this is the start of a wider campaign or that the result will be galvanizing enough to trigger another escalation in protests, their desperate state could lead to reckless decisions,” Rafati told Al Jazeera.
If Trump’s goal is to topple the regime, Washington would ideally rely on the “collaboration” of protesters reaching critical mass and counting on the Iranians, backed by the US air campaign, to act as boots on the ground.
But he noted that Trump is more inclined to pursue swift and decisive military action.
“And here you run into potential situations where the ends are a little muddy,” Rafati said.
“Like, what if you end up in a situation where U.S. action, Iranian retaliation, and then further U.S. response — and then expansion of the campaign?”
Iran is struggling
Despite the risks associated with military action with Iran, Tehran’s adversaries, including many US officials in Trump’s orbit, see a historic opportunity to bring down the Iranian system.
Since the triumph of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran has suffered enormously and survived wars, sanctions and internal turmoil.
The Iran-Iraq War It lasted eight years in the 1980s and killed hundreds of thousands. But the regime survived, as it weathered several protests, economic crises and infighting within the ruling class.
But analysts say the Islamic Republic is currently living through one of the most challenging times in its 47-year history.
The network of regional allies that Tehran has fostered for decades – known as the “Axis of Resistance” – has, however, fallen apart.
Hamas and Hezbollah have been severely weakened by Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and its disastrous 2024 campaign in Lebanon. Former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad fell to armed opposition fighters hostile to Tehran who have since taken power.
Iran also lost last place in Venezuela An ally of Maduro After his arrest.
Militarily, Iran’s ability to deter attacks has been severely reduced since Israel withdrew the country’s air defenses and claimed full control of the country’s skies in June last year.
Tehran’s nuclear program was also heavily damaged by US strikes, and Iran no longer enriches uranium, although it insists on its right to enrich.
These external challenges have been exacerbated by the economic downturn following years of sanctions. The Iranian currency, the rial, has lost more than 90 percent of its value, hitting an all-time low.
And the protests, met with a tight security response, now represent a legal crisis for the government.
“The brutality with which the state has responded over the past two weeks underscores a sense of deep insecurity, both in terms of its internal political legitimacy, but also in terms of its strategic position in the region and vis-à-vis the US,” Rafati said.
For warmongers in Washington, Iran’s current vulnerability is “an opportunity to win over the great Bet Nor of the last 47 years of US regional policy”, Rafati added.
The possibility of diplomacy
US Senator Lindsey Graham, who is close to Trump, is claiming that Iran is right Regime changeAnd he traveled to Israel this week to ramp up the war effort.
However, interventionist voices around Trump are balanced by geopolitical dynamics: America’s Gulf allies are wary of instability and regional violence. warned against Attack Iran.
Internally, Trump will face American voters ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, including large parts of his “America First” base who oppose the war after the failures in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Parsi noted that while Maduro’s abduction cost the U.S. little, opinion polls indicate that the American public is not happy with the military intervention in Venezuela.
“I don’t think his base is excited about it at all,” Parsi said.
“I think the core is wondering why he’s still so focused on foreign policy issues instead of domestic issues that are more important to his concerns.”
So is diplomacy still possible?
On Thursday, Trump’s special envoy Dr Steve Witkoff He said that there is hope for a diplomatic resolution.
He laid out a list of US demands for Iran: giving up nuclear enrichment, giving up highly enriched uranium, curtailing its missile program and ending support for “proxies” such as Hezbollah.
“If they want to come back to the League of Nations (and) we can resolve those four issues diplomatically, that would be a great solution. The alternative is a bad one,” Witkoff said.
Parsi said that America is asking Iran to surrender Goal post.
“I don’t see the prospect of diplomacy succeeding without at least a deep reassessment of what America wants to achieve in this situation,” he said.
“I’m not particularly optimistic that diplomacy can succeed in the way that the administration is currently envisioning.”
But Rafati underlined that while Iran is currently at zero enrichment, the country retains the right to concentrate uranium and strengthen its defenses.
“Given that Iran’s position, especially on conservation, its position on missiles is fairly consistent, recognizing that its economic and political future is not promising, a very significant change in its position is required,” he said.
Iran has remained defiant throughout the ordeal, describing the protests as a US-Israeli plot to foment chaos in the country. Iranian officials have pointed to Israeli media reports that foreign agents are arming protesters to kill security forces and attack public institutions.
Tehran has promised a strong response to any external attack.
But Slavin said a compromise with Iran is possible Nuclear problems And give up its enriched uranium for sanctions relief.
“It will be very controversial. A lot of people will accuse Trump of selling out to the protesters, but I can imagine him making some sort of deal and calling it a big win,” she told Al Jazeera.