What’s at Stake with the US and Iran

The real choice the US faces now

What is happening in Iran right now is not a protest movement. It is a revolt.

Demonstrations that began over a collapsing currency have metastasized into something the Islamic Republic has not faced in its 46-year history: a nationwide uprising, spreading across all 31 provinces, with crowds openly calling for the end of theocratic rule. The regime has responded the way it always does — with bullets, mass arrests, and an internet blackout designed to sever Iranians from one another and from the world.

The scale of the violence is staggering. Human rights groups estimate that more than 5,000 people have been killed in roughly three weeks — a death toll that dwarfs the crackdowns of 2009, 2019, and 2022 combined. Video footage shows improvised morgues overwhelmed with body bags. The regime itself has acknowledged some 3,000 deaths, a figure it would likely admit only if the real number were far higher.

An anti-government protest in Tehran

Trump’s words could land dangerously in Iran. To understand why, you have to understand what the Islamic Republic is built on.

In 1953, the CIA and British intelligence orchestrated a coup that toppled Mohammad Mossadegh, Iran’s democratically elected prime minister, after he nationalized the country’s oil industry. The operation restored to power Iran’s former monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who had left the country in a power struggle with Mossadegh.

Mohammed Reza was so dependent on American support that his reign became synonymous with foreign domination. When the Islamic Revolution swept the shah from power for good in 1979, it carried that grievance at its core. The seizure of the American embassy and the holding of its staff as hostages for 444 days were not incidental to the revolution; they were foundational. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran’s new leader, built his entire system on the premise that the United States was the “Great Satan“ — an imperial power that would never stop trying to subjugate Iran.

That narrative has justified every act of repression for nearly half a century. Dissent is not opposition; it is treason. Protesters are not citizens demanding rights; they are agents of foreign powers. The more Washington appears to be meddling, the easier Tehran’s job becomes.

This is the trap. When an American president tells Iranians to “take over your institutions,” he is handing the regime exactly the script it has been reading from since 1979.

How past presidents responded

Trump is not the first president to face the dilemma between abandoning Iranian protesters and falling into the regime’s propaganda trap. It has bedeviled every administration since the revolution.

Most US presidents made little effort to influence affairs within Iran. But that began to change during the Green Movement in 2009 — the first mass uprising to seriously threaten the Islamic Republic since its founding. Barack Obama condemned the regime’s violence but kept his distance, saying the United States was “not interfering with Iran’s affairs.” Critics accused him of abandoning the protesters. Defenders argued he was denying the regime a pretext to crack down. Either way, the movement was crushed.

Iranians demonstrating in 2009 in Tehran

When the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests erupted in 2022 after Mahsa Amini’s death in morality-police custody, Joe Biden went farther in his rhetoric — “We stand with the brave citizens and the brave women of Iran,” he said — while relying on targeted sanctions and technology to help Iranians circumvent an internet blackout. But his administration, too, stopped well short of intervention meant to topple the regime. The protests eventually subsided under sustained repression.

Trump has blown past those guardrails. His rhetoric about striking Iran is not designed to avoid the regime’s narrative; it is built for maximum impact. The question is whether that helps the people in the streets or puts them in greater peril.

The trap Trump is building for himself

Trump’s words may be giving protesters courage. They may also be getting people killed.

When an American president promises that “help is on the way,” people hear it as a commitment. They calibrate risk accordingly. They stay in the streets longer. They believe that if things get bad enough, help will come.

The regime has already seized on Trump’s statements as proof of American orchestration. Khamenei posted on social media that the United States was attempting to “devour Iran” and implied that Trump was among the “international criminals” backing “criminals inside the country.” Iran’s state media have framed the uprising as a foreign-backed insurrection — making the security forces’ lethal response sound like national defense.

Meanwhile, Trump has boxed himself in. Having promised action, he now faces a choice between following through — with all the risks that would entail — and backing down and looking weak. Either outcome may be bad for the protesters who believed him.

What a strike could mean

Iran is not likely to buckle under a show of force. It is a country of 90 million people with hardened security services, a sophisticated missile program, and decades of experience surviving under pressure.

Tehran has made clear that any American attack would trigger retaliation — not just against US forces in the region, but against Israel, regional oil infrastructure, and commercial shipping lanes. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of the Iranian parliament, warned that “both Israel and US military and shipping centers will be our legitimate target.” Another senior official said any strike would be treated as “all-out war.”

Even Gulf allies that loathe the Islamic Republic are urging restraint. Saudi Arabia and the UAE do not want a war fought in their backyard. They live inside the blast radius.

And there is a grimmer possibility: a massive US strike that kills civilians could have the unlikely effect of saving the regime rather than destroying it. Nothing unifies a fractured country like foreign attack. The protests could transform overnight from an internal uprising into a nationalist defense against American aggression — exactly the narrative Khamenei has been pushing for 46 years.

What the United States could actually do

But the choice is not between bombing Iran and doing nothing.

There is an entire toolkit of measures that could shift the balance inside Iran without triggering a regional war. Cyber operations targeting the regime’s surveillance and censorship infrastructure. Expanded funding for satellite internet and secure communications to break the blackout. Support for independent Persian-language media. Coordination with allies to document atrocities and prepare accountability mechanisms in the event the regime does fall. The US has tried some of these things before, but it could do them at a vastly larger scale.

More than just censorship, the regime’s internet blackout is a weapon. It prevents protesters from coordinating, hides the scale of the killing from the outside world, and helps the government shape public perceptions. Punching holes in the blackout is one of the most concrete things Washington could do to help.

But here is the problem: the Trump administration has spent the past year dismantling its capability to do that. Internet freedom programs for Iran have been gutted. State Department staffing for democracy promotion has been hollowed out. The bureaucratic infrastructure that executes sustained pressure campaigns — as opposed to one-off military strikes — has been weakened precisely when it is most needed.

That leaves the military option looking more attractive — not because it is smarter, but because it is what remains.

What’s at stake

Asked what the endgame would be in any action against Iran, Trump said simply: “To win.”

That is not definite enough to be a strategy. Does winning mean the collapse of the Islamic Republic and the beginning of a democratic transition? Does it mean forcing Tehran to capitulate on its nuclear program? Does it mean a punitive strike that degrades the regime’s capabilities to crack down on its people? Does it mean business deals and a photo op? These are entirely different objectives requiring entirely different approaches.

American leverage is not the goal of the protesters in Iran’s streets. They are marching for freedom. An American president can help topple a regime. That does not mean he can — or will — build what comes after.

The record here is not encouraging. Trump has shown little interest in the slow, unglamorous work of supporting democratic transitions. A “win” against Iran could mean the same that it has in Venezuela so far: regime management that leaves Iranians to face whatever comes next alone. Recent reporting suggests that Trump is more inclined to make a deal with Iran’s leaders than to change the regime.

Iran’s protesters deserve the world’s support, and the brutal regime they are confronting deserves to fall. That much is clear.

What is not clear is whether Trump’s approach will help them or harm them. His rhetoric has raised expectations he may not meet. His threats have given the regime a propaganda gift. His administration has weakened the tools that could provide meaningful support short of war.

The people paying the price for any miscalculation will not be in Washington. They will be on the streets of Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz, and Tabriz — facing security forces that have already shown they will kill thousands to stay in power.

“Help is on the way” is not a slogan. It is a promise. The history of American promises to Iran is not a happy one — and Iranians know that better than anyone. They’re hoping this chapter ends differently.