The protests in Iran began in the bazaars on December 28 as a demand for economic reform in the face of a cost-of-living crisis highlighted by the Iranian rial’s plunge to an all-time low against the U.S. dollar. As the protests grew, so did the demands. Some protesters called for the overthrow of the regime of Ayatollah Khamenei.
The Iranian leadership is faced with a conundrum: the U.S. places crippling sanctions on Iran; the people demand economic reform; Iran can’t make those reforms without ending the sanctions.
The people in the street are demanding economic solutions. A significant and essential cause of the economic crisis is U.S. and European sanctions on Iran. The Iranian government can’t make the necessary reforms without ending the sanctions. But they can’t end the sanctions without, at least, abandoning their nuclear program and their ballistic missile program, leaving the regime vulnerable and the country defenseless. Answering the demands in the street for regime change could lead to regime change or the destruction of Iran.
The U.S. has made the conundrum more dangerous by injecting threats into the volatile mix. Trump has issued four distinct threats.
The first two involve the return to attacks on Iran. Trump first threatened that if Iran restarted the civilian nuclear program that the U.S. bombed in June, he would order a second round of strikes: “I hear that Iran is trying to build up again, and if they are, we’re going to have to knock them down. We’ll knock them down. We’ll knock the hell out of them.”
He then added that the threshold for avoiding a new wave of attacks on Iran was even lower. It didn’t just include a nuclear weapons program—which would be illegal if Iran actually ever had one—it also included Iran’s ballistic missile program, which is entirely legal and essential for Iran’s defense. Asked by a reporter if he would support an Israeli attack on Iran, Trump responded, “If they continue with the missiles, yes. The nuclear, fast. One will be yes, absolutely, the other was we’ll do it immediately.”
The next two focussed on the protests. Trump first stepped into the conflict with a January 2 post promising that “If Iran shots and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue. We are locked and loaded and ready to go.” On January 10, he posted that, “Iran is looking at FREEDOM, perhaps like never before. The USA stands ready to help!!!”
Then the threats grew more dangerous. On January 13, the threats escalated from defending the protesters to encouraging regime change. “Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING,” Trump posted. “TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!! Save the names of the killers and abusers. They will pay a big price. I have cancelled all meetings with Iranian Officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY. MIGA!!!”
Then on the weekend of January 10, Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, secretly met with Reza Pahlavi, the son of the former shah of Iran. The Shah was installed in power following the 1953 U.S. and British backed coup that removed the democratically elected Mohammad Mosaddeq. The Shah oversaw a savage and repressive dictatorship that repressed opposition media, political parties, unions and other groups with the help of his murderous SAVAK secret police and their notorious torture chambers. He would be thrown out by the 1979 Islamic Revolution that brought the current regime to power.
Trump had initially refused to endorse Reza Pahlavi, saying it would not be “appropriate” for him to support him. Pahlavi has been trying to position himself as a transitional leader if the protests can overthrow the Ayatollah. He has been calling protestors to the streets, encouraging them to stay there and calling on the Trump administration to intervene in support of the protesters. The secret meeting was the first high-level meeting the Trump administration has held with the Iranian opposition.
According to Vali Nasr, Professor of International Affairs and Middle East Studies at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, Pahlavi, who is in exile in the United States, has no organization or political party on the ground in Iran. He has not built any political coalition to assume leadership if the regime were to be brought down.
Ervand Abrahamian, Distinguished Professor of History at City University of New York author of The Coup: 1953, the CIA, and the Roots of Modern U.S.-Iranian Relations, told me that, as demonstrated by their refusal to consider Iranian olive branches, the tearing up of the nuclear agreement and the refusal to ease sanctions, U.S. policy toward Iran has always been about “increasing pressure until the regime collapses.” He added that the U.S. and its partners are “out to destroy the state.”
U.S. threats of intervention and calls for a coup could come at enormous risk. That risk takes three forms.
The first is that, instead of boosting them, historically, U.S. support for protesters in Iran have undermined them by contributing evidence and credence to the regime’s charge that the U.S. has a hidden hand in the movement. A claim that is not altogether untrue. To exaggerate U.S. involvement in Iranian protests is to deprive the protest movement of sufficient credit; to dismiss it is to naively ignore America’s considerable and consistent interventionism in Iran.
The second is that Trump’s threats may have the effect of increasing the regime response of repression and killing. The U.S. believes that Iran is at its weakest moment since the revolution. It has lost many of its regional proxies and allies, its nuclear program has been seriously set back by bombs, and its economy is in crisis. In a recent webinar hosted by the Quincy Institute, Vali Nasr said that the longer the protests go on, the more motive the U.S. has to intervene. That reality provides motivation for the regime to end the protests quickly, making the response more brutal. Ellie Geranmayeh, a senior policy fellow and deputy head of the Middle East and North Africa programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations, added that the belief that Trump “sides with strength” could also lead Iran to demonstrate strength on the streets, increasing the risk of a violent response.
The third is that American threats to take out Iran’s missile program, which is most of what is left of their defensive capacity, and their calls for regime change, back Iran up into an existential corner in which it has nothing to lose. To capitulate is to lose the defense and the essence of the Islamic Republic. And, so, Trita Parsi has concluded that, when it comes to U.S. military intervention, “all options are far more likely to lead to war than to the collapse of the Iranian regime.”
That could backfire on the U.S. and on Trump’s desire to carry out an aggressive foreign policy with quick strikes instead of protracted wars. In the Quincy webinar, Mohammad Ali Shabani, editor of Amwaj.media, said that past U.S. assassinations and bombings have elicited measured responses from Iran. Iran says that this time will be different. Shabani says that Iran wants to project strength and show the U.S. that the regime is not limited in its strength or options. They hope to demonstrate to the U.S. that a military intervention will lead to a dragged out war.
On January 11, Mohammad Ghalibaf, Iran’s speaker of Parliament, warned that U.S. and Israeli military bases could become legitimate targets if Iran is attacked. “If the United States takes military action, both the occupied territories and U.S. military and shipping lanes will be our legitimate targets.”
So, U.S. intervention in the protests could backfire and harm both the credibility of the protests and American interests.
