What are Donald Trump’s options in Iran?

Donald Trump has said he’s “looking at some very strong options” in Iran as widespread anti-government demonstrations continue into their third week.

As the protests snowballed across the nation, the Iranian regime responded with force, reportedly killing hundreds under cover of a nationwide internet blackout. The US president had previously warned that America is “locked and loaded” to intervene if demonstrators were killed and, over the weekend, he posted on Truth Social that “the USA stands ready to help”.

Now Trump is under pressure to follow through on his words.

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What did the commentators say?

Trump has a “dilemma” on his hands, said The Economist. If he wants to convert his words into action, “he has limited options”. It’s hard to find “a precedent for launching a military offensive in support of peaceful protesters” and, while the unrest remains leaderless, any “boost” America can give is unlikely to be decisive.

A “strong” military strike could “undermine” the regime’s efforts to repress the protests or it could “lead to greater cohesion within the regime and a broader escalation”, Danny Citrinowicz of Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies told CNBC. “Given the absence of leadership in the opposition, such a strike may achieve an operational success but not a strategic one.”

“The speed of the crisis” has meant Trump’s team has “no developed response ready”, said Patrick Wintour in The Guardian. Unlike the build-up to the capture of Nicolas Maduro from Venezuela, “there has been no major movement of US military assets”. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Revolutionary Guard leaders have “strengthened their personal security arrangements”, making a “decapitation strategy” look unfeasible.

Many of the America’s closest partners in the Middle East are “urging restraint”. And there are widespread fears that a major US intervention “will only fuel the fire of an Iranian government narrative that the protests” are “part of an anti-Islamic plot being led by the US and Israel”.

The president will meet with senior advisers tomorrow to discuss “a number of non-lethal measures”, said Connor Stringer and Harry Bodkin in The Telegraph. These could include “boosting anti-government sources online, deploying cyberweapons against the Iranian military and civilian sites” and “placing more sanctions on the regime”, said Alexander Ward and Lara Seligman in The Wall Street Journal.

What next?

Trump has said he will “get the internet going, if that’s possible” by speaking to Elon Musk about Iran’s jamming of his Starlink service.

Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, speaker of the Iranian parliament and a former Revolutionary Guard commander, has warned that, if Iran is attacked, “the occupied territories”, meaning Israel, “as well as all US bases and ships will be our legitimate target”. Israel’s military is on “high alert in the event of a US strike”, said The Telegraph’s Stringer and Bodkin. It knows that “even if Israel chose not to take offensive action alongside the US, Iran would still be likely to fire missiles at the Jewish state”.