B-2 bomber accompanied by four F-35s<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump has repeatedly warned for over a week now that the U.S. military will strike Iran again if the violent crackdowns on protests across the country continue. And he has been briefed on his military options against Tehran. What he will ultimately decide to do, and whether any operation he might order will tip the scales decisively in favor of the defiant but outgunned protests, remains to be seen.<\/p>\n
Trump was briefed in recent days on the military options available to him against Iran. Those options included strikes against nonmilitary sites in Tehran, The New York Times<\/em> reported Saturday<\/a>. According to that report, Trump hasn\u2019t made the final decision to strike yet.<\/p>\n The president has warned since early January that the U.S. is ready to attack Iran if it kills peaceful protesters. The ongoing protests began in late December amid the country\u2019s dire economic crisis. They swiftly grew into an enormous uprising against the theocratic Islamic Republic that has ruled over Iran since 1979. Trump\u2019s first warning against Iran came mere hours before the U.S. military raided Venezuela\u2019s capital, Caracas, and seized President Nicolas Maduro, a close ally of Tehran.<\/p>\n Iran\u2019s regime has since killed hundreds, if not thousands, of protesters throughout the country. Tehran has imposed a complete internet and communications blackout on the country, alarmingly reminiscent of the early days of the 2011 uprising in Syria, when the Iran-allied regime of Bashar al-Assad began massacring and torturing peaceful Arab Spring demonstrators. While much remains frustratingly unclear, Trump\u2019s red line against Tehran killing peaceful protesters has undoubtedly already been crossed.<\/p>\n Tehran predictably threatened to retaliate against any U.S. strikes by hitting American bases and ships in the region. Iran\u2019s 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei simplistically depicted the revolt as nothing more than \u201cvandals\u201d who want to \u201cplease\u201d the U.S. president. More alarmingly, Iran\u2019s attorney general, Mohammad Movahedi Azad, has declared that anybody participating in these protests is an \u201cenemy of God,\u201d<\/a> a capital offense in the Islamic Republic. It\u2019s worth remembering that in 1988, Khamenei\u2019s predecessor, the late Ruhollah Khomeini, similarly branded political prisoners enemies of God in a secret fatwa, leading to the swift summary and extrajudicial executions of thousands<\/a> across the country. The Islamic Republic killed more political prisoners in those months than in the entire 37-year reign of the last Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.<\/p>\n Trump clarified on Friday that while the U.S. will hit Iran \u201cvery hard where it hurts,\u201d that won\u2019t involve \u201cboots on the ground.\u201d From this, one could infer another one-off strike of the kind Trump has favored in the past might transpire.<\/p>\n At the end of Israel\u2019s 12-day war against Iran in June 2025, the U.S. launched Operation Midnight Hammer, which saw U.S. Northrop B-2 Spirit stealth bombers escorted by more than 100 fighter jets bomb Iran\u2019s central nuclear installations. Iran retaliated with a telegraphed strike on Qatar\u2019s sprawling Al-Udeid airbase, which hosts thousands of U.S. troops. After, both sides de-escalated and Trump even sarcastically thanked Iran\u2019s leadership for the \u201cearly notice\u201d on its retaliatory strike.<\/p>\n According to the Times<\/em> report, Trump\u2019s option could involve targeting the government security forces responsible for killing unarmed protesters. However, U.S. officials are wary of triggering \u201ca set of retaliatory strikes that could threaten U.S. military and diplomatic personnel in the region,\u201d as Iran has publicly threatened to do.<\/p>\n Iranian officials dismiss rumors that Khamenei has any plans to escape to Russia, where he\u2019d presumably follow his former ally Assad into a life of exile. \u201cHe will not leave Tehran even if B-52s are flying overhead,\u201d one official told<\/a> The Telegraph <\/em>on Friday.<\/p>\n There\u2019s presently no indication that Trump is considering targeting Khamenei directly. During the June war, the president claimed<\/a> the U.S. knew exactly where Khamenei was \u201chiding,\u201d writing that the U.S. wouldn\u2019t kill him \u201cat least for now\u201d to avoid having missiles fired at U.S. troops and civilians in retaliation. Nevertheless, he added at the time, \u201cOur patience is wearing thin.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s possible, if not likely, that the same calculation applies now. And if Khamenei\u2019s forces kill hundreds or thousands more protesters in the coming days, the possibility of the U.S. targeting him could increase. In the meantime, the U.S. may focus on preparing or evacuating regional military and diplomatic facilities within range of Iranian missiles and drones.<\/p>\n At the end of his first term, Trump assassinated the commander of Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps\u2019 extraterritorial Quds Force in a drone strike in Iraq\u2019s capital, Baghdad. Iran retaliated a few days later with a ballistic missile barrage against an Iraqi airbase hosting U.S. troops, leaving several of them with traumatic brain injuries<\/a>. Trump didn\u2019t retaliate at the time and has since disputed the severity of the injuries suffered by American personnel in Iran\u2019s counterstrike.<\/p>\n It\u2019s unclear if Soleimani\u2019s assassination could serve as an informative precedent for what action Trump could soon decide to take against Khamenei or his IRGC leadership, currently killing innocent Iranians.<\/p>\n The U.S.-based Reza Pahlavi, son of the last Shah who died in 1980, has urged Iran\u2019s protesters to persist and bring down Khamenei\u2019s regime. In a video message posted Saturday on X<\/a>, Pahlavi unequivocally declared that, \u201cOur goal is no longer merely to come to the streets; the goal is to prepare for seizing the centers of cities and holding them.\u201d<\/p>\n