After days of threatening to attack Iran in support of protesters challenging the government in Tehran, US President Donald Trump appeared to scale back his rhetoric on Wednesday night.
President Trump said the killings had stopped in Iran, adding that the Iranian government had told the government that arrested protesters would not be executed.
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President Trump did not rule out an attack on Iran, but he effectively denied the rationale for such an attack.
Still, as President Trump approaches the end of the first year of his second term, his record suggests that the possibility of an American military attack on Iran in the coming days remains a real threat.
Let’s take a look:
Maduro’s kidnapping – amidst diplomacy and limited strikes
Since August, the United States has been conducting its largest military deployment in the Caribbean in decades.
The US military bombed more than 30 ships that it claimed without evidence were transporting drugs to the US, and more than 100 people were killed in these airstrikes. For months, Mr. Trump and his team have accused Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro of leading a massive drug smuggling operation, also without evidence. Amid the ship bombing incident, President Trump even said that the United States could next attack Venezuelan soil.
But in late November, President Trump revealed to reporters that he had spoken with the Venezuelan leader. Days later, the call was confirmed by Maduro himself, who said it was “heartfelt.”
The United States then attacked what President Trump described as a drug smuggling ship berth in Venezuela. Then, on January 1, President Maduro extended an olive branch to President Trump, saying he was also willing to discuss drug trafficking and granting U.S. oil access with Washington. President Trump appeared to be getting what he ostensibly wanted: access to Venezuelan oil and blocking drugs from the country.
But just hours later, US forces targeted the capital, kidnapped Maduro and his wife on drug trafficking charges, and transferred them to the US.
Iran Bombing – When “Two Weeks” of Diplomacy Looked Imminent
Venezuela was not the first time President Trump launched a dramatic attack at a time when diplomacy seemed to be taking hold.
Iran learned the hard way in June that President Trump’s words and actions are not in sync.
The U.S. and Iranian governments have engaged in hectic weeks of negotiations amid heightened tensions over U.S. accusations that Iran is rushing to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. President Trump frequently warned Iran that time was running out for a deal, but has since returned to talks.
On June 13, he wrote in Truth Social that his team “remains committed to a diplomatic solution to the Iran nuclear issue.”
He said the “entirety” of the administration was “directed to negotiate with Iran.”
But hours later, US ally Israel attacked Iran. Most experts believe that Israel would not have attacked Iran without President Trump’s approval.
In the days that followed, President Trump faced questions over whether the United States would bomb Iran, as Israel and Iran engaged in a firefight.
On June 20, White House press secretary Caroline Levitt reported that President Trump “will decide whether to go within the next two weeks.”
Instead of taking full advantage of the two weeks he was given, President Trump made his decision in two days.
In the early hours of June 22, an American B-2 Spirit bomber dropped 14 bunker bombs on Iran’s Fordow nuclear facility, buried deep in the mountains near Qom. The US also bombed nuclear facilities in Natanz and Isfahan using the most powerful conventional bombs in the US arsenal.
The attack shocked many observers, in part because it appeared to have been an elaborate diplomatic maneuver.
Iran Protests Calculation: What is Trump’s Plan?
At present, attention is once again focused on Iran. Demonstrations against the government have continued in Iran for the past two weeks, but subsided earlier this week.
Last week, President Trump called on Iranians to continue demonstrating as the unrest became increasingly dangerous.
“Iranian patriots, keep protesting – take over our institutions!!!… Help is on the way,” President Trump said in a post on Truth Social on January 13, without elaborating on what form that support would take.
However, President Trump said in a meeting with reporters in Washington, D.C., that within 24 hours he was confident that the killing of protesters in Iran had stopped.
President Trump said Wednesday: “They say the murders will stop, the executions won’t happen. There were supposed to be mass executions today, and they say there won’t be any. We’re going to figure it out.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also denied in an interview with Fox Television that the Iranian government was planning to execute anti-government protesters. “Hanging is out of the question,” he said.
What other countries is Trump threatening?
President Trump’s aggressiveness has increasingly extended beyond America’s longtime rivals Iran and Venezuela to the United States’ own allies, including Canada and Greenland.
The most notable example is President Trump’s enthusiasm for taking over Greenland, a Danish territory that has evolved from a campaign talking point to a central element of the administration’s Western Hemisphere strategy.
On January 5, the State Department posted a black-and-white image of President Trump on social media declaring, “This is our hemisphere, and President Trump will not allow our national security to be threatened.”
The president has refused to rule out the use of military force, and administration officials have openly discussed U.S. interests in Greenland’s strategic location and mineral wealth.
Denmark has firmly rejected any sale, but Greenland’s leadership insists the territory is not for sale.
But experts such as Jeremy Shapiro, head of research at the European Council on Foreign Relations, argue that Trump uses threats to intimidate his opponents and typically only uses force against weak targets.
In a paper published last May titled “The Bully Pulpit: Uncovering a Pattern in Trump’s Use of Military Force,” Shapiro suggested that Trump frequently invokes military threats but often does not carry them out.
Trump is likely to act when a threat has “low risk of escalation,” Shapiro said, but threats against nuclear-armed or militarily powerful countries serve primarily rhetorical purposes. The most extreme or theatrical warnings tend to serve as tools of “political signaling rather than precursors to actual military action,” he argues.
“Trump often makes grand threats but accepts only limited, low-risk military operations. He uses foreign policy as a political arena, directing threats not only at foreign adversaries but also at domestic locations and the media cycle,” Shapiro writes.
Calculated unpredictability?
Some analysts see Trump’s approach as tactically advantageous.
“The aim is to upset the balance of the enemy forces, increase psychological pressure and extract maximum strategic influence,” a Pakistani government official told Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to the media. “Even his European allies are not always sure what will happen.”
Some remain skeptical. Qandeel Abbas, a Middle East expert at Islamabad’s Quaid-i-Azam University, said Trump’s actions were erratic, citing his repeated threats against multiple countries.
“If you look at his threats against Cuba, Iran and Venezuela, this is the same president who also wants to win the Nobel Prize and is desperate for it,” Abbas told Al Jazeera.
So is President Trump actually retreating from the possibility of attacking Iran, or is he just bluffing it?
Trump’s apparent change in tone may be the result of feedback from U.S. allies in the region that “attacking Iran would be unwise,” Abbas said.
Still, Abbas said, “With Israel’s support, we will find a way to attack the country.”
