President Trump has set his sights on Iran. Amid the regime’s brutal repression of anti-government protests, the White House let it be known that the president would be briefed Tuesday on possible military options.
Flush with the success of this month’s capture of the Venezuelan autocrat Nicolás Maduro, Mr. Trump has offered ostentatious hints of potential unspecified U.S. action against Tehran, while also dangling the possibility of resuming nuclear negotiations with the regime.
Iran’s next revolution may have begun, but there is a vast distance between this growing, inspiring uprising and the resilient, democratic, and prosperous new order that Iranians desire and deserve. The history of Iran and its neighbors shows that the pathway to durable, positive change is precarious. Washington can play a crucial role in the next stage of Iran’s contestation, but neither military strikes nor another round of nuclear talks will secure a better future for Iranians or for U.S. interests.
Tehran’s apparent Hail Mary proposal to revive nuclear diplomacy may appeal to Mr. Trump’s preference for deal-making at a discount, but with Iranians risking their lives to challenge the regime, any return to negotiations should be an absolute nonstarter, even for an administration as transactional as this one.
The Islamic republic would like nothing better than the opportunity to distract from its crimes against humanity by returning to gilded European ballrooms for endless, fruitless dialogue. And if Mr. Trump is not troubled by the prospect of betraying Iranians’ heroic struggle on the streets, he should be deterred by the specter of following in the footsteps of President Barack Obama, who privately offered to “turn the page” and resume nuclear talks shortly after Iran’s epic 2009 protests.
Given the brutality unfolding in Iran, Mr. Trump’s temptation to wield America’s unmatched military power on behalf of defenseless innocents is more commendable. The Iranian regime has wrought havoc across the Middle East and is now committing large-scale atrocities against its own people. Reza Pahlavi, the scion of Iran’s ousted monarchy whose name has been invoked recently by protesters, has encouraged the president to intervene, and with Iran’s death toll mounting, that appeal has been echoed by activists in Iran and in the diaspora.
Unfortunately, while the moral imperative for targeting Tehran may be compelling, the prospects of U.S. strikes delivering near-term relief for beleaguered Iranians or a conclusive end to their oppressive regime are slim. The American military can deploy world-class coercive and deterrent capabilities, but its track record in advancing stable, democratic transitions is notably less impressive, especially in the Middle East. Missile strikes alone can’t Make Iran Great Again — only a conclusive end to the Islamic republic’s 47 years in power and a durable transition to a democratic and accountable government in Tehran will achieve that end.
Instead, Mr. Trump should pursue a heightened pressure campaign on the regime: launching cyberoperations aimed at critical military capabilities, encouraging countries that still have diplomatic relations with Tehran to expel Iran’s diplomats, seizing Iran’s ghost fleet of oil tankers, sanctioning Chinese imports of Iranian oil and identifying and exposing perpetrators of violence. Most important, Mr. Trump should invest in the funding and organizational support that could eventually enable Iran’s opposition to prevail and prepare for future governance.
So far, the president’s most muscular foreign policy impulses have largely taken the form of spectacular but limited incursions intended to accomplish similarly limited objectives. The June 2025 strikes on Iran’s nuclear program and the recent Maduro raid were dramatic, but contained.
Regime change is not a one-and-done matter, especially for a system as deeply entrenched and fiercely determined to prevail as Iran’s revolutionary theocracy. Even if airstrikes succeeded in briefly disrupting Iran’s crackdown on dissent or taking out the regime’s top leadership, as the Israelis nearly did in June, Tehran has patience and a deep bench.
Faced with a well-entrenched and ideologically committed regime, Mr. Trump has no “Venezuela option” — no limited operation that removes a malignant leader, leaving a newly compliant power structure that maintains some semblance of order. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader whose 37 years in office has cemented his absolute control over the country, is aging and eminently expendable, but the vast power structure he presides over is trapped by its complicity and its foundational reliance on anti-Americanism. All of the ayatollah’s apparatchiks understand that they, too, will go down with the ship, which is why Iran’s once vaunted reformists have remained silent throughout the latest bloody crackdown.
And while Tehran’s stale fulminations of revenge have largely proven hollow, any symbolic U.S. military action carries real risks of blowback or unintended consequences. Tehran has promised to retaliate by targeting military assets as well as our regional allies.
While Mr. Trump’s previous attacks on Iran have avoided escalation, the regime is now contending with an existential crisis. A new Iranian barrage of ballistic missiles aimed at Israel or Persian Gulf energy infrastructure would present real challenges for U.S. force posture already stretched thin by Mr. Trump’s growing appetite for brandishing U.S. military power.
As Mr. Trump himself has boasted, his bona fides on Iran are well established. The president issued the orders that targeted the regime’s most valuable assets, assassinating the mastermind behind Tehran’s transnational militia campaign in 2020 and extensively damaging its hardened uranium enrichment facility in the June 2025 war.
Forgoing a new round of military strikes does not imply sitting on the sidelines as Iranians launch a crucial new stage in their revolutionary struggle. Media reports suggest Mr. Trump’s briefings this week will focus primarily on “nonkinetic options.” He should heed that implied preference.
Similar to American cyberattacks on Iran’s missile launchers during the June war, U.S. Cyber Command should target key command and control systems to degrade the capabilities of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and other security forces that have carried out the massacres. Washington should press capitals in Europe and Asia to close their missions in Iran, expel Iranian diplomats and generally end business as usual with the regime, as Canada and Australia have previously done.
Tightening sanctions is already a key priority for Washington, but Mr. Trump should authorize more aggressive efforts to deter and seize the ghost fleet that transports Iran’s illicit supplies and pressure Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates to dismantle the financial and export infrastructure that facilitates these crucial revenue flows.
Finally, Washington should invest in enabling Iran’s opposition to prevail and prepare for future governance. This would include convening tech leaders to expedite anti-censorship workarounds to enable internet connectivity and information flows, restoring funding for human rights documentation efforts that ensure that perpetrators of violence face accountability, providing broad-based support to Iranian civil society and independent media, and working closely with a wide array of Iranian diaspora leaders to help prepare the next generation of Iranians for the transition that is to come.
There is a more pernicious danger in Mr. Trump’s proclivity for treating decisions of war and peace as the latest reality television episode — all showmanship for ratings with little regard for the fallout. His rhetoric cruelly raises hopes for many Iranians of American deliverance without any real commitment to the cause, even as he dangles the prospect of diplomacy that would provide the regime with a lifeline.
An administration serious about emulating President Ronald Reagan’s “peace through strength” approach would capitalize on the historical bravery of Iranian protesters at a time of regime weakness by ensuring the opposition is equipped to succeed.
Suzanne Maloney worked on the policy planning staff of the State Department in the administration of George W. Bush and as an outside adviser on Iran during the Obama administration. She is a vice president at the Brookings Institution.
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