I wish the WSJ had a gift link option because they are doing just excellent work on the Trump administration. This piece about what happened last week with Iran reveals that his methods are making everything worse for the people who live there. Not that he cares. He just believes that if he makes enough threats the world will fall in line.
President Trump on Tuesday said he had canceled all meetings with Iran’s leaders, entreated Iranians protesting their government to overthrow the regime and declared that “HELP IS ON ITS WAY.”
Just three days later, Trump signaled there would be no imminent strikes on Iran. The U.S. president, who appeared to have taken the country to the cusp of war, was pulling back from a military intervention as long as Tehran didn’t execute more demonstrators.
[…]
The prospect of an attack, less than two weeks after U.S. forces captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, rattled leaders in capitals across the world, who feared that Trump’s penchant for quick aerial strikes could spark another protracted conflict in the Middle East while failing to dislodge the Iranian regime.
The U.S. is sending an aircraft-carrier strike group, additional jet fighters and missile defenses to the region, in a sign that bombs could still fall shortly after their arrival. But asked by reporters Friday whether American help for protesters was still on the way as promised, Trump said he alone decided not to issue an attack order. “Nobody convinced me. I convinced myself,” he said. “They didn’t hang anyone. They canceled the hangings. That had a big impact.”
Trump’s repeated posts on social media in support of protesters set off a guessing game as to whether he would consider hitting Iran again. Last June, he vowed to give Iran up to two weeks to negotiate over its nuclear program—before striking the country well before that deadline lapsed. He had already decided to send B-2 bombers and a cruise-missile-carrying submarine to attack three Iranian nuclear sites when he set the original deadline, leading some people to suspect a similar ruse this time around.
Striking Iran’s nuclear facilities in a one-and-done operation was a far less challenging mission than using force to compel an authoritarian regime in Tehran to heed its restive population or even yield power.
Trump was advised of the daunting prospects of regime change, The Wall Street Journal reported, even after repeatedly saying the U.S. would support what some labeled a new Iranian revolution. Now critics fear for the future of protesters who had been emboldened by Trump’s call to action.
“He put American credibility on the line,” said Suzanne Maloney, an Iran expert and vice president for foreign policy at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington. “There will be, and already has been, a sense of betrayal and backlash from Iranians that will last well beyond the life of this presidency.”
They note that this echoes criticism of George HW Bush for encouraging Iraqis to rise up against Saddam after the first Gulf War under the assumption that he would back them and then left them to be slaughtered. We all know how that all turned out.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said in a Friday statement that nobody knows what Trump will ultimately decide except the president. “He keeps his options open and will make decisions in the best interest of America and the world,” she said.
The “world”did not elect that jackass, we did. It’s not his job to make decisions for the world. Not to mention that he’s an imbecile and a lunatic so …
On Jan. 2, Trump used the threat of U.S. military action to try to convince Tehran not to shoot at or kill protesters. “We are locked and loaded and ready to go,” Trump posted on social media. It was a message he delivered several times online and in remarks to reporters.
The president had, in effect, set a red line. The question was how he might enforce it.
As the protests grew—fueled by an economic crisis, state repression and statements of U.S. support—so did Tehran’s fury. Activists and human rights groups said that at least 2,000 people were killed in only a few days, though observers suspect the real casualty toll is much higher.
“Iran brought down the iron fist with speed and ferocity we haven’t seen before,” said Ali Vaez, Iran project director at the International Crisis Group. The regime may have had a “perverse incentive” to quash the movement even more quickly and brutally before the U.S. was prepared to bomb Iran, he said.
Iran has oil so Trump’s interested in it. But he can’t keep his mouth shut so he’s making everything worse there.
On Tuesday, Trump was scheduled to meet with top officials including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Dan Caine, to review some plans, but he skipped the session and detailed his thoughts once more on social media.
“Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING—TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!” he posted. “HELP IS ON ITS WAY.”
[…]
Trump’s stern statements “certainly amplified the sense of possibility among Iranians,” Brookings’s Maloney said, even though U.S. support might not have been a major factor in getting Iranians into the streets, due to their longstanding skepticism of Washington.
On Tuesday evening, Trump was leaning toward ordering an attack and directed the Pentagon to prepare for a strike on Iran, the U.S. officials said. U.S. military officials went to bed that night expecting the president to give the final order for an attack the next day. Early Wednesday, the U.S. military evacuated some personnel from Al Udeid air base, in Qatar, home to U.S. aircraft and the major U.S. air war command center in the region.
But other people were talking to him, pointing out that he couldn’t be sure that strikes would topple the government and some people even pointed out that he might make things worse. Oh, and they told him that the US didn’t have the military assets they needed. Leaders in the Middle East frantically told him that it was a powder keg and that nobody knew who would take over. You’d think this would have been part of the discussion from the beginning but that’s not how Trump operates. Everyone tells him what he wants to hear and the bloodthirstiest among them usually have his ear the most.
He finally spoke with Netanyahu who weighed in against the strike because it was already too late and he was worried that without enough US military support things might go badly for Israel. Trump did not call anything off, and continued to send assets to the region. But they were reaching for an off-ramp which was provided when they decided the red line was actually the hanging of protesters. Iran backed out of it’s reported plans to do that and Trump was able to say that he’d succeeded in stopping it.
By Friday morning, Trump, too, was happy with Iran’s pronouncements that no more hangings would take place, and toned down his rhetoric. “I greatly respect the fact that all scheduled hangings…have been cancelled by the leadership of Iran. Thank you!”
Lindsey Graham had been banging the drum for strikes and abruptly backed down when Dear Leader did simply saying, “Hopefully, people won’t have to live under this regime and threat forever.”
We were this close to bombing another country in the first month of 2026. And it could have easily gone out of control because Trump is out of control.
I think Trump backed off because his friends in the region were against it. His family has so much money tied up in those countries that he can’t afford to do anything they don’t approve of. That’s pretty much the only thing that can stop him if Miller, Hegseth and Vance get his blood pumping for some carnage.