WASHINGTON—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 pause was the culmination of nearly a week of escalating tensions between Washington and Tehran, during which the U.S.’s regional allies warned Trump that a bombing campaign might lead to a wider conflict and senior U.S. military officials prepared for a strike order Wednesday that never came.
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.”
While the White House insists that Trump has yet to make a final decision on striking Iran, the critique that Trump had flinched appeared to echo criticism decades earlier when then-President George H.W. Bush encouraged Iraqis to rise up against Saddam Hussein, but then opted to stay out of the country’s internal strife when the Shia rose up against the dictator in the wake of the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
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.
Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in late December at Mar-a-Lago and the Israeli leader was concerned about Iran’s attempts to rebuild its missile force, which had been pummeled by Israeli airstrikes. At the time, demonstrations in Iran were building and Netanyahu said that the Iranian regime was likely to stifle the protests with violence, senior U.S. officials familiar with the conversation said. Trump asked aides about the unrest and if there was anything the U.S. could do.
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.
Iranian diplomats during the week tried to persuade the U.S. not to strike their country, and to resume nuclear talks instead. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi reached out hoping to set up a meeting with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff in the Swiss resort of Davos before the start of next week’s World Economic Forum, Arab and European officials said. The meeting was never finalized.
U.S. and military officials were already devising options for the president to respond to Iran’s smothering of dissent, and had been receiving informal briefings from top aides such as Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
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.”
Later that evening in a CBS News interview, Trump said that he was unable to get reliable numbers about how many people the Iranian regime had killed during the crackdown. But if Tehran hanged protesters, “we will take very strong action,” he said.
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 Trump was hearing alternate points of view. The U.S. couldn’t be sure of toppling the regime with a quick flurry of airstrikes alone, the U.S. officials said, and it was unclear that bombing Iranian military and civilian sites would help the uprising and weaken the government. The U.S. also didn’t have the requisite military assets in the region to both launch a large and sustained attack that could put the regime on its heels and protect American forces and allies in the Middle East, aides told the president.
Officials in Israel and Arab countries also told Washington the time wasn’t right for a strike, U.S. officials said. The situation in Iran was too volatile, the Middle Eastern leaders said, and the protests had already been largely subdued by the regime’s heavy-handed crackdown. Plus, it was unclear who would lead the opposition if somehow Tehran’s government crumbled under U.S. air power.
Iran’s national security adviser Ali Larijani and other officials lobbied regional nations, including Gulf monarchies, Iraq and Turkey, to pressure Trump to stand down on Wednesday, according to Arab officials. In a string of “bullet points,” the Iranian officials said Persian Gulf nations such as Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia would face retaliation on the American bases they host if Iran was attacked, the Arab officials said.
By Wednesday afternoon, Trump’s messaging about the need for a strike appeared to change. He told reporters in the White House that Iran informed the administration that the killing of protesters had stopped, though he didn’t reveal who relayed the message. “There’s no plan for executions,” he said. “I have been told that on good authority.” Trump further repeated an Iranian talking point that the demonstrators had been shooting at regime authorities, too.
Araghchi, the top Iranian diplomat, that evening claimed in a Fox News interview the regime would stop killing and hanging protesters.
Trump would also speak Wednesday evening on the telephone with Netanyahu, the U.S. officials said. The Israeli leader reiterated the U.S. shouldn’t strike Iran at this time, as there were questions about whether the bombings were coming too late to help protesters. Israel, for one, would certainly need a better-positioned U.S. military to help defend the country from an Iranian retaliation.
Still, the U.S. on Thursday was sending more military assets toward Iran, a sign that Trump might again consider an attack. Leavitt, the White House press secretary, told reporters that the president’s stance was still the same: “If the killing continues, there will be grave consequences.” She did, however, say the administration was pleased that Iran had committed to not executing 800 people. Leavitt didn’t say where that figure came from.
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!”
Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally, similarly adjusted his tone after spending the week openly pushing for a large-scale assault. The South Carolina Republican, who earlier this week compared Iran’s regime to the Nazis and called for stopping its crackdown “by any means necessary,” wrote on Friday that averting the 800 hangings Trump claimed had been planned was a significant accomplishment. “Hopefully, people won’t have to live under this regime and threat forever.”
Write to Lara Seligman at lara.seligman@wsj.com, Alexander Ward at alex.ward@wsj.com, Michael R. Gordon at michael.gordon@wsj.com and Benoit Faucon at benoit.faucon@wsj.com
