Thinking Carefully About Iran at a Dangerous Moment

Preamble

A few days ago, I got a message from a West Point classmate. He knows my background, knows where I’ve spent most of my adult life—Special Forces, the Pentagon, the intelligence community—and he didn’t dress it up. He asked me straight out: “Are you tracking what’s happening in Iran, and what do you think we should do?”

That question stuck with me.

Not because I don’t have views on Iran—I’ve had them for decades—but because it forced me to stop reacting to headlines and start thinking through the problem the way we were trained to: clearly, sequentially, and without comforting illusions. Iran is dangerous. The protesters are brave. U.S. rhetoric is escalating. And the margin for error is shrinking.

This essay is my attempt to answer that question honestly.

It’s probably too long. It’s almost certainly not as polished as it could be. And reasonable people—especially those who haven’t lived inside irregular warfare, regime behavior, and strategic signaling—may disagree with parts of it. That’s fine.

But this is my assessment, grounded in experience and history, and this is my answer to the question: what’s happening in Iran, what are the risks, and what should—and should not—the United States do next?

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Iran at the Breaking Point: Protest, Power, and the Perils of American Rhetoric

Iran is once again in upheaval—not because of foreign pressure, but because of internal failure.

What began as localized demonstrations over economic collapse has evolved into a nationwide challenge to the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic. Inflation, currency devaluation, corruption, and repression have converged into a familiar but dangerous moment: a regime that cannot reform and a population that can no longer endure.

This is not the first time Iran has faced such unrest. But the current wave of protests is broader, more sustained, and more politically explicit than many that came before it—and it is unfolding against a far more volatile regional and global backdrop.

Understanding what is happening in Iran today, and how the world is reacting, requires separating three things that are too often blurred together: the Iranian regime, the Iranian people, and the geopolitical ambitions of outside powers.

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From Economic Anger to Political Defiance

The protests began, as so many in Iran do, with economics.

A collapsing rial, runaway inflation, fuel and food price shocks, and persistent unemployment pushed shopkeepers, workers, and students into the streets. What distinguished this wave early on was its geographic spread—urban centers, provincial cities, and historically regime-aligned areas all saw demonstrations.

But economic grievance quickly gave way to political defiance.

Chants shifted from prices to power. Protesters began directly criticizing clerical rule, corruption, and repression. In some cities, slogans openly targeted the Supreme Leader and the system of the Islamic Republic itself. The protests were not centrally organized, but they were unmistakably national in character.

The regime responded as it always does: force first, narrative second.

Security services—particularly those tied to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps—moved quickly to suppress demonstrations. Live fire, mass arrests, intimidation of families, and information blackouts followed. State media labeled protesters “foreign-backed agitators,” while officials warned of severe punishment for continued unrest.

This pattern is not new. What is new is the depth of public anger and the regime’s diminishing ability to plausibly blame anyone but itself.

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How the World Is Responding

Outside Iran, the reaction has been swift but uneven.

European governments—Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and others—have condemned the violent repression and summoned Iranian diplomats. The European Union has imposed additional targeted sanctions against Iranian officials and entities tied to human rights abuses, while signaling openness to further measures if the crackdown continues.

The United Nations human rights apparatus has issued unusually blunt statements condemning the violence, calling for accountability, and demanding access for independent monitors. These statements matter symbolically, but they are constrained by the reality of UN politics and Iran’s allies.

Russia and China have taken the opposite tack, warning against “external interference” and framing Western criticism as destabilizing. Their position is predictable: sovereign repression is acceptable so long as it is not Western-aligned.

Across the Middle East, reactions are cautious. Regional governments—many of which face their own legitimacy challenges—have avoided strong public positions, preferring silence to precedent.

The international community, in short, agrees on condemnation but diverges sharply on consequences.

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The Cost of Hollowing Out American Credibility

This uneven global response is not occurring in a vacuum—and the United States bears some responsibility for that reality.

Over the past several years, Washington has systematically weakened its own ability to mobilize multinational action. The defunding of diplomatic and development tools, the degradation of public diplomacy and democracy-support programs, and the withdrawal from—or marginalization of—international institutions have carried real strategic costs.

Soft power is not charity. It is leverage.

When the United States treats alliances as transactional, abandons multilateral forums, or privileges unilateral action as virtue, it erodes the very credibility required to lead coalitions. It becomes harder to impose coordinated sanctions, isolate abusive regimes, or sustain pressure over time.

In moments like this—when repression in Iran demands a disciplined, multinational response—the consequences of those choices are unmistakable. Condemnation without coalition is noise. Leadership without legitimacy is brittle. And unilateralism narrows the art of the possible before policy debates even begin.

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The U.S. Response—and Trump’s Words in Particular

Officially, the United States has followed a familiar script.

The State Department has condemned Iran’s violent suppression of protests, called for respect for human rights, highlighted internet shutdowns, and warned U.S. citizens to leave the country. Sanctions have been expanded against individuals and organizations involved in repression, particularly those tied to the IRGC.

All of that is standard—and defensible.

Where things diverge sharply is in the rhetoric of President Donald Trump.

Trump has gone far beyond formal condemnation. His public statements—particularly references to the United States being “locked and loaded” and warnings of “very strong action”—have injected military ambiguity into what is fundamentally a domestic Iranian crisis. To supporters, this language signals strength and deterrence. To Tehran, it signals opportunity.

Iranian leaders have seized on this rhetoric to reinforce their long-standing claim that protests are merely a Western-backed pretext for regime change. That narrative is not aimed at Washington; it is aimed inward—at fence-sitters, security forces, and ordinary Iranians who might otherwise sympathize with the protesters.

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The Art of the Possible: What Can Actually Be Done

The range of realistic responses to the situation in Iran is narrower than political rhetoric suggests.

Military intervention—direct or indirect—is not a viable option. Iran is not Libya. It is not Iraq in 2003. It is a large, cohesive state with capable conventional forces, powerful proxy networks, and a population that would rally against foreign invasion even while opposing its own rulers.

What is possible lies in four lanes:

1. Diplomatic pressure to prevent miscalculation and escalation.

2. Targeted sanctions focused on regime elites, IRGC economic networks, and repression apparatuses—not broad measures that punish the population.

3. Information support, including tools that help Iranians communicate and document abuses without branding them as foreign agents.

4. Multilateral coordination that isolates Tehran politically while denying it the ability to frame dissent as purely American manipulation.

These tools are imperfect. They are slow. But they align means with ends.

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What the United States Should Do—and Why War Is the Wrong Answer

The United States should do three things consistently and without drama.

First, it should support the rights of the Iranian people without claiming ownership of their movement. That means speaking about universal principles, not issuing ultimatums.

Second, it should keep pressure focused on the regime, particularly the IRGC and its leadership, while avoiding actions that unify Iranian elites against an external enemy.

Third, it should avoid military signaling that cannot—and should not—be acted upon.

Direct military intervention in Iran would be catastrophic. It would unify the regime, fracture alliances, destabilize the region, endanger U.S. forces, and—most importantly—destroy the very protest movement it claims to support. History is unambiguous on this point.

You do not liberate a population by validating the fears of its oppressors.

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Conclusion: An Operator’s Lesson We Ignore at Our Peril

During my Special Forces training, one lesson was emphasized over and over again—and it ran counter to how most people imagine resistance movements succeeding. We were taught that the decisive advantage rarely came from defeating a regime outright. It came from letting the regime defeat itself through overreaction.

Heavy-handed crackdowns, indiscriminate force, mass arrests, censorship, and visible fear were not signs of strength. They were strategic gifts. When authoritarian governments overreact, they alienate the population, fracture elite cohesion, and—most importantly—create images and narratives that expose the regime’s true nature to its own people and the world.

We saw that dynamic in Manila during the rise of Corazon Aquino, when the Marcos regime accelerated its own collapse by responding to dissent with repression rather than restraint. The opposition did not defeat the state militarily; the state discredited itself.

We saw echoes of the same pattern during China’s Umbrella Movement. Beijing ultimately retained control, but only by exposing the full machinery of repression—at significant cost to its international legitimacy and long-term credibility.

The lesson was always the same: authoritarian regimes are most vulnerable when they are left alone to overreact.

That is precisely why American saber-rattling is so dangerous in moments like Iran’s current crisis. When U.S. leaders inject overt military threats into a domestic uprising, they interrupt that dynamic. They replace images of regime brutality with narratives of foreign aggression. They transform an internal legitimacy crisis into a nationalist struggle for survival.

In practical terms, this is not pressure—it is interference. And it helps the wrong side.

Iran is a dangerous regime. The protesters are right to demand change. And American power remains formidable. But strength in this moment does not come from sounding ready for war. It comes from restraint, coalition leadership, and denying Tehran the external enemy it needs to justify repression.

History—and hard-earned experience—are unambiguous:
the fastest way to save a failing authoritarian regime is to threaten it from the outside.