President Donald Trump has escalated his threats to use military force amid Iran’s violent crackdowns on protests, which have killed as many as 20,000 Iranians. In recent days, he has called for regime change in the Islamic Republic and ordered the Abraham Lincoln carrier group to the Middle East, its arrival expected later this month.
But attacks on Iran would undermine the very protestors Trump purports to defend. Worse, it would expose U.S. forces in the region to an Iranian counterattack that Tehran has signaled would be much harsher than last summer’s response to U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear sites.
U.S. military force would be counterproductive to creating favorable political change in Iran. Trump’s threats risk discrediting the protestors as foreign stooges, which makes it easier for the regime to justify harsh measures to repress them. Israel claimed to be involved in the uprisings, and the regime has used those claims to tarnish the legitimacy of all Iranian protesters. The perception of foreign sponsorship could both delegitimize the movement and fracture the broad social coalition that gives such uprisings power.
Moreover, bombs usually stiffen a government’s grip on power, not loosen it. That’s especially true in countries that have long suffered from foreign meddling, such as Iran, where the U.S.-backed ouster of Mohammed Mosaddegh in 1953 remains a source of anger, and where the war launched in 1980 by Iraq’s Saddam Hussein solidified support for the new Islamist regime. External attacks stir up nationalism and redirect public anger outward, creating “rally-around-the-flag” effects that political scientists have documented for decades. The world witnessed this very dynamic last summer when Israel’s attack on Iran destroyed the influence of regime moderates.
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