One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter, as they say, which is certainly true for Donald Trump when it comes to protesters.
Brave Iranians who took to the streets en masse again on Tuesday night, despite the great risk to their lives, are “patriots” to the US president, and he is encouraging them to keep up the fight.
However, Americans who protest the deportation of alleged criminal aliens are “domestic terrorists”, in the view of the Trump administration, whose deaths at the hands of ICE officers are unfortunate but justified.
That is not to compare or liken the two sets of demonstrators, but simply to point out Trump lacks a principled approach to public protest. This may prove costly to the thousands of Iranians protesting the Islamic terrorist regime if Trump ultimately decides to cut a deal rather than intervene militarily to try to fatally weaken it or cut off its head.
The son of the toppled shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, makes the same point. “Part of the reason they are still on the street fighting is they believe that this president is committed to do what he promised he will,” he told Fox News from the United States, where he lives in exile.
Tehran-born Pahlavi, 65, would seek to return to lead Iran if the regime fell – though his level of support in the country is far from clear – so naturally he would encourage Trump to intervene.
The president seems cognisant of this dilemma. His latest message was that he will decide on a course of action based on the latest estimates of the death toll, including whether the regime is hanging people.
Just because Trump supports the protesters in their righteous cause does not compel him to launch air strikes, and nor should it. But by giving the impression that American “help is on its way”, he adds to the incentives for Iranians to keep risking their lives, even as the danger escalates.
There would still need to be clear aims and strategy for any military operation, whether that be symbolic strikes, sustained bombing, assassination of the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei or some combination.
As noted by Clayton Swope, a senior fellow at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, air strikes have a mixed record, although Trump successfully deployed them against Iran last year.
“There is little historical evidence that airpower by itself has brought about the collapse of a regime, nor that airpower alone can prevent a tyrant or terrorist group from perpetrating brutality against civilians,” he writes.
“But the regime in Iran today is weak. It is quickly losing its grip on power. Because of this weakness, one can discern a certain logic for US airstrikes in Iran that could achieve a policy aim without using ground troops.
“Air strikes alone will not stop the Ayatollah from shooting protesters – but what if, because it is so weak, air strikes can bring about regime collapse? Seems reasonable that such a result might end the ongoing violence against civilians.”
Given his recent track record in not only Iran but Venezuela, Nigeria and Syria, Trump will believe that is exactly what will happen. He is gassed up on “winning”, as he puts it.
“We’ve been right about everything,” Trump told CBS News on Wednesday after rattling off a list of successful military interventions, including the assassination of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani during his first term.
The likely conclusion is that Trump – convinced he cannot fail, certain of his unique ability to effect change and with the weight of expectation on him – will decide he must act.
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Michael Koziol is the North America correspondent for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald. He is a former Sydney editor, Sun-Herald deputy editor and a federal political reporter in Canberra.Connect via Twitter or email.
