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'Little appetite for regime change’: Trump offers 'help' for Iran's protesters, but what can he do?

By Benjamin DODMAN

France 24: US President Donald Trump told Iranian protesters on Tuesday that “help is on its way” as he weighed options to punish Tehran for its brutal crackdown. As the threat of military action looms, analysts say Trump's inclination for one-off strikes means he is unlikely to push for the regime change craved by many protesters.

It has been 10 days since US President Donald Trump warned Iran against cracking down on street protests, stressing that the United States was ready to "come to the rescue" of Iranian demonstrators.

As he put it, the US was “locked and loaded and ready to go”.

Trump has since repeated that threat and said he was looking at “very strong options” against Tehran – even as the death toll from the regime’s ferocious crackdown soared to more than 2,000, according to rights groups.

In a social media post on Tuesday, the US president urged Iranians to continue protesting and said “help is on its way”. He gave no details about what “help” he was leaning towards and when it might come.

The enigmatic message came a day after he exercised economic leverage by announcing 25 percent tariffs on any country that trades with Iran, and spoke of ways to restore internet access shut by Tehran.

Trump was to meet with senior advisers later on Tuesday to discuss possible course of action, with options reported to include military strikes, using secret cyber weapons, widening sanctions and providing online help to anti-government sources.

"Nobody knows what President Trump is going to do except for President Trump," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters. "The world can keep waiting and guessing."

One-off strikes

Buoyed by the successful capture of Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro earlier this month, Trump may be tempted to give America’s foes – and the wider world – another taste of US military might.

The US president has already proven his readiness to strike directly at Iran – first with the killing of Iran’s top military commander Qasem Soleimani in January 2020, and more recently with the strikes on Iranian nuclear sites last June.

Striking military installations comes with a high risk. Some bases of elite military and security forces may be located in heavily populated areas so any attack ordered by Trump could inflict large civilian casualties.

Iranian authorities have vowed to retaliate against any attack, with parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf warning Washington against "a miscalculation".

“Let us be clear: in the case of an attack on Iran, the occupied territories (Israel) as well as all US bases and ships will be our legitimate target," said Qalibaf, a former commander in Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards.

Despite the damage incurred during last year’s 12-day war with Israel, Iran still has a significant arsenal of ballistic missiles. And while its regional proxies are much diminished, they are still capable of action >>>