President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that any diplomacy with Iran is off the table until it stops killing protesters, promising the Iranian people that the United States will soon aid their uprising against the hardline regime.
"Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING - TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!" Trump wrote in a Truth Social post that dispelled rumors the United States is seeking diplomatic talks with Iran's leaders. "Save the names of the killers and abusers. They will pay a big price. I have cancelled all meetings with Iranian Officials until the senseless killing of protesters STOPS. HELP IS ON ITS WAY. MIGA!!!"
Tehran has pushed for negotiations over its contested nuclear program as a way to stave off a U.S. strike, but Trump made clear there can be no pathway for discussions as long as the regime kills protesters in the streets.
CBS News reported that the regime has killed at least 12,000 and as many as 20,000 since protests began, and Iranian officials have signaled that they do not believe Trump will make good on his promises to "hit them very hard."
Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said Monday during a regime-orchestrated counterprotest that Trump "talks too much and should not be taken seriously." Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran's parliament, called Trump a "delusional gambler," while former Iranian diplomat Amir Mousavi said on Friday that Trump is a "treacherous terrorist" who "needs to be disciplined and humbled." Mousavi added that Iran is likely to "initiate [an attack] that would discipline these bullies in the region and the world," according to a translation from the Middle East Media Research Institute.
Hassan Rahimpour Azghadi, a member of the Iranian Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution, offered similar threats during a separate television interview.
"We should do to Trump something similar to what they did to Maduro," he said, referring to the U.S. military operation to capture the former Venezuelan dictator. "Such an operation should be carried out against Trump. This is acceptable legally and in terms of religious law and international norms."
Iran's ambassador to China, Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, warned that Iran is not Venezuela and will not collapse so easily.
"We are growing stronger day by day and year by year, and we have prepared all the measures necessary to defend ourselves, both offensively and defensively," Fazli said late last week. "We are ready to deliver the necessary and regrettable response to the U.S. should such a situation arise."
Richard Goldberg, a former White House National Security Council official who worked on Iran policy, told the Washington Free Beacon that the Iranian government's pitched rhetoric suggests it knows it is on the precipice of a collapse.
"Khamenei is fighting for the survival of the Islamic Republic at this point," said Goldberg, who now works as a senior adviser to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. "It's not so much calling Trump's bluff—it's a maniacal captain willing to go down with the ship and taking thousands of Iranian civilians with him. The old tricks aren't working, the propaganda, disinformation and phony offers of diplomacy don't work on Trump—and now Iran has no air defense and no nuclear program to threaten. This is Trump's moment to change the world."
As Trump weighs options that reportedly include targeted military strikes and cyber warfare, the Israeli government is also exploring avenues to support a potential U.S. operation. The Jewish state's security cabinet is reportedly scheduled to meet on Tuesday to discuss assuming an "offensive posture in coordination with the United States." Former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant said in a Tuesday interview that his country's best course of action would be "to stay in the background and steer things with an invisible hand."
