"American bombs to make things worse for the protesters in Iran”

“Limited US strikes might actually make things worse for the protesters. Trump says he wants to help. American bombs could hand the regime the narrative it wants – that the protesters are foreign-backed terrorists, not Iranians fed up with their own government. Strikes could cause some Iranians to rally around the flag, as many did during the 12-day war, while giving the regime justification to crack down even harder. 

Iran isn’t Venezuela, where a surgical raid removed Nicolas Maduro and the aftermath stayed contained. Any military action that fails to dislodge the regime could embolden Tehran and demoralize protesters who expected more,” Bremmer notes.

According to him, “Tehran is betting that Trump won’t go much further than symbolic strikes.”

“For all his rhetoric, Trump is less interested in regime change than his predecessors – not in Caracas, not in Tehran. What he wants is a pliant regime, one that gives up its nuclear program, limits its ballistic missile program, ends support for regional proxies, and otherwise does whatever he wants. He got that in Venezuela and he’d take the same deal from the Islamic Republic. But the supreme leader is never going to give him that. In 1988, Khamenei’s predecessor Ayatollah Khomeini accepted a ceasefire with Iraq that he likened to drinking from a “poison chalice.” Khamenei has spent decades making clear he won’t follow that example – he’d rather rule over ashes or die than accept terms he sees as surrender,” says president of Eurasia Group.