All The Ways The US Could Intervene In Iran

When a group of Iranian business owners shuttered their shops in Tehran on December 28 and walked into the streets, few could have predicted the chain of events that would follow. What began as a localized strike quickly expanded into a nationwide uprising that, within weeks, had drawn in the White House, rattled Beijing, and forced Washington’s national security apparatus to begin drafting strike packages against one of the most heavily sanctioned nations on earth.

At the time of writing, the protests have lasted more than two weeks and spread across the country. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, speaking during a visit to India, told reporters that the world was witnessing “the final days and weeks of the Iranian regime” — an extraordinary declaration from one of Europe’s most measured leaders. Reports have also emerged suggesting that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has made contingency plans to flee Iran, a detail that, if accurate, would mark an unprecedented breakdown in the regime’s confidence in its own survival.

President Donald Trump has made no effort to conceal where his sympathies lie. In a direct address to the Iranian people, he declared: “To all Iranian patriots, keep protesting, take over your institutions if possible and save the names of the killers and the abusers… because they’ll pay a very big price… Help is on its way.” The statement amounts to an explicit promise of American intervention — but what that intervention will actually look like remains the central strategic question facing Washington.

The Collapse of Diplomacy

The Trump administration’s initial instinct was to pursue negotiation. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that while the president was prepared to use military force, diplomacy remained the preferred instrument. That posture appeared to have some traction: Trump confirmed aboard Air Force One that Tehran had reached out over its nuclear program, and senior figures including Vice President JD Vance were privately urging the president to exhaust diplomatic options before escalating. Iran’s foreign ministry said communication channels were open between Steve Witkoff, America’s special envoy to the Middle East, and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.

That window closed with brutal speed. Within three days of talks beginning, Trump announced he was terminating all negotiations until the killing of protesters stopped. The president had previously told radio host Hugh Hewitt that if the Iranian regime murdered demonstrators, America would respond with force. The death toll made the decision for him.

Conservative estimates from the Associated Press put the number killed since the protests began at a minimum of 2,571. CBS News reported figures between 12,000 and 20,000 dead. To contextualize the higher figure: it took ten weeks of sustained Israeli bombardment before the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza reported 20,000 killed. If the upper estimate from Iran is accurate, Tehran would have reached that threshold in mere days.

Eyewitnesses told the New York Times that government forces using automatic weapons opened fire indiscriminately on unarmed civilians. The regime also threatened to execute protest leaders, including 26-year-old Erfan Soltani. One protester described it simply: “The regime is on a killing spree.”

Economic Pressure and the China Calculation

With diplomacy exhausted, the Trump administration’s first substantive move was economic. The president announced that any country conducting business with Iran would face a 25% tariff on its trade with the United States. The primary target of the threat was China, Iran’s largest trading partner and the buyer of the majority of its sanctioned oil exports.

Beijing’s public response was defiant. A Chinese government spokesperson declared that the country would take “all necessary measures” to safeguard its interests and expressed support for Tehran, voicing hope that Iran could “maintain national stability.” But the private calculus was different.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Iranian officials who reached out to Beijing were met with scathing criticism on Chinese social media — widely understood to reflect the government’s genuine position. The core reason for China’s hesitation, according to the Journal, is straightforward: Beijing does not want to expose its banks and financial institutions to secondary sanctions from Washington and Brussels.

The outcome has been significant for American strategy. By threatening tariffs rather than immediately striking militarily, the Trump administration bought itself time while simultaneously demonstrating to Tehran just how limited its international support truly is. China, Iran’s most powerful backer, chose access to American markets over solidarity with an embattled partner. Iran enters any military confrontation with the United States more isolated than at any point in recent memory.

Military Options on the Table

According to multiple reports from the Washington Post, New York Times, and CBS News, American military planners have presented President Trump with a range of strike options. The administration has not disclosed specific targets or operational timelines, but analysis of past U.S. and Israeli actions, combined with assessments from former officials and defense analysts, makes the likely menu of options relatively clear.

Targeting Khamenei

The most dramatic option — a direct strike on Supreme Leader Khamenei — has been discussed but faces significant obstacles. Dan Sabbagh, The Guardian’s defence and security editor, notes that while an airstrike on the Ayatollah would be logistically simpler than a ground-based capture operation, Khamenei has demonstrated considerable skill at evading detection. Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, acknowledged as much after the 12-day war, stating that had Khamenei been in their sights, he would have been killed — implying he was not.

There is also no guarantee that eliminating Khamenei would produce the desired political outcome. The Times reported in June 2025 that the Supreme Leader had already designated multiple clerical successors and distributed command authority down his military chain to insulate the system against decapitation. A strike on Khamenei could also endanger the civilian protesters Washington claims to be protecting, particularly if he is sheltering in a populated urban area of Tehran.

Strikes on the Security Apparatus

A more operationally coherent option, and the one assessed by former Pentagon official Mick Mulroy as the most probable, would target the specific elements of the Iranian state responsible for suppressing the protests. Mulroy, who served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, told ABC that the U.S. would likely focus on “regime targets specific to controlling or oppressing the protests.”

The primary candidate is the Basij militia — an all-volunteer paramilitary force whose actions during the crackdown were publicly praised by Mohammed Ghalibaf, a senior regime figure. Basij barracks, command centers, and training facilities are relatively identifiable and could be struck without requiring U.S. ground forces. Degrading the Basij’s operational capacity would directly reduce the regime’s ability to put armed personnel on the streets.

However, analysts interviewed by Radio Free Europe cautioned that strikes of this nature carry a significant political downside: they risk triggering a nationalist backlash that allows the regime to reframe its internal crisis as a foreign attack on Iranian sovereignty. A rally-around-the-flag effect could reconsolidate support within the security services at precisely the moment when defections are needed.

Nuclear and Missile Infrastructure

Israel has already struck three major Iranian nuclear facilities. Iranian Foreign Minister Araghchi subsequently claimed that all damaged infrastructure had been rebuilt. NBC News reported that Israel was growing increasingly alarmed by evidence that Iran was not merely reconstructing but actively expanding its ballistic missile production capacity, and that Prime Minister Netanyahu was preparing to present Trump with updated strike plans.

Targeting nuclear and missile sites would address a threat that Israel considers existential and would enjoy broad regional support. But like strikes on security forces, this option leaves the clerical regime in Tehran intact and capable of using foreign bombardment as propaganda to consolidate domestic authority.

Oil Infrastructure

Perhaps the most consequential option under consideration involves Iran’s energy export infrastructure. Iran currently exports approximately two million barrels of crude oil per day, the majority of it to China and in defiance of existing U.S. sanctions. This revenue stream funds both the domestic security apparatus and Iran’s network of regional proxies.

Michael Rubin, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, identifies the most likely targets as Kharg Island in the Persian Gulf — which handles roughly 90% of Iran’s crude exports — along with major refineries at Abadan and Isfahan. These facilities are far less hardened than military sites and would present relatively accessible targets for precision strikes.

The risks, however, are substantial. Iran has repeatedly threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz in the event of attacks on its oil infrastructure, a move that would affect approximately one fifth of global oil supply. Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Qatar have each communicated to the Trump administration that the economic knock-on effects of such a closure — including on the American domestic economy — would be severe. Whether Tehran could actually enforce a Hormuz closure given its degraded naval capabilities after the 12-day war is debatable, but the threat alone has given Washington pause.

Cyber Operations and Psychological Campaigns

The Pentagon has also prepared cyber and information operations options for the president’s consideration. The Trump administration employed cyber tools extensively during operations against Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, with Trump claiming the U.S. had disrupted power infrastructure in Caracas to facilitate his capture. But Ciaran Martin, former head of the UK’s National Cyber Security Centre, told The Guardian that Iran presents a more challenging target. A theoretically achievable objective, Martin suggested, would be attempting to restore internet access that Tehran has largely severed — though she acknowledged that even this would be technically difficult to execute.

Iran’s Capacity to Respond

Tehran has made its position unambiguous. The Iranian Defence Council issued a formal statement warning that “any infringement on national interests, interference in internal affairs or action against Iran’s stability will be met with a proportionate, targeted and decisive response.” Iran’s ambassador to Kenya delivered an essentially identical message to a WarFronts correspondent in an interview Monday. More significantly, Iranian officials have indicated a willingness to strike preemptively if they assess a tangible threat is imminent — a departure from Iran’s traditional reactive posture.

The question is whether Iran retains the capability to make good on these threats. Its military was badly degraded during the 12-day war with Israel. Key air defense systems were disabled, and significant portions of its conventional force projection capability were destroyed. Nevertheless, Sabbagh notes that Iran has retained a limited but functional ballistic missile capability.

Launch sites buried deep in mountain terrain survived the conflict, and Tehran has been rebuilding its stockpiles. Analysts estimate Iran currently holds approximately 2,000 heavy ballistic missiles — sufficient, if launched in mass salvos, to potentially overwhelm American and Israeli missile defense systems and pose a genuine threat to U.S. regional bases.

Multiple sources told the Washington Post that Trump has expressed private uncertainty about committing to military action, suggesting that the administration is acutely aware of these risks.

The Civilian Cost of Every Option

Any serious analysis of U.S. intervention in Iran must confront an uncomfortable reality: every option currently on the table carries potentially catastrophic consequences for the same Iranian civilians whose cause Washington claims to champion.

CNN reported that Tehran deployed a sophisticated multi-layered crackdown strategy combining low-flying surveillance drones, signal jammers, a rapid-response propaganda apparatus, and coordinated lethal force. The level of organization suggested both that the regime feared for its survival and that it had systematically learned from previous uprisings — including the Mahsa Amini protests — how to crush dissent more efficiently.

Bilal Saab, an Associate Fellow at Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa Programme, warns that a U.S. strike — particularly a limited or symbolic one — risks hardening the regime rather than weakening it, enabling Tehran to redirect public anger outward and reconsolidate the loyalty of a security apparatus that has shown some signs of strain. In that scenario, protesters who took to the streets in the expectation of American support would face a more vicious crackdown, not a liberating one.

The alternative is equally grim. If Trump steps back from his rhetorical commitments and declines military action, the Iranian regime will almost certainly interpret the retreat as a green light to escalate its suppression campaign to a level that forecloses any future challenge to its authority.

The historical parallel is sobering. In 1991, President George H.W. Bush encouraged the Iraqi Shia and Kurdish populations to rise against Saddam Hussein, strongly implying that American support would follow. It did not. Saddam Hussein killed an estimated 100,000 people in the subsequent crackdown, while American forces watched from across the border.

A Decision With No Clean Outcome

The Trump administration is navigating a set of options in which every path carries significant costs and none guarantees the outcome Washington says it wants: the protection of Iranian civilians and the end of the clerical regime. Diplomacy has collapsed under the weight of a massacre. Economic pressure has exposed Iran’s isolation but has not halted the killing. Military options range from the targeted to the catastrophic, with each carrying the potential to either accelerate the regime’s fall or entrench it further.

What is clear is that the Iranian people are, once again, caught between a revolutionary government that has demonstrated a willingness to kill them in the thousands and a great power whose promises of assistance remain, for now, a matter of rhetoric rather than action. The decisions made in Washington in the coming days will determine whether Trump’s guarantee of help — “Help is on its way” — amounts to a genuine strategic commitment or becomes the defining broken promise of his second term.