While Iran remains under a nationwide internet blackout, reports from the country indicate that street protests, which rocked the country a week ago, have largely died down after a bloodbath at the hands of state security forces. Thousands of protesters were killed and tens of thousands have been detained, according to human rights groups.
After telling Iranian demonstrators that "help is on the way" and vowing "very strong action" if Iran's security forces killed protesters, the president struck a softer tone Friday, thanking Tehran for not executing hundreds of protesters.
While the White House says military strikes are still on the table, they do not appear imminent, with regional allies urging Trump to delay an attack.
With his initial pledge to help protect protesters seeking to topple the Iranian regime, Trump put himself in a box he is now struggling to get out of, according to some analysts.
"I think he created an unenforceable red line, to be frank. I mean, he set out this red line that it was never going to be able to be enforced ever," said Nate Swanson, a resident senior fellow and director of the Iran Strategy Project at the Atlantic Council's Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative.
Jon Hoffman, a research fellow in defense and foreign policy at the Cato Institute, told The Hill on Friday that in "classic Trump fashion, by him coming out so aggressively and kind of planting the flag so early on, he's backed himself into this corner now where, I guess people are telling him that if he does not do this, he's going to be portrayed as weak and so on and so forth."
Still, the Trump administration is seemingly looking to expand its military options regarding Iran with the Pentagon dispatching USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier and its strike group, which includes guided missile destroyers and fighter jets, toward the Middle East this week.
But the strike group will not get to the Middle East for some time, meaning that the U.S. military is not ready for a sustained campaign, a former senior U.S. intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity previously told The Hill.
Former senior Defense officials have said that even with the Trump administration constrained in the Middle East because of the massive buildup in the Caribbean, the U.S. military still has an abundance of firepower at hand.
Washington's allies in the region, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Oman, have been active on the diplomatic front, reportedly lobbying the administration to delay any kinetic action against Iran amid concerns that it could spark a multinational war in the Middle East.
"No one convinced me. I convinced myself," the president told reporters Friday when asked if Arab and Israeli officials convinced him not to strike Iran.
Middle East experts argued that even if military strikes are conducted, they are unlikely to oust the hard-line Iranian regime, despite the widespread unrest over the country's dwindling economic conditions.
Read the full report at thehill.com.
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