Trump’s bluffs: Why US strike on Iran remains real threat

After threatening to attack Iran for days in support of protesters challenging the government in Tehran, United States President Donald Trump appeared to dial back the rhetoric on Wednesday evening.

The killings in Iran, Trump said, had stopped, adding that Tehran had told his administration that arrested protesters would not be executed.

Trump did not rule out an attack on Iran, but in effect, negated the rationale for such an attack.

Still, as Trump closes in on the completion of the first year of his second term in office, his track record suggests the possibility of US military strikes against Iran in the coming days remains a real threat.

We take a look:

Maduro abducted – amid diplomacy and limited strikes

Since August, the US had positioned its largest military deployment in the Caribbean Sea in decades.

The US military bombed more than 30 boats that it claimed – without providing evidence – were carrying drugs to the United States, killing more than 100 people in these strikes. For months, Trump and his team accused Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro of leading mass-scale narcotics smuggling operations, again without evidence. Amid the boat bombings, Trump even said that the US might strike Venezuelan land next.

But in late November, Trump revealed to reporters that he had spoken to the Venezuelan leader. A few days later, the call was confirmed by Maduro himself, who described it as “cordial”.

The US then hit what Trump described as a docking facility for alleged drug boats in Venezuela. After that, on January 1, Maduro offered Trump an olive branch, saying he was open to talks with Washington on drug trafficking and even on enabling US access to oil. Trump appeared to be getting what he ostensibly wanted – access to Venezuelan oil and blocks on drugs from the country.

Yet only hours later, US forces targeted the capital, abducting Maduro and his wife on charges of narcotics trafficking and transporting them to the United States.

Iran bombed – when ‘two weeks’ of diplomacy appeared imminent

Venezuela was not the first time Trump launched a dramatic attack at a time when diplomacy appeared to be taking hold.

In June, Iran learned the hard way that Trump’s words and actions do not match.

Amid rising tensions over US accusations that Iran was racing towards enriching uranium for nuclear weapons, Washington and Tehran engaged in weeks of hectic negotiations. Trump frequently warned Iran that time was running out for it to strike a deal, but then returned to talks.

On June 13, he wrote on Truth Social that his team “remain committed to a Diplomatic Resolution to the Iran Nuclear Issue.”

His “entire” administration, he said, had been “directed to negotiate with Iran”.

But barely hours later, US ally Israel struck Iran. Most experts believe Israel would not have attacked Iran without Trump’s approval.

As Israel and Iran traded fire in the subsequent days, Trump faced questions over whether the US would bomb Iran.

On June 20, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt quoted Trump as saying that he would “make my decision whether or not to go within the next two weeks”.

Far from utilising the full two weeks he gave himself, Trump made his decision in two days.

In the early hours of June 22, US B-2 Spirit bombers dropped fourteen bunker-busting bombs on Iran’s Fordow nuclear facility, buried deep inside a mountain near Qom. The US also bombed nuclear facilities in Natanz and Isfahan using the most powerful conventional bombs in the US arsenal.

The attack shocked many observers, in part because of what appeared to have been an elaborate diplomatic ruse preceding it.

Iran protest calculus: What’s Trump’s plan?

Now, all eyes are on Iran again, where demonstrations against the government have been under way for the past two weeks, before calming down earlier this week.

As the unrest turned deadlier last week, Trump urged Iranians to continue demonstrating.

“Iranian Patriots, KEEP PROTESTING – TAKE OVER YOUR INSTITUTIONS!!!… HELP IS ON ITS WAY,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social on January 13, without elaborating on what form that help might take.

But within 24 hours, during a meeting with reporters in Washington, DC, Trump said he had been assured that the killing of protesters in Iran had stopped.

“They’ve said the killing has stopped and the executions won’t take place – there were supposed to be a lot of executions today, and that the executions won’t take place – and we’re going to find out,” Trump said on Wednesday.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, in an interview with Fox TV, also denied that Tehran planned to execute antigovernment protesters. “Hanging is ‌out of the ‌question,” he said.

Which other countries is Trump threatening?

Beyond Iran and Venezuela, longstanding US rivals, Trump’s aggression has increasingly extended towards Washington’s own allies, including Canada and Greenland.

The most striking example is Trump’s eagerness to take over Greenland, a Danish territory, which has evolved from a campaign talking point into a focal element of his administration’s Western Hemisphere strategy.

On January 5, the State Department posted a black-and-white image of Trump on social media, declaring: “This is OUR Hemisphere, and President Trump will not allow our security to be threatened.”

The president has refused to rule out the use of military force, with administration officials openly discussing US interest in Greenland’s strategic location and mineral resources.

Denmark has categorically rejected any sale, while Greenland’s leadership insists the territory is not for sale.

But experts such as Jeremy Shapiro, research director at the European Council on Foreign Relations, argue that Trump uses threats to intimidate adversaries and typically employs force only against weaker targets.

In a paper published last May titled, The bully’s pulpit: Finding patterns in Trump’s use of military force, Shapiro suggested that Trump frequently invokes military threats but often fails to follow through.

According to Shapiro, Trump is more likely to act when threats carry “low escalation risk”, while threats against nuclear-armed or militarily strong states largely serve rhetorical purposes. The most extreme or theatrical warnings, he argues, tend to function as tools of “political signalling rather than precursors to real military action”.

“Trump often deploys grandiose threats but only accepts limited, low-risk military operations. He uses foreign policy as political theatre, aiming threats as much at his domestic base and media cycle as at foreign adversaries,” Shapiro writes.

Calculated unpredictability?

Some analysts believe Trump’s approach offers tactical advantages.

“The intent is to keep opponents off balance, heightening psychological pressure and extracting maximum strategic leverage,” a Pakistani government official told media, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media. “Even his European allies are not always certain what to expect.”

Others remain sceptical. Qandil Abbas, a specialist on Middle East affairs at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad, described Trump’s behaviour as erratic, citing his repeated threats against multiple countries.

“Look at his threats against Cuba, or Iran, or Venezuela, and yet this is the same president who also wants to win a Nobel prize and is desperate for it,” Abbas told media.

So is Trump actually pulling back from the prospect of attacking Iran – or is he bluffing?

According to Abbas, Trump’s apparent change in tone might be the result of feedback from US allies in the region “that attacking Iran is not smart”.

Still, Abbas said that “with Israel’s support, I feel he will find a way to strike the country.”