President Trump’s ultimatum to Iran to negotiate away its nuclear program or face a possible attack leaves Tehran with a daunting dilemma: Either path risks putting the already weakened regime in a more precarious position.
“Hopefully Iran will quickly ‘Come to the Table’ and negotiate a fair and equitable deal—NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS—one that is good for all parties. Time is running out,” Trump posted on social media Wednesday. “The next attack will be far worse!”
A decision to halt enrichment of uranium, a key U.S. demand, would be a humiliating public retreat on a core national priority for Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Rebuffing the demand is increasingly likely to prompt Trump to order strikes, further exposing the government’s vulnerability.
Either way, the regime is facing the most dire external threats to its survival in decades after protests over deep economic woes grew so fierce that they could only be put down with a deadly crackdown.
“Their strategy right now is just buying time,” said Alan Eyre, a former senior U.S. diplomat who specialized in Iran and is now at the Middle East Institute, a Washington think tank. “Their whole strategic outlook is when you’re in a weak position you don’t compromise, because that invites further aggression.”
Trump said Wednesday that a “massive Armada” was “moving quickly, with great power, enthusiasm, and purpose,” adding that it was “ready, willing, and able to rapidly fulfill its mission, with speed and violence, if necessary.” The Pentagon’s buildup in the region includes an aircraft carrier with three guided missiles destroyers, warplanes and missile defenses.
Iran was in a similar position a year ago. Israel had carried out limited strikes that weakened the country’s air defenses and decimated militia allies Hezbollah and Hamas. A newly elected Trump was threatening to take military action if Tehran didn’t make concessions on its nuclear program.
This time, though, the squeeze is even worse. The regime was battered by the 12-day June war and a tightening of sanctions on its oil exports last fall. In the months since, the U.S. demands for a negotiated solution have gone up.
Along with insisting that Iran halt domestic enrichment of nuclear fuel and hand over its stockpile of uranium, Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff has indicated Tehran must accept limits on its ballistic-missile arsenal and abandon its support for militias in the region.
Iran has already rejected some of Washington’s terms. A senior Iranian official said Tehran wouldn’t compromise on its right to continue enrichment for civilian purposes or to maintain its missile arsenal, which it considers necessary for its defense.
Even a U.S. offer to ease sanctions that have crushed the Iranian economy in return for accepting limits on its nuclear program would be hard for the regime to accept, since Khamenei has elevated the nuclear program into a symbol of Iran’s defiance of the West, analysts said.
“The supreme leader is able to do compromises, but those compromises cannot touch the basic pillars of the regime, meaning he won’t forgo a missile buildup, he won’t forgo helping proxies and he won’t forgo enrichment,” said Danny Citrinowicz, a former Israeli intelligence officer and a senior researcher at the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies.
Iranian officials are wary of making concessions to Trump, citing his decision to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal and Israel’s surprise attack in June just days before the U.S. and Iran were set to meet for another round of talks.
A White House official declined to comment on negotiations with Iran but said Trump is pleased that Iran canceled plans to hang more than 800 people and “hopes this trend continues.” Tehran prosecutor Ali Salehi pushed back against the president’s claim about the suspended hangings last week, saying, “Trump always talks a lot of nonsense.”
Hoping to deter an attack, Iranian officials are threatening massive retaliation against U.S. bases, warships and allies in the region, including Israel. But carrying out that threat is itself a risky strategy, one that will require revealing the strength of its arsenal of missiles and drones and that could invite further escalation by Trump.
The senior Iranian official said the country would have no option but to consider any U.S. attack, limited or not, as an existential threat and respond with the most force possible.
Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York replied to Trump’s warning on social media Wednesday, arguing that the U.S. was embarking on another risky war and mimicking Trump’s all-caps threats.
“Last time the U.S. blundered into wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, it squandered over $7 trillion and lost more than 7,000 American lives,” the mission said. “Iran stands ready for dialogue based on mutual respect and interests—BUT IF PUSHED, IT WILL DEFEND ITSELF AND RESPOND LIKE NEVER BEFORE!”
Trump could also opt for a strategy of tightening economic pressure on Iran’s already reeling economy. That could include trying to choke off Tehran’s oil exports by intercepting so-called ghost-fleet tankers—a version of the strategy he used in removing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro earlier this month.
Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, said the Venezuela playbook would envision using “economic strangulation as a precursor to political, and possibly military, decapitation, aimed ultimately at Ayatollah Khamenei.”
Citrinowicz said killing Khamenei or expecting the other members of the regime to turn against him under U.S. pressure is a faint hope given Iran’s unity at the top. Even if Khamenei was somehow removed, the regime would likely coalesce quickly around a new leader, he said.
For all the setbacks the regime has suffered, there are few signs it is facing imminent collapse, such as splits within the leadership or the defections at the top of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the paramilitary organization that is closely aligned with Khamenei.
“They still have cohesion. The regime is still functioning,” Citrinowicz said. “If they feel this war is aimed at toppling this regime, it won’t topple this regime, because to do it will take time, and Trump has no intention to invest that time.”
Trump made clear during the 12-day war last summer that he viewed Khamenei as a possible target.
“We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding,” he posted on social media in June. “He is an easy target, but is safe there—We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now.”
After promising to come to the protesters’ aid, the president nearly ordered a new round of airstrikes around the height of the Iranian crackdown earlier this month. But he held off after Israel and his advisers warned him the U.S. wasn’t militarily positioned to handle Iran’s retaliation.
The carrier strike group and jet fighters now in the Middle East give Trump more capability to attack and defend. The White House and Pentagon have continued to refine options, though the president hasn’t made a decision about whether to strike, U.S. officials said.
Ultimately, the U.S. is facing limits of its own. There is little it can do from outside with military force to determine the regime’s fate, especially without deploying ground troops to influence events inside the country, analysts said.
“You could do airstrikes that significantly restrict this regime’s ability to control its population and to project power abroad,” Eyre said. “But to get from there to a better form of government in Iran? You can’t get there from here.”
Write to David S. Cloud at david.cloud@wsj.com, Alexander Ward at alex.ward@wsj.com and Benoit Faucon at benoit.faucon@wsj.com