- President Trump hasn’t decided which path to take, source says.
- Tehran prepares for military confrontation: Iranian official.
- Israeli and Arab officials doubt that airstrikes alone can topple Iran’s government.
US President Donald Trump is weighing options against Iran that include targeted strikes on security forces and leaders to inspire protesters, multiple sources said, even as Israeli and Arab officials said air power alone would not topple clerical rulers.
Two US sources familiar with the discussions said Trump wanted to create conditions for “regime change” after a nationwide protest movement earlier this month.
To do so, it was looking for options to target commanders and institutions that Washington holds responsible for the violence, to give protesters confidence that they could invade government and security buildings, they said.
One of the U.S. sources said the options being discussed by Trump’s advisers also included a much larger strike aimed at having a lasting impact, possibly against ballistic missiles that can hit U.S. allies in the Middle East or their nuclear enrichment programs.
The other US source said Trump has not yet made a final decision on a course of action, including whether he will take the military route.
The arrival of a US aircraft carrier and supporting warships to the Middle East this week has expanded Trump’s capabilities to potentially take military action after he repeatedly threatened to intervene over Iran’s crackdown.
Four Arab officials, three Western diplomats and a senior Western source whose governments were briefed on the discussions said they were concerned that rather than bringing people to the streets, such attacks could weaken the movement.
Alex Vatanka, director of the Iran Program at the Middle East Institute, said that without large-scale military defections, Iran’s protests remained “heroic but outgunned.”
Sources for this story requested anonymity to discuss sensitive topics. Iran’s Foreign Ministry, the U.S. Department of Defense and the White House did not respond to requests for comment. The Israeli Prime Minister’s office declined to comment.
Trump on Wednesday urged Iran to come to the table and reach a nuclear weapons deal, warning that any future U.S. attack would be more severe than a bombing campaign in June against three nuclear sites. He described the ships in the region as an “armada” sailing toward Iran.
A senior Iranian official said Reuters that Iran was “preparing for a military confrontation, while at the same time making use of diplomatic channels.” However, Washington was not showing openness to diplomacy, the official said.
Iran, which says its nuclear program is civilian, was ready for dialogue “based on mutual respect and interests” but would defend itself “like never before” if pressured, Iran’s mission to the United Nations said in a post on X on Wednesday.
Trump has not publicly detailed what he seeks in any deal. His administration’s previous negotiating points have included a ban on Iran independently enriching uranium and restrictions on long-range ballistic missiles and Tehran’s network of armed proxies in the Middle East.
Limits of air power
A senior Israeli official with direct knowledge of the planning between Israel and the United States said Reuters that Israel does not believe that airstrikes alone can topple the Islamic Republic, if that is Washington’s goal.
“If you’re going to overthrow the regime, you have to put troops on the ground,” he said, noting that even if the United States killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran “would have a new leader to replace him.”
Only a combination of external pressure and organized internal opposition could change Iran’s political trajectory, the official said.
The Israeli official said Iran’s leadership had been weakened by the unrest but remained firmly in control despite the deep economic crisis that sparked the protests.
Multiple U.S. intelligence reports reached a similar conclusion: that the conditions that led to the protests were still in place, weakening the government but without major fractures, two people familiar with the matter said.
The Western source said they believed Trump’s goal appeared to be to engineer a change in leadership, rather than “overthrow the regime,” an outcome that would be similar to Venezuela, where US intervention replaced the president without a complete change of government.
Khamenei maintains control but is less visible
At 86, Khamenei has retired from day-to-day government, reduced his public appearances and is believed to be residing in safe locations after Israeli strikes last year decimated many of Iran’s top military leaders, regional officials said.
Day-to-day management has fallen to figures aligned with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including senior adviser Ali Larijani, they said. The powerful Guards dominate Iran’s security network and much of the economy.
However, Khamenei retains final authority over war, succession and nuclear strategy, meaning political change is very difficult until he leaves the scene, they said. Iran’s Foreign Ministry did not respond to questions about Khamenei.
In Washington and Jerusalem, some officials have argued that a transition in Iran could break the nuclear stalemate and eventually open the door to more cooperative ties with the West, two of the Western diplomats said.
But they warned that there is no clear successor to Khamenei. In that vacuum, Arab officials and diplomats said they believe the IRGC could seize power, entrenching a hardline government, deepening the nuclear standoff and regional tensions.
Any successor seen as emerging under foreign pressure would be rejected and could strengthen, not weaken, the IRGC, the official said.
Across the region, from the Gulf to Turkey, officials say they prefer containment to collapse, not out of sympathy for Tehran but out of fear that unrest within the nation of 90 million could spark instability far beyond Iran’s borders.
A fractured Iran could descend into a civil war as happened after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, two of the Western diplomats warned, unleashing an influx of refugees and disrupting oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz, a global energy bottleneck.
The most serious risk, analyst Vatanka warned, is fragmentation into an “early-stage Syria,” with rival units and provinces fighting over territory and resources.
Regional reaction
The Gulf states, long-time U.S. allies and hosts to major U.S. bases, fear they will be the first targets of Iranian retaliation that could include Iranian missiles or drone strikes by the Tehran-aligned Houthis in Yemen.
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman and Egypt have pressed Washington against an attack on Iran. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman told Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian that Riyadh will not allow its airspace or territory to be used for military actions against Tehran.
“The United States can pull the trigger,” said one of the Arab sources, “but it will not live with the consequences. We will.”
Mohannad Hajj-Ali of the Carnegie Middle East Center said the U.S. deployments suggest that planning has shifted from a one-time attack to something more sustained, driven by the belief in Washington and Jerusalem that Iran could rebuild its missile capabilities and eventually weaponize its enriched uranium.
The most likely outcome is a “crippling erosion (elite defections, economic paralysis, contested succession) that frays the system until it breaks,” said analyst Vatanka.
