EXCLUSIVE: Trump, Iran, Politics of Threat Without Strategy

President Donald Trump has once again reached for maximalist rhetoric, warning that the United States will take “very strong action” if Iran proceeds with executions of anti-government protesters. The threat comes amid one of the bloodiest crackdowns the Islamic Republic has carried out in decades, with human rights groups estimating that more than 2,400 demonstrators have been killed and tens of thousands detained as protests spread nationwide.

The unrest began as anger over Iran’s collapsing currency and soaring cost of living, but quickly evolved into outright demands for political change.

Demonstrations have been reported in nearly every province, making this one of the most serious challenges to Iran’s clerical establishment since the 1979 revolution. Iranian authorities have responded with lethal force, rapid prosecutions, and near-total internet shutdowns designed to obscure the scale of the violence.

Against this backdrop, Trump’s language has grown increasingly incendiary. He has urged Iranians to “keep protesting,” warned Tehran it would “pay a big price,” and suggested the US is weighing military and other coercive options, including new tariffs on countries trading with Iran. Yet beyond the noise, a harder question looms: what, if anything, is the strategy?

When asked by the Wyoming Star what Trump’s real objective in Iran is, international relations scholar Michael Barnett, a professor at George Washington University, offered a blunt assessment.

“Regime change first and foremost. To show he can complicate the lives of the leadership secondly. To diminish Iran’s regional adventurism.”

But Barnett was equally clear about the limits of American power in the current crisis, particularly when it comes to protecting protesters.

“The US does not have any military options for protecting the protestors. This would require a combination of troops on the ground and aerial derring do. And he does not want the troops on the ground.”

That gap between rhetoric and capability is where danger sets in. Trump’s threats create expectations on the streets of Iran without offering a realistic pathway for protection or follow-through. Barnett sees no hidden master plan behind the escalation.

“There is no strategic logic. Experts are trying to figure out if there is one but there isn’t. A lot has to do with greed. As we saw in Venezuela he doesn’t care about the democratic opposition. He cares about the oil. This has been the most brazen cash grabbing administration we have ever seen. None of this relates to the price of eggs or health insurance.”

Asked whether Trump’s posture reflects confidence and opportunism or insecurity and damage control, Barnett dispensed with diplomatic language entirely.

“This is what happens when a five year old plays president. Maximum mayhem. Maximum power grab. All these efforts to find a logic or rationale is just putting lipstick on a pig.”

A similar diagnosis, delivered in cooler but no less damning terms, came from Kori Schake, one of Washington’s most respected foreign policy thinkers.

When asked by the Wyoming Star about Trump’s objectives in Iran, Schake said:

“I honestly don’t know what President Trump’s real objective is, and I don’t think he does, either. He makes so many reckless and contradictory statements, and is acting in so many different directions simultaneously that he’s more a chaos agent than strategic actor.”

Schake outlined three pathways through which rhetorical escalation could slide into real-world catastrophe.

“There are three really dangerous pathways:

1. Encouraging protesters who believe we’ll support them but not following through – this is a regime that tortures and kills protestors, so there are real and also moral costs to making claims others will act on and put themselves in danger;
2. The Iranian regime believing we’ll intervene and having that encourage their violence to try and bring things under control before we can affect it; (3) intervening ineffectually, like removing the leadership but not breaking the power of the IRGC and basij who will then brutally consolidate control.”

In other words, even limited or symbolic action risks making the situation worse, either by emboldening Tehran’s security apparatus or by leaving Iran’s coercive institutions intact after a failed intervention.

On the broader pattern of US behavior since the start of 2026, Schake sees no unifying doctrine behind Trump’s stacked threats across multiple regions.

“There is no strategic logic that explains it. He’s collapsing trust in the U.S. that undergirds an international order incredibly fostering to our security and prosperity.”

And on the final question, whether this is calculated intimidation or frantic overreach, her conclusion is unequivocal.

“I read it as disastrous recklessness.”

Iran’s government, for its part, has accused Washington of attempting to manufacture a pretext for military intervention, warning that such a playbook has failed before. Inside Iran, executions are moving at alarming speed, trials are compressed into days, and families are often denied contact with detainees until the final hours. The message from Tehran is one of fear and control.

Trump’s message, meanwhile, oscillates between moral outrage, economic punishment, and vague threats of force. What bridges neither side has explained is how any of this ends without bloodshed.