• US, Israel, Gulf allies all were underprepared for retaliation
• Regime remained resilient as security forces stay loyal
• Backchannel pledged to ‘stop the killing’ offered exit ramp
WASHINGTON: The crisis in Iran, driven by economic collapse, soaring inflation and deep public anger, has underscored both the limits of external military intervention and the resilience of Tehran’s clerical regime, analysts and former officials said.
US President Donald Trump publicly encouraged Iranian protesters, warning Tehran that it would face consequences if it “violently kills peaceful protesters”.
But behind the scenes, Washington came close to — and then stepped back from — military action, exposing the operational, political and strategic constraints shaping US policy.
According to a detailed Axios investigation, senior military, political and diplomatic officials across Washington and the Middle East believed US strikes on Iran were imminent.
Preparations were real, officials stressed. US troops began evacuating from Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar and from the Navy’s Fifth Fleet base in Bahrain, while Iran closed its airspace.
“It wasn’t fake or a ruse,” one US official told Axios. Yet by that afternoon, the moment passed. “It was really close,” another official said. “The military was in a position to do something really fast,but the order didn’t come.”
A central factor for the stand-down was force posture. Axios reported that since the last clash with Iran in June, many US military assets had been redeployed to the Caribbean and East Asia.
“The theatre was not ready,” one source said bluntly. Another added: “We sort of missed the window.”
Limits of military leverage
The lack of readiness shaped not only strike options but also contingency planning for Iranian retaliation, which US officials warned could endanger American forces and allies across the region.
Regional leaders reinforced those concerns. In a call with Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Israel was not prepared to defend itself against Iran’s likely missile and drone retaliation.
He also believed the US plan “was not strong enough and wouldn’t be effective”, according to one of his advisers. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman similarly expressed deep concern about regional destabilisation.
A diplomatic backchannel also provided an exit ramp. Axios reported that Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi sent messages to Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, committing to halt planned executions of detained protesters and “stop the killing”.
Trump later acknowledged the messages had an impact, though a White House official insisted they were “not the only reason”.
For now, US officials say military action remains “on the table.” However, the near-miss suggests Washington’s restraint reflected not just caution or diplomacy, but the hard limits of military leverage over Iran’s internal struggle and the high costs of getting it wrong.
Even if strikes had been launched, analysts say they would have done little to protect protesters on the ground.
Andrew P. Miller said foreign military intervention is unlikely to create a stable democracy, especially one that benefits the intervening power.
Any action would probably have been restricted to “a single or brief set of strikes”, avoiding ground troops yet risking Iranian retaliation and escalation, Miller added.
Sanam Vakil, of Chatham House, said Trump’s approach relied more on coercive signalling than intervention. The deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group, she said, was designed to pressure Iran’s leadership rather than shield civilians.
“His references to wanting an agreement and to ‘making Iran great again’ are transactional signals aimed at the leadership rather than Iranian society,” Vakil said. “The strategy is less about engineering internal change in Iran than about forcing its leadership to confront the limits of resistance.”
Regime resilience
Vali Nasr, a prominent Iranian-American scholar in Washington, emphasised the durability of Iran’s security apparatus. For protests to seriously threaten the regime, he said, parts of the state — especially the security forces — would need to defect.
“There is no sign of any defections … or that it has in any way fractured,” Nasr said. “I am not certain the balance of forces necessarily lies with the protesters.”
Sustained unrest over a longer period would be required to alter that balance, he added, highlighting the gap between public anger and the state’s capacity to withstand it.
Scholars also note that the protests remain decentralised and leaderless. While symbolic support exists for former Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi or, less frequently, MEK leader Maryam Rajavi, most Iranians appear focused on internal change rather than exiled leadership.
Most experts agree there is little appetite inside Iran for either the restoration of the monarchy or the return of the MEK.
Published in Dawn, January 20th, 2026
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