In Iran crisis, Trump confronted limits of US military power

It was late morning Wednesday and much of the Middle East and official Washington seemed certain President Donald Trump would launch punishing airstrikes against Iran, his second major use of American military power in as many weeks after the daring Delta Force raid into Venezuela to seize leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife.

Mr Trump had not officially given the strike order, but his top security advisers expected him to imminently authorise one of the military options presented to him and were girding themselves for a late night.

The Pentagon advertised that a guided-missile destroyer, the USS Roosevelt, had entered the Persian Gulf.

Allies had been alerted that a US strike was likely, according to a person familiar with the matter, and ships and planes were on the move. Personnel at the sprawling al-Udeid US air base in Qatar were advised to evacuate to avoid an expected Iranian counterstrike.

“HELP IS ON ITS WAY,” Mr Trump had promised Iranian protesters, encouraging them in a social media post Tuesday morning to “take over” regime institutions.

While many US and foreign officials took that to mean the United States would intervene militarily, Mr Trump remained open to help in the form of pressuring Iran to stop killing demonstrators.

The key moment came Wednesday, when Mr Trump received word through envoy Steve Witkoff that Iran’s Government cancelled the planned executions of 800 people, according to a senior US official.

“We’re going to watch and see,” Mr Trump then told reporters in the Oval Office. On Thursday, US intelligence confirmed the executions didn’t happen, the official said.

Mr Trump’s rapid evolution midweek, which left many of his advisers feeling whiplashed and Iranian dissidents feeling abandoned, reflected intense domestic and foreign pressures, according to interviews with more than a dozen current and former US and Middle Eastern officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive diplomatic conversations and ongoing military preparations.

The President came face to face with the unpredictability of potentially destabilising another Middle Eastern country and the limitations of even the vast American military machine, several of them said.

Having deployed an aircraft carrier strike group and an accompanying armada to the Caribbean on Mr Trump’s orders, Pentagon officials worried that there was less US firepower in the Middle East than would be ideal to repulse what was expected to be a major Iranian counterstrike.

Israel shared that concern, having expended vast numbers of interceptor rockets against incoming Iranian missiles during their 12-day war in June, one current and one former US official said.

Key US allies, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt, contacted the White House to urge restraint and diplomacy, a senior Arab diplomat and a gulf official said.

Those Sunni Muslim-majority nations have long felt threatened by Shiite-majority Iran, but fear spasms of instability across their region even more.

Perhaps most of all, several officials said, Mr Trump realised that Iran strikes would be messy and might bring possible economic convulsions, wider warfare and threats to the 30,000 US troops in the Middle East - not like the “one and done” operations he has ordered to destroy alleged drug boats and seize Maduro, target Islamic State fighters in Syria or damage Iran’s nuclear program.

“He wants (operations like) Venezuela,” said a former US official briefed on the decision-making. “This was going to be messier.”

The Iranian protests, the largest in the Islamic republic’s 46-year history, appear to have subsided for now in the face of a violent government crackdown that human rights groups estimate has killed more than 3,000 people.

A true accounting of the toll is difficult, as Tehran maintains a total shutdown of internet and telecommunications.

“The regime looks to have dodged a bullet,” said a senior European official in direct contact with Iranian leadership. But Iranians who risked going out in the streets to demonstrate are furious with Mr Trump’s step-back, he said.

They “feel betrayed and are utterly devastated.”

While a strike appears off for now, Mr Trump and his senior advisers are keeping their options open - and possibly buying time - as the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group is dispatched to the Middle East, two officials said.

The Lincoln was in the South China Sea on Friday, officials familiar with the matter said, putting it more than a week away from the Middle East.

“Nobody knows what President Trump will do with respect to Iran besides the President himself,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “The President has smartly kept many options on the table and as always, he will make decisions in the best interest of America and the world.”

‘A cost-benefit analysis’

Inside the White House, Mr Trump was receiving conflicting advice.

Vice President JD Vance, who has long been sceptical of foreign entanglements, supported strikes on Iran, a US official and a person close to the White House said.

Mr Vance reasoned that Mr Trump had drawn a red line by warning Iran not to kill protesters and had to enforce it, the person close to the White House said.

In the Oval Office on Tuesday evening, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, an Iran hawk, used a secure iPad reserved for presidential intelligence briefings to show Mr Trump clandestinely acquired videos of regime violence against Iranian protesters and bodies in the streets, the former official briefed on the decision-making said.

Emotive images have swayed Mr Trump in past crises: Disturbing images of a Syrian chemical weapons attack on its own people in 2017 moved Mr Trump to order missile strikes.

The CIA had been tasked with collecting intelligence on the violence, though it is unclear whether Ratcliffe offered his views on military strikes.

Other Trump advisers urged caution, including Mr Witkoff and Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, the person close to the White House said.

Mr Witkoff in particular had heard directly the concerns of Arab allies in the region and wanted to avoid another round of tit-for-tat violence, said a senior US official. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent argued for waiting and letting economic sanctions on Iran work, another person said.

Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a trusted Trump adviser, was at the White House throughout the day, a person familiar with the matter said.

Mr Trump was given presentations by the Defense Department and US intelligence agencies of his available attack options. But he determined that the benefit was not there and that the consequences were too great, an individual close to the Trump administration said.

“Would a strike have resulted in regime change? The answer is clearly ‘no,’” this individual said. “The negative impact of any attack outweighed any benefit in terms of punishing the regime. And I mean, at the end of the day it’s a cost-benefit analysis.”

Iran had become aware that the United States was moving military assets, making a strike look imminent. Tehran contacted the Trump administration. A text from Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi to Mr Witkoff “kind of also defused the situation,” according to the individual.

Soon after learning of that message, Mr Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that he learned the killings would stop, according to a US official. “I greatly respect the fact that they cancelled,” Mr Trump said Friday as he prepared to leave the White House for his Mar-a-Lago estate.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators have been arrested and are in Iranian prisons, which human rights groups say are known for torture and other abuses.

The message: ‘Avoid military action’

Iran wasn’t the only concerned country to urgently communicate with the White House.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman and other Arab allies united to urge Mr Trump to maintain his diplomatic options with Iran, said the senior Arab diplomat and gulf official.

“The message to Washington is to avoid military action,” the gulf official said. “Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman and Egypt were on the same page in the sense that there will be consequences for the wider region in terms of security and the economy as well, which will ultimately impact the US.”

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the country’s de facto leader, spoke to Mr Trump by phone during the week to plead his case, according to a Saudi diplomat and a US official. Salman and the leaders of other US allies in the Middle East were concerned about how Iran would retaliate in the event of US strikes.

Iran had begun warning gulf states that its retaliation would not be as calibrated as it had been after the US attack on its nuclear facilities in June, when Iran telegraphed its intentions and then lobbed roughly a dozen missiles at the al-Udeid Air Base, according to multiple officials.

There were also concerns that Iran’s proxies, including Hezbollah, could launch their own attacks, which would pose a more serious risk without an American aircraft carrier strike group in the region.

Israel wasn’t ready either, particularly without a large supporting US naval presence. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had launched a massive military and intelligence operation against Iran’s nuclear facilities and scientists in June, called Mr Trump on Wednesday and asked him not to strike because Israel was not fully prepared to defend itself, the person close to the White House said. The leaders spoke twice, a US official said.

A key factor contributing to Israel’s vulnerability was the absence of major US military assets, which Israel has relied on increasingly to shoot down retaliatory strikes from Iran in exchanges between the two nations over the past 21 months, a US official said. The US support has come at a rising cost to Washington’s stockpile of interceptors, the official said.

Throughout Wednesday, Washington’s Arab allies were unsure whether their overtures would succeed. But a factor in their favour was Mr Trump’s uncertainty that the military options in front of him would have a decisive and predictable outcome, and wouldn’t result in problematic consequences for the region - or his own sterling track record of using US military power quickly and cleanly, the senior Arab diplomat said.

The diplomatic lobbying encouraged Mr Trump to stand down, according to a Saudi diplomat, two European officials and an individual briefed on the matter.

At the Pentagon on Wednesday, aides to senior leaders were prepared to stay late into the night in anticipation of US strikes. Around 3.30pm., they got word they could go home as normal.

Mr Vance ultimately agreed with the President’s decision to hold off, a person familiar with the process said.

The President will have another opportunity to sign off on strikes against Iran in the next two to three weeks, when US assets headed toward the region will be in place, helping allay Israel’s concerns about its own protection, officials said.

The threat level is not expected to subside soon: The US military’s Central Command has been directed to plan staffing for 24/7 high-level support “for the next month,” a person monitoring the situation told The Washington Post.

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Dan Lamothe, Souad Mekhennet, Loveday Morris and Mohamad El Chamaa contributed to this report.

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