Hanieh Jodat
Truthout / January 30, 2026
As Trump threatens Iran yet again, Congress continues to abdicate its responsibility to rein in war.
As Iranians rise in protest, Donald Trump’s rhetoric has become a study in contradictions. One day, he threatens “very strong action” against the Islamic Republic to defend Iranian protesters; the next, he praises the very regime he condemned and suggests the possibility of negotiations. His language and behaviour are driven by self-interest, not genuine concern for the Iranian people. This theatrical show of menace and bravado is a calculated move, shaped by political ambition, military considerations, and the shifting tides of his support base. While Trump performs on the world stage, ordinary Iranians are left to face the consequences. Parents search mortuaries and hospitals for their loved ones, their grief and struggle reduced to the backdrop of a geopolitical drama.
The protests, which began on December 28, erupted in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar and rapidly spread across the country. While these protests have been organic, they are not spontaneous. They have been fuelled by economic collapse: Iran’s currency has lost close to 90 percent of its value against the dollar in a year, and inflation is skyrocketing. People from all income groups and generations joined in, making a variety of demands that increasingly included the downfall of Iran’s current regime.
Iran’s uprising was met with brutality by the government, which shut down communications and cut Iranians off from the outside world. The strategy was not only to stop the protests, but to erase them from public view.
The human costs of these protests have been catastrophic. Across Iran, morgues and mortuaries have overflowed with the number of dead bodies, and hospitals have been collapsing under the weight of injuries. Trucks carrying body bags have been turned away and abandoned at gates, as facilities ran out of space to hold the deceased. The estimated number of casualties has varied substantially due to internet shutdowns. According to the Iranian government, more than 3,000 people have been killed, while the Human Rights Activists News Agency has verified over 6,000 deaths. Ongoing investigations into an additional 17,000 cases could raise the death toll substantially. Meanwhile, according to Amnesty International, tens of thousands of people, including children, have been detained by Iranian authorities.
Amid the crackdown, Washington has drifted into an all-too-familiar and dangerous posture, one that threatens war and bloodshed at the cost of Iranian lives. At the beginning of the protests, Donald Trump warned Iran’s government that if there were casualties, he would send “help” to Iranians in the form of “very strong action.” Yet just a few days later, he commended Iran’s government for ostensibly stopping a spate of executions while raising the possibility of diplomatic talks.
While Washington sends these mixed rhetorical signals, outlets including Al-Jazeera and Reuters have continued to report on U.S. military assets being repositioned in the Middle East, allies placed on heightened alert, and American personnel being withdrawn from some locations. Additionally, the U.S. has begun moving a massive armada, led by carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, towards Iran. This naval operation adds roughly 5,000 additional troops to the region, where more than 30,000 American servicemembers are already stationed. This development comes as Trump has vowed that Iran’s resistance to come to the negotiating table over the nuclear program could provoke an attack “far worse” than the previous strike.
Furthermore, the U.S. has told the UN that “all options are on the table” for an attack. In response to this threat, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian issued a warning on X that any attack on Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei would be “tantamount to a full-scale war on the Iranian nation,” adding that any unjust aggression would be met with a regrettable response.
When we peel back the layers of Iran’s current crisis, we must recognize that the frustration of the Iranian people is the outcome of 47 years of the regime’s oppression, corruption, and mismanagement, as well as decades of coercive U.S. policy. For the past eight years, unilateral sanctions have weakened Iran’s civil society, pushing the middle class into severe poverty. Against the backdrop of growing economic hardship and pain, internet blackouts have hampered employment and commerce by transforming an already collapsing economy into an instrument used for collective punishment.
While Trump and GOP leaders suggest the United States is preparing for an attack on Iran, the grounds for war are being prepared without congressional authorization, public debate, or clear disclosures from media about the implications of such a war, despite the common understanding from analysts that such a war would be disastrous.
During Iran’s 12-day war with Israel, the U.S. and its allied countries framed the war as limited and presented the ceasefire as a way to stop further escalation. But the death and destruction in Iran told a different story: More than a thousand Iranians were killed by Israel and the significant financial loss of the war will be felt for years after the fragile ceasefire.
U.S. military escalation is often minimized and downplayed publicly until it suddenly erupts into a catastrophic regional crisis. Before the Trump administration assassinated Iran’s high-ranking Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani in 2020, the American public was reassured that the threat of war would be limited. But within hours, the region came close to catastrophic war as a result of a single executive decision.
We’re watching the same thing play out again today. Trump’s language yo-yos between demands for diplomacy and threats of intervention, all to be interpreted alongside incoherent military movements. Meanwhile, mainstream media coverage ranges from whether war will or will not happen, rather than asking why escalation is the first option. This all has real-world consequences. According to Reuters, oil prices are fluctuating as markets closely track U.S.–Iran tensions. After all, the global market understands how devastating a regional war would be for global supply chains. Now imagine how that devastation will impact people in Iran, as well as people in the United States.
Inside Iran, the situation is grim. Iranian leaders have accused the United States and Israel of provoking unrest, a claim Washington denies. Meanwhile, figures on the right boast of interference; former CIA Director and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo even stated that Mossad agents are “walking beside” the Iranian people at protests. This rhetoric weakens the organic movement organized by the people of Iran and gives the Iranian state an excuse to double down on repression.
Time and again, we have seen the brutality of U.S. militarism. The U.S. claims to stand with the people of Iran, but in reality, it imposes hardships on them, making daily life unbearable. Unilateral sanctions imposed by Trump after abandoning the 2015 nuclear deal devastated Iran’s civilian population, restricting medicine, food, and basic necessities for families already suffering from starvation as the regime used those very sanctions to tighten its grip and enrich its leaders.
The Trump administration has shown that it does not care about human rights. But if Washington were truly concerned, it would loosen its grip on Iran’s economy and allow civil society to strike and continue organizing for a political system that best fits the needs of people within the country. For years, unilateral sanctions have hollowed out civil society by restricting banking, driving inflation and criminalizing financial networks. The shortage of cash flow restricts Iran’s civil society and labour from organizing — forcing survival over political action. Furthermore, Iranians abroad no longer have the ability to help their families financially due to banking restrictions as a result of sanctions.
The U.S.’s desire to intervene has been a failed and disastrous strategy, and history shows this — from Afghanistan and Iraq, to Libya, Yemen, and Venezuela. And while Republicans and some of the more hawkish Democrats are ready to escalate at any given moment, there is little to no oversight. Since the War Powers Resolution was enacted in 1973, U.S. presidents, well before Trump, have ignored its parameters, raising the fundamental question about a system that wages war without accountability, law, debate, or consent. Congress has not meaningfully debated the prospect of a serious war with Iran, just as it failed to do before the 2003 invasion of Iraq or recent intervention of Venezuela.
The U.S. people have not been asked for consent. Polling has consistently shown that a majority of Americans oppose another war, yet decision makers in Washington have used vague claims of national security to continue a policy of secrecy and keep debate from happening out in the open.
According to multiple major news outlets, a strike by the Trump administration was seriously considered earlier this month and then pulled back at the behest of Israel and key Gulf allies. There have also been concerns that the United States does not have the sufficient regional assets to defend against an aggressive response from Iran.
Hearing these piecemeal news updates, especially alongside Trump’s bluster, is not reassuring for Iranian Americans with family ties back home. This is psychological warfare. Such inconsistency, coming from a nuclear power, should not reassure us — it should alarm us. The very notion that at any moment a catastrophic war could break out in the Middle East underscores how fragile and undemocratic U.S. foreign policy is.
It is important to note that if Trump chooses to de-escalate and show restraint, it will not be a reflection of his commitment to supporting the Iranian people. It would instead be a thoughtful calculation that the economic, political, and military costs of intervention would outweigh Washington’s interest. The case for de-escalation is helped by the polls that have shown that majority of U.S. voters do not support another endless war; it is in Trump’s own best interest to refrain from entering into another catastrophic war in the Middle East.
We know that what’s underway is purely calculation, not thoughtful restraint. As history once again repeats itself, the lesson of the past two decades is clear: Wars begin when we normalize the idea that violence is the better option.
Hanieh Jodat is a political strategist and a key strategist with Defuse Nuclear War, an initiative of RootsAction
