Coin Press - Trump's hesitation in Iran

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Trump's hesitation in Iran

The ongoing mass protests in Iran since the end of December 2025 have plunged the country into one of its most serious crises since the 1979 revolution. Despite a strict internet and telephone blackout, millions of people took to the streets to demonstrate against inflation, corruption and the arbitrariness of the spiritual rulers. Security forces cracked down brutally: according to reports from human rights organisations, thousands of demonstrators were killed, hundreds of bodies piled up in makeshift morgues, and doctors reported overcrowded emergency rooms. In addition, more than ten thousand people were arrested, while the state largely cut off the country from the internet to hide the enormity of its actions. The anger of the population was no longer directed at individual reforms, but at the entire system of the Islamic Republic.

US President Donald Trump, who had already bombed Iranian nuclear facilities in June 2025 and had presented himself as a ‘peacemaker’ during his election campaign, responded to the violence with sharp threats. On social media, he promised help to the demonstrators and threatened the Tehran leadership with consequences if they continued to kill their own people. His words raised high expectations at home and abroad, as many Iranians hoped for international support. At the same time, he raised fears of a renewed escalation in the Middle East.

Reasons for the hesitation
Despite his bellicose tone, Trump has so far shied away from another military strike against Iran. Several factors explain this hesitation:

- Danger of a war spiralling out of control:
The Iranian leadership openly threatened to attack American bases and allies in the Middle East in the event of an attack. If missiles were to strike US bases in Qatar, Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, Washington would have to expect massive retaliation. A limited air strike could quickly escalate into a regional conflagration or a protracted ground operation – scenarios that Trump is wary of due to the risk to American soldiers and the danger of cyber and terrorist attacks on the homeland.

- Economic risks:
A war could block the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, through which around a fifth of the world's oil is transported. Experts warn of skyrocketing energy prices and global inflation, which would hit the US economy hard. Trump keeps a close eye on oil prices and has always seen the state of the economy as a measure of his popularity.

- Regional diplomacy:
According to diplomats, neighbouring Arab states such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman and Egypt urgently asked the US president not to strike. They fear refugee flows, retaliatory attacks and instability. These countries, which host American bases, pointed out that a war against Iran would also jeopardise their security and further destabilise the already unstable region. Trump then signalled that he wanted to give Iran a chance after important channels informed him that the killings had stopped and no executions were planned.

- Domestic political pressure:
Surveys in the US show that the majority of the population rejects new foreign missions. Many of his supporters voted for him because he promised to end ‘endless wars’. A war against Iran could jeopardise his re-election and destroy his image as a supposed peacemaker.

- Lack of strategy:
Experts point out that there is no clear plan for what comes ‘afterwards’. A targeted strike would hardly topple the regime, but rather strengthen nationalist reflexes and make the security apparatus even more brutal. A full-scale war would be extremely costly and politically risky. That is why the US government is currently focusing primarily on sanctions, tariffs and diplomatic channels.

- Advice from within his own camp:
Within the administration, some top politicians are urging restraint. They emphasise that the US is also involved in other conflicts and that another front would tie up resources. Advisers are therefore pushing ahead with talks with Tehran to once again explore a diplomatic solution for the nuclear programme and the future of the country.

The victory of violence?
The question of whether the Islamic leadership has won by taking bloody action against its own population can only be answered provisionally. The protests were crushed with extreme brutality. Thousands of deaths, thousands of injuries and more than ten thousand arrests have brought the movement to a standstill for the time being. Due to the total ban on communication, the tragedy has remained largely hidden from the world, while fear and shock reign in the country. At the same time, these massacres have further widened the deep divide between the government and society. The fact that the leadership regards its own population as its greatest enemy and is prepared to crush any resistance reveals its weakness and the erosion of its legitimacy.

In this situation, the causes of the uprisings – economic hardship, oppression, lack of freedom – have not disappeared. The combined violence of the regime and reprisals has only brought about a short-term victory. Many analysts see the US president's cautious behaviour not as fear, but as political calculation: on the one hand, he does not want to be seen as weak, but on the other, he does not want to risk a war with an uncertain outcome. The Iranian leadership interprets his threats as bluff, but uses them for propaganda purposes to distract from its own crimes.

What happens next?
Whether Trump orders a military strike against Iran depends on many variables: the further course of the protests, the behaviour of the Iranian security authorities, the position of regional actors and the mood in his own country. At present, there are many indications that Washington is relying on economic pressure, cyber operations and targeted sanctions. Open war remains the horror scenario that all parties involved want to avoid, despite their bellicose rhetoric. The mullah leadership may have achieved a temporary victory with its unprecedented violence, but the price is a society that is even more determined to demand freedom. The final chapter of this crisis has therefore not yet been written.

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Stargate project, Trump and the AI war...

In a dramatic return to the global political stage, former President Donald J. Trump, as the current 47th President of the United States of America, has unveiled his latest initiative, the so-called ‘Stargate Project,’ in a bid to cement the United States’ dominance in artificial intelligence and outpace China’s meteoric rise in the field. The newly announced programme, cloaked in patriotic rhetoric and ambitious targets, is already stirring intense debate over the future of technological competition between the world’s two largest economies.According to preliminary statements from Trump’s team, the Stargate Project will consolidate the efforts of leading American tech conglomerates, defence contractors, and research universities under a centralised framework. The former president, who has long championed American exceptionalism, claims this approach will provide the United States with a decisive advantage, enabling rapid breakthroughs in cutting-edge AI applications ranging from military strategy to commercial innovation.“America must remain the global leader in technology—no ifs, no buts,” Trump declared at a recent press conference. “China has been trying to surpass us in AI, but with this new project, we will make sure the future remains ours.”Details regarding funding and governance remain scarce, but early indications suggest the initiative will rely heavily on public-private partnerships, tax incentives for research and development, and collaboration with high-profile venture capital firms. Skeptics, however, warn that the endeavour could fan the flames of an increasingly militarised AI race, raising ethical concerns about surveillance, automation of warfare, and data privacy. Critics also question whether the initiative can deliver on its lofty promises, especially in the face of existing economic and geopolitical pressures.Yet for its supporters, the Stargate Project serves as a rallying cry for renewed American leadership and an antidote to worries over China’s technological ascendancy. Proponents argue that accelerating AI research is paramount if the United States wishes to preserve not just military supremacy, but also the economic and cultural influence that has typified its global role for decades.Whether this bold project will succeed—or if it will devolve into a symbolic gesture—remains to be seen. What is certain, however, is that the Stargate Project has already reignited debate about how best to safeguard America’s strategic future and maintain the balance of power in the fast-evolving arena of artificial intelligence.

Iran and the holy War risk

For now, Iran does not appear to be launching a formal holy war. But the question is no longer rhetorical. After the bombings that turned a long shadow conflict into an open regional war, religious language has moved from symbolic background noise toward the center of state messaging. The more important issue is not whether Tehran will suddenly summon the Muslim world into a single, borderless struggle. It is whether the Islamic Republic will fuse military retaliation, political succession, proxy activation and sacred rhetoric into a broader campaign that functions like a holy war without ever formally declaring one.The current crisis is already historic. Since the joint U.S.-Israeli attack of February 28, which killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and struck Iranian state and military targets, the conflict has spread across Israel, Lebanon, the Gulf and the energy corridors that underpin the global economy. Public death tolls inside Iran alone have climbed into the four figures. Even though international nuclear inspectors said early in the campaign that they had no indication several key nuclear installations had been hit or that radiation had spread beyond normal levels, later stages of the war clearly broadened toward oil storage, airports, command sites and urban infrastructure. This is no longer a contained deterrence exchange. It is a live contest over regime survival, regional order and strategic endurance.That is precisely why the phrase “holy war” must be handled with care. In January, influential voices inside Iran had already warned that any attack on the Supreme Leader would amount to a declaration of war against the wider Islamic world and could require a jihad decree. That language mattered then, and it matters even more now because the red line was crossed. Tehran can plausibly argue to its own hard-line base that the highest religious and political authority in the Islamic Republic was not merely challenged but assassinated. In ideological terms, that transforms retaliation from a policy choice into a sacred obligation. In political terms, it gives hard-liners a ready-made framework for widening the war.Yet rhetoric is not the same as doctrine, and doctrine is not the same as operational behavior. Iran’s response so far looks less like an uncontrolled call to universal religious uprising than a grim, state-directed campaign of calibrated punishment. Tehran has struck back with missiles, drones, maritime pressure and pressure on regional hosts of U.S. military power. It has also tried to impose costs on the world economy by turning the Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz into instruments of leverage. This is not the behavior of a leadership abandoning strategy for blind zeal. It is the behavior of a regime trying to survive by making the war too costly, too wide and too economically dangerous for its enemies to sustain indefinitely.That distinction matters. A genuine, formal holy war would imply a sweeping call for open-ended religious mobilization across borders, one that subordinates ordinary state interests to an all-consuming theological struggle. Iran has not done that in any clear, universal sense. It has instead behaved as a revolutionary state that uses sacred language to reinforce legitimacy, discipline supporters and justify retaliation. That model predates the current crisis. The Islamic Republic has always blended theology, nationalism, martyrdom culture, anti-Western resistance and hard security logic. The bombings have intensified that blend, but they have not erased the regime’s instinct for calculation.The strongest evidence against an immediate full holy-war scenario is inside Iran itself. The system’s first imperative has not been global mobilization; it has been continuity. Even after decapitation strikes, the state moved to preserve command structures, delegate powers downward and push the Assembly of Experts toward selecting a successor. By March 8, that succession process had reportedly advanced to the point where a decision had been reached, even if the name had not yet been publicly revealed. That is a survival reflex. Regimes preparing for limitless religious war do not usually prioritize constitutional succession, elite cohesion and internal control. Regimes fighting for their lives do.Iran’s regional behavior also shows tension between ideological fury and strategic restraint. President Masoud Pezeshkian’s apology to Gulf neighbors was extraordinary, not because it ended the war, but because it exposed the conflict inside Tehran’s own response. On one side sits the logic of escalation: punish every state that hosts U.S. forces, widen the crisis, raise oil prices, frighten shipping markets and prove that the bombardment of Iran cannot remain geographically contained. On the other side sits the logic of isolation avoidance: do not drive every Arab state irreversibly into the opposing camp, do not convert every neighbor into an active launchpad for anti-Iran operations, and do not make regime survival impossible by fighting the entire region at once.This internal contradiction is one reason the phrase “holy war” can mislead. What is unfolding is more dangerous in practical terms and more limited in formal terms. Iran may never issue a clean, universal call for a civilizational war against all enemies of Islam, yet it can still encourage clerical sanction, mobilize militias, inspire cross-border attacks, bless cyber retaliation, empower covert cells and unleash proxy violence under a sacred frame. That would be a hybrid escalation: not a single global summons, but a diffuse religious legitimization of a long, dirty regional war. For civilians, ports, airports, desalination plants, shipping lanes and energy markets, the difference may feel almost academic.The role of Iran’s allied armed networks reinforces that point. Hezbollah has entered the conflict, but not from a position of unchallenged strength. Its intervention has deepened political strain in Lebanon and highlighted how even Iran’s most loyal partners are balancing solidarity against self-preservation. Other aligned groups face similar pressures. The so-called axis can still hurt Israel, U.S. assets and regional infrastructure, but it is not a frictionless machine awaiting one theological command to move in perfect unity. The more Tehran leans on proxies, the more it reveals that its preferred method remains layered coercion, not a single dramatic declaration of holy war.There is also a sectarian and geopolitical reality that limits the holy-war model. The Muslim world is not a single mobilizable bloc waiting for instructions from Tehran. Iran is a Shiite theocratic state with revolutionary ambitions, but its appeal across Sunni-majority states is uneven at best and sharply contested at worst. Gulf monarchies, already targeted by Iranian missiles and drones, are not natural participants in an Iranian-led sacred struggle. Many of them fear Tehran at least as much as they oppose the bombing campaign against it. That means Iran’s religious messaging may galvanize sympathizers, militants and ideological fellow travelers, but it is unlikely to unify the wider Islamic world behind one war banner.Still, dismissing the danger would be a grave mistake. The holy-war language matters because words can widen the menu of violence. Once a conflict is framed as sacred defense rather than national retaliation alone, thresholds can drop. Assassinations, sabotage, maritime attacks, strikes on civilian-linked infrastructure and violence by semi-deniable actors all become easier to justify. A state under bombardment, mourning its supreme leader and fighting for institutional survival may decide that conventional retaliation is not enough. If Tehran concludes that it cannot win symmetrically, it may authorize a looser, more ideological pattern of warfare stretching from the Gulf to the Mediterranean and beyond.The economic front is equally important. Iran understands that energy fear can be weaponized. Even limited disruption in the Strait of Hormuz sends shockwaves through insurance, shipping, aviation and inflation expectations worldwide. That leverage is politically valuable because it turns a military confrontation into a global pressure campaign. A formal holy war would demand maximal ideological mobilization. A survival war, by contrast, rewards selective disruption, ambiguity and controlled chaos. Tehran’s actions so far fit the second model more closely than the first.This is why the most serious answer to the headline question is not a simple yes or no. Iran is unlikely to launch a classic holy war in the simplistic sense of a formal, total religious call to arms that instantly unites the Muslim world under its banner. But it is already moving toward something more contemporary and, in some ways, more destabilizing: a war of survival wrapped in sacred legitimacy, regional coercion and asymmetric retaliation. The bombings have not merely invited revenge. They have strengthened the argument of those in Tehran who believe compromise invites death and that only resistance sanctified by faith can preserve the system.So the real risk is not that Iran suddenly abandons strategy for theology. The real risk is that strategy and theology fuse more tightly than before. If that fusion hardens, the war will not remain a sequence of missile exchanges and air raids. It will become a broader contest over succession, legitimacy, energy, maritime freedom, proxy warfare and the right to define resistance as a religious duty. In that environment, the phrase “holy war” may remain officially ambiguous, but its practical effects could become visible across the entire region.