Translation: Donald Trump doesn't want to "fire a $2 million missile at a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt." Maybe he has more in common with George W. Bush than Trump likes to admit. Or maybe Trump has reason to wonder whether military reprisals on Iran would do much to collapse the regime.
Having issued a red line on Friday and then declaring to protesters in Iran that "help is on the way," Trump now has to weigh what exactly "help" means. According to NBC News, Trump wants to take action but only if it is "decisive," precisely what Bush said in the aftermath of 9/11 in his "camel's butt" quote:
President Donald Trump has told his national security team that he would want any U.S. military action in Iran to deliver a swift and decisive blow to the regime and not spark a sustained war that dragged on for weeks or months, according to a U.S. official, two people familiar with the discussions and a person close to the White House.
“If he does something, he wants it to be definitive,” one of the people familiar with the discussions said.
But Trump’s advisers have so far not been able to guarantee to him that the regime would quickly collapse after an American military strike, the U.S. official and two people familiar with the discussions said, and there is concern that the U.S. may not have all the assets in the region it would need to guard against what administration officials expect would be an aggressive Iranian response.
Those dynamics could lead Trump to approve a more limited U.S. military offensive in Iran, at least initially, while reserving options to escalate — if he decides to take any military action at all, said the U.S. official and one of the people familiar with the discussions. They said that it is a fast-evolving situation and that as of Wednesday afternoon no decisions had been made.
"Decisive" is a high bar for the kind of military options the US has. The mission in June was simpler; it just aimed to destroy Iran's capacity to develop nuclear weapons. Trump not only refrained from attempting remote regime change, he reportedly convinced Benjamin Netanyahu to avoid it during the Twelve Day War as well. Without boots on the ground, it would be almost impossible to dislodge the IRGC and its military junta, even if a strike on Iran eliminated Ali Khamenei and his mullah council.
If a strike would not be in itself "decisive," would it actually help? That has been a question raised by some factions of the Iranian opposition. Some worry that direct American military involvement would delegitimize the popular uprising, and prefer more "maximum pressure" instead. Even worse, strikes that take aim at the leadership of the mullahcracy might justify a full-war response from the IRGC, which would put dissenters in even more peril and put the entire nation at risk of becoming a full-blown battlefield on a scale worse than the Twelve Day War.
Other factions, however, not only want American intervention, they expect it. Trump's declaration that "help is on the way" likely got more people into the streets, expecting some significant demonstration of US support for their efforts and the kind of deterrent that would stop the IRGC from massacring demonstrators. If Trump doesn't follow through soon on those pledges, the people may lose heart, and an opportunity to end the 47-year reign of radical Islamist terror might be lost.
What will Trump choose? He may be waiting for a couple of days to see where the Iranians go. However, reports are now emerging that the chessboard has started shifting back to its status quo ante:
Reuters: Security warning levels at the U.S. Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar have been lowered after a heightened alert was imposed earlier this week. https://t.co/Um7DSwBwF1
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) January 15, 2026
The Russian state news service TASS notes, however, that the US doesn't actually need Al Udeid nor the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier task force to strike Iran. We already have plenty of assets in the Persian Gulf that can use Tomahawk missiles for precision strikes on specific targets that would avoid having to use Qatar or Saudi airspace. All of the motion around Al Udeid may be just for show.
This is far from over, and it may still be that Trump wants to keep the Iranians guessing until the last minute. However, if Trump won't act unless the act guarantees the fall of the regime, we may be waiting a while for action.
Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump and his administration’s bold leadership, we are respected on the world stage, and our enemies are being put on notice.
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