Will Donald Trump order a US military attack on Iran? That question captivated the world for the past two weeks, as the US president issued bellicose threats warning the Iranian regime not to crack down on nationwide protests demanding economic and social reforms. On Tuesday, as he was scheduled to be briefed by Pentagon officials on various options for a strike, Trump posted a message on social media urging Iranians to continue their demonstrations and take over government institutions. The president signaled that he was leaning toward ordering an attack, telling protesters that “help is on its way”.

But by Wednesday, Trump pulled back from the brink of a military intervention, saying he had received assurances from “very important sources” that Iran had stopped killing protesters and was not moving forward with executions. A group of US allies in the Middle East – including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman and Turkey – seem to have succeeded in a last-ditch effort to convince Trump not to launch airstrikes against Tehran, warning it could unleash a wider conflict in the region. While many Sunni-led Arab states resent Shia Iran’s influence in the Arab world, they are also worried about retaliatory attacks by Iran and its allies, an influx of refugees and a civil war that could lead to the collapse of the Iranian state.

For now, the Iranian regime appears to have squashed the protests with a bloody crackdown that has killed thousands and isolated the country from the world by shutting off international phone and internet access. But the theocratic regime that took power after Iran’s 1979 revolution has a long history of biding its time and failing to heed the grievances of its people, leaving Iranians caught between continued repression and potential US intervention.

Trump could still order some kind of attack on Iran in the coming weeks – if not missiles, perhaps a cyber-attack directed at the country’s security apparatus – partly to save face. Because of his posts on Truth Social, the media platform he owns, Trump cornered himself into following through on his threats to take military action. On 2 January, the president laid out a red line, warning the Iranian government that if it “violently kills peaceful protesters” the US “would come to their rescue”.

As the protests widened and the regime’s crackdown intensified, Trump’s aides said he began to

© The Guardian