‘Locked and loaded’: Trump threatens to attack Iran

President Donald Trump warned Friday that, if Iranian authorities kill civilians taking part in a growing protest movement, then the U.S. will “come to their rescue.”

“We are locked and loaded and ready to go,” Trump said in an early morning post on Truth Social.

The apparent threat to attack Iran comes just days after Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who urged the U.S. to back a second round of airstrikes against Iran, following a series of U.S. and Israeli bombings last June. Trump appeared open to the suggestion, promising in a press conference to “knock the hell out of” Iran if it rebuilds its missile capabilities.

The latest comments could further inflame a growing protest movement in Iran. In recent days, Iranians have taken to the streets in response to the country’s economic struggles, which have sparked a “crushing cost-of-living crisis,” according to Sina Toossi of the Center for International Policy. (Economic analysts say the key drivers of this crisis are government mismanagement and punishing U.S. sanctions.) As the movement has spread across the country, some protestors have started using openly anti-government slogans in addition to chants about economic distress.

Iran’s prosecutor general said Wednesday that “peaceful livelihood protests” are “understandable” but promised a “decisive response” if protests turned into a “tool of insecurity.” The movement, while growing, remains far smaller than the 2022 round of anti-government protests that followed the killing in police custody of Mahsa Amini, who was detained for not wearing a headscarf. At least seven people have died since the start of the protests, though it remains unclear whether that is sufficient to trigger Trump’s threat.

Trump’s comments could provide a boost to Iranian officials. One of the country’s top foreign policy officials framed the warning as confirmation that U.S. and Israeli officials are backing “disruptive actors” who are using economic protests to undermine the Iranian government as a whole. Further complicating the situation is the fact that Israel’s foreign intelligence service, the Mossad, urged protesters to take to the streets and said that their agents are “with you on the ground.”

Republicans remain deeply divided over whether the U.S. should launch a new round of attacks on Iran. More hawkish commentators have lifted up videos of the protests as evidence that Iranians are determined to overthrow the regime, perhaps with the help of the U.S. or other foreign powers. But restraint-oriented analysts warn that U.S. intervention could spark another “forever war” and further destabilize the Middle East.