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Trump Is at a Moment of Choosing as Israel Looks for More US Help Crushing Iran's Nuclear Program 

US President Donald Trump gestures as he attends a family photo session during the G7 Summit, in Kananaskis, Alberta, Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP)
US President Donald Trump gestures as he attends a family photo session during the G7 Summit, in Kananaskis, Alberta, Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP)
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Trump Is at a Moment of Choosing as Israel Looks for More US Help Crushing Iran's Nuclear Program 

US President Donald Trump gestures as he attends a family photo session during the G7 Summit, in Kananaskis, Alberta, Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP)
US President Donald Trump gestures as he attends a family photo session during the G7 Summit, in Kananaskis, Alberta, Monday, June 16, 2025. (AP)

President Donald Trump in about eight hours Monday went from suggesting a nuclear deal with Iran remained "achievable" to urging Tehran's 9.5 million residents to flee for their lives as he cut short his visit to an international summit to return to Washington for urgent talks with his national security team.

He was expected to arrive at the White House early Tuesday at a moment of choosing in his presidency. Israel, with four days of missile strikes, has done considerable damage to Iran and believes it can now deal a permanent blow to Tehran's nuclear program, particularly if it gets a little more help from Trump.

But deepening American involvement, perhaps by providing the Israelis with bunker-busting bombs to penetrate Iranian nuclear sites built deep underground or offering other direct US military support, comes with enormous political risk for Trump.

He appears to be gradually building the public case for more direct American involvement.

"Iran should have signed the 'deal' I told them to sign," Trump posted on social media shortly before the White House announced that Trump was cutting short his visit to the Group of Seven summit in the Canadian Rockies. "What a shame, and waste of human life. Simply stated, IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON. I said it over and over again! Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!"

Trump's shift in tone comes as the US has repositioned warships and military aircraft in the region to respond if the conflict between Israel and Iran further escalates.

Speculation grows that Trump may be tilting toward more direct involvement

The Israelis say their offensive has eviscerated Iran's air defenses and they can now strike targets across the country at will. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the Israeli bombardment will continue until Iran's nuclear program and ballistic missiles are destroyed.

So far, Israel has targeted multiple Iranian nuclear program sites but has not been able to destroy Iran's Fordo uranium enrichment facility.

The site is buried deep underground and to eliminate it, Israel may need the US bunker-busting bomb the 30,000-pound GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, which uses its weight and sheer kinetic force to reach deeply buried targets and then explode. But Israel does not have the munition or the bomber needed to deliver it; the penetrator is currently delivered by the B-2 stealth bomber.

Israel's own defenses remain largely intact in the face of Iran's retaliatory strikes, but some of Tehran's missiles are getting through and having deadly impact.

The White House, soon after announcing Trump was returning to Washington, dispatched Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for a prime-time Fox News appearance as speculation grows about whether Trump could be tilting toward more direct US involvement.

Hegseth told Fox News' Jesse Watters that "of course" Trump wanted to see a deal made to curb Iran's nuclear program.

"His position has not changed," Hegseth said. "What you're watching in real time is peace through strength and America first. Our job is to be strong. We are postured defensively in the region to be strong in pursuit of a peace deal. And we certainly hope that's what happens here."

Trump continues to push Iran to negotiate

Trump, meanwhile, during an exchange with reporters Monday on the sidelines of the G7, declined to say what it would take for the US to get more directly involved.

Instead, he continued to press Iran on negotiations over its nuclear program.

"They should talk, and they should talk immediately," Trump said during a bilateral meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. He added, "I'd say Iran is not winning this war."

To be certain, Trump in the days-old conflict has sought to restrain Netanyahu. He rejected a plan presented by Israel to the US to kill Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, according to a US official familiar with the matter.

The Israelis had informed the Trump administration in recent days that they had developed a credible plan to kill Khamenei.

After being briefed on the plan, the White House made clear to Israeli officials that Trump was opposed to the Israelis making the move, according to the official, who was not authorized to comment on the sensitive matter and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

A widening schism over Iran among Trump's MAGA supporters

Trump on Monday bristled when asked about some of his MAGA faithful, including conservative pundit Tucker Carlson, who have suggested that further US involvement would be a betrayal to supporters who were drawn to his promise to end US involvement in expensive and endless wars.

Carlson, a former Fox News host pundit, last week called Trump "complicit in the act of war" in his subscriber newsletter.

Trump took a veiled swipe at Carlson, who for years hosted a popular prime-time show for Fox News, but was ousted in 2023 amid a cascade of bad legal news for the network.

"I don't know what Tucker Carlson is saying," Trump told reporters. "Let him go get a television network and say it so that people listen."

Later, Trump took another jab at Carlson, who had spoken on Trump's behalf at the 2024 Republican National Convention.

"Somebody please explain to kooky Tucker Carlson that,' IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON!'" the president wrote on social media.

Other prominent Trump supporters have also raised concerns about how far the president should go in backing Israel.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk are among prominent Trump World allies who have noted that voters backed Trump because he promised not to entangle the nation in foreign clashes and to be wary of expanding US involvement in the Mideast conflict.

He ran on a promise to quickly end the brutal wars in Gaza and Ukraine, but has struggled to find an endgame to either of those conflicts.

"No issue currently divides the right as much as foreign policy," Kirk posted on X last week, shortly before Israel began carrying out its strikes. "I'm very concerned based on (everything) I've seen in the grassroots the last few months that this will cause a massive schism in MAGA and potentially disrupt our momentum and our insanely successful Presidency."

But there are also Trump backers, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who are making the case that this is Trump's moment to deliver a decisive blow to Iran. Graham is calling for Trump to "go all-in" in backing Israel and destroying Iran's nuclear program.

"No one can say that President @realDonaldTrump has not tried to seek peace regarding Ukraine-Russia and Israel-Iran," Graham wrote on X on Monday night. "He has gone the extra mile and I appreciate that. However, you have to have willing partners to make peace. Iran played the same old game with the wrong guy."

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Features

Why Greenland Is Strategically Important to Arctic Security

Houses covered by snow are seen on the coast of a sea inlet of Nuuk, Greenland, on March 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka, File)
Houses covered by snow are seen on the coast of a sea inlet of Nuuk, Greenland, on March 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka, File)
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Why Greenland Is Strategically Important to Arctic Security

Houses covered by snow are seen on the coast of a sea inlet of Nuuk, Greenland, on March 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka, File)
Houses covered by snow are seen on the coast of a sea inlet of Nuuk, Greenland, on March 7, 2025. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka, File)

Location, location, location: Greenland’s position above the Arctic Circle makes the world’s largest island a key part of security strategy.

Increasing international tensions, global warming and the changing world economy have put Greenland at the heart of the debate over global trade and security, and US President Donald Trump wants to make sure his country controls the mineral-rich island that guards the Arctic and North Atlantic approaches to North America.

Greenland is a self-governing territory of Denmark, a longtime US ally that has rejected Trump’s overtures. Greenland’s own government also opposes US designs on the island, saying the people of Greenland will decide their own future.

The island, 80% of which lies above the Arctic Circle, is home to about 56,000 mostly Inuit people who until now have been largely ignored by the rest of the world.

Here’s why Greenland is strategically important to Arctic security:

Greenland’s location is key

Greenland sits off the northeastern coast of Canada, with more than two-thirds of its territory lying within the Arctic Circle. That has made it crucial to the defense of North America since World War II, when the US occupied Greenland to ensure it didn’t fall into the hands of Nazi Germany and to protect crucial North Atlantic shipping lanes.

Following the Cold War, the Arctic was largely an area of international cooperation. But climate change is thinning the Arctic ice, promising to create a northwest passage for international trade and reigniting competition with Russia, China and other countries over access to the region’s mineral resources.

Security threats

In 2018, China declared itself a “near-Arctic state” in an effort to gain more influence in the region. China has also announced plans to build a “Polar Silk Road” as part of its global Belt and Road Initiative, which has created economic links with countries around the world.

Then US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo rejected China’s move, saying: “Do we want the Arctic Ocean to transform into a new South China Sea, fraught with militarization and competing territorial claims?”

Meanwhile, Russia has sought to assert its influence over wide areas of the Arctic in competition with the US, Canada, Denmark and Norway. Moscow has also sought to boost its military presence in the polar region, home to its Northern Fleet and a site where the Soviet Union tested nuclear weapons. Russian military officials have said that the site is ready for resuming the tests, if necessary.

Russia's military has been restoring old Soviet infrastructure in the Arctic and building new facilities. Since 2014, the Russian military has opened several military bases in the Arctic and worked on reconstructing airfields.

European leaders’ concerns have been heightened since Russia launched a war in Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.

Last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin noted that Moscow is worried about NATO’s activities in the Arctic and will respond by strengthening the capability of its armed forces there. But he said that Moscow was holding the door open to broader international cooperation in the region.

US military presence

The US Department of Defense operates the remote Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, which was built after the US and Denmark signed the Defense of Greenland Treaty in 1951. It supports missile warning, missile defense and space surveillance operations for the US and NATO.

Greenland also guards part of what is known as the GIUK (Greenland, Iceland, United Kingdom) Gap, where NATO monitors Russian naval movements in the North Atlantic.

Thomas Crosbie, an associate professor of military operations at the Royal Danish Defense College, said that an American takeover wouldn't improve upon Washington’s current security strategy.

“The United States will gain no advantage if its flag is flying in Nuuk (Greenland's capital) versus the Greenlandic flag,” he told The Associated Press. “There’s no benefits to them because they already enjoy all of the advantages they want.

"If there’s any specific security access that they want to improve American security, they’ll be given it as a matter of course, as a trusted ally. So this has nothing to do with improving national security for the United States.”

Denmark’s parliament approved a bill last June to allow US military bases on Danish soil. It widened a previous military agreement, made in 2023 with the Biden administration, where US troops had broad access to Danish air bases in the Scandinavian country.

Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, in a response to lawmakers’ questions, wrote over the summer that Denmark would be able to terminate the agreement if the US tries to annex all or part of Greenland.

Danish armed forces in Greenland

Denmark is moving to strengthen its military presence around Greenland and in the wider North Atlantic. Last year, the government announced a roughly 14.6 billion-kroner ($2.3 billion) agreement with parties including the governments of Greenland and the Faroe Islands, another self-governing territory of Denmark, to “improve capabilities for surveillance and maintaining sovereignty in the region.”

The plan includes three new Arctic naval vessels, two additional long-range surveillance drones and satellite capacity.

Denmark’s Joint Arctic Command is headquartered in Nuuk, and tasked with the “surveillance, assertion of sovereignty and military defense of Greenland and the Faroe Islands,” according to its website. It has smaller satellite stations across the island.

The Sirius Dog Sled Patrol, an elite Danish naval unit that conducts long-range reconnaissance and enforces Danish sovereignty in the Arctic wilderness, is also stationed in Greenland.

Mineral wealth

Greenland is also a rich source of the so-called rare earth minerals that are a key component of cellphones, computers, batteries and other high-tech gadgets that are expected to power the world’s economy in the coming decades.

That has attracted the interest of the US and other Western powers as they try to ease China’s dominance of the market for these critical minerals.

Development of Greenland’s mineral resources is challenging because of the island’s harsh climate, while strict environmental controls have proved an additional hurdle for potential investors.

Features

Protest-Hit Iran Warily Watches the US After its Raid on Venezuela

Iranians protest a 22-year-old woman Mahsa Amini's death after she was detained by the morality police, in Tehran, Sept. 20, 2022, in this photo taken by an individual not employed by the Associated Press and obtained by the AP outside Iran. (AP Photo/ File)
Iranians protest a 22-year-old woman Mahsa Amini's death after she was detained by the morality police, in Tehran, Sept. 20, 2022, in this photo taken by an individual not employed by the Associated Press and obtained by the AP outside Iran. (AP Photo/ File)
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Protest-Hit Iran Warily Watches the US After its Raid on Venezuela

Iranians protest a 22-year-old woman Mahsa Amini's death after she was detained by the morality police, in Tehran, Sept. 20, 2022, in this photo taken by an individual not employed by the Associated Press and obtained by the AP outside Iran. (AP Photo/ File)
Iranians protest a 22-year-old woman Mahsa Amini's death after she was detained by the morality police, in Tehran, Sept. 20, 2022, in this photo taken by an individual not employed by the Associated Press and obtained by the AP outside Iran. (AP Photo/ File)

Iran faces a new round of protests challenging the country's theocracy, but it seems like the only thing people there want to talk about is half a world away: Venezuela.

Since the US military seized Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, a longtime ally of Tehran, over the weekend, Iranian state media headlines and officials have condemned the operation. In the streets and even in some official conversations, however, there's a growing question over whether a similar mission could target the country's top officials including the supreme leader, 86-year-old Ali Khamenei.

The paranoia feeds into wider worries among Iranians. Many fear that close US ally Israel will target Iran again as it did during the 12-day war it launched against Tehran in June. Israel killed a slew of top military officials and nuclear scientists, and the US bombed Iranian nuclear enrichment sites. Khamenei is believed to have gone into hiding for his protection.

“God bless our leader, we should be careful too," said Saeed Seyyedi, a 57-year-old teacher in Tehran, worried the US could act as it did in Venezuela.

"The US has always been after plots against Iran, especially when issues like oil, Israel are part of the case. In addition, it can be complicated when it is mixed with the Russia-Ukraine war, the Lebanese (group) Hezbollah and drug accusations.”

The US long has accused the Iranian-backed Hezbollah of running drug-smuggling operations to fund its operations, including in Latin America, which the group denies.

‘Please pray’

Immediately after Maduro’s seizure, an analyst on Iranian state television claimed, without offering evidence, that the US and Israel had plans during the war last year to kidnap Iranian officials with a team of dual-national Iranians. Even for conspiracy-minded Iranian television, airing such a claim is unusual.

Then on Sunday night, the prominent cleric Mohammad Ali Javedan warned an audience at prayers in Tehran University that Khamenei's life was in danger.

“Someone said he had a bad dream that the leader’s life is in danger," Javedan said, without elaborating. "Please pray.”

However, Iran is roughly twice the size of Venezuela and has what analysts consider to be a much stronger military and robust security forces. The memory of Operation Eagle Claw, a failed US special forces mission to rescue hostages held after the 1979 US Embassy takeover in Tehran, also haunts Washington.

Then there's the political situation in Iran, with its theocracy protected by hard-liners within the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, who answer only to Khamenei.

They could launch assassinations, cyberattacks and assaults on shipping in the Middle East, warned Farzin Nadimi, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who studies Iran’s military.

And crucially, Iran also still has fissile nuclear material.

“In the grand-strategy scheme of things, they need to think about the day after,” Nadimi said of anyone considering a Venezuela-style raid. “Iran is a much more complex political situation. They have to calculate the costs and benefits.”

Not just the Iranians

Others wonder what part of the world the US might take interest in next, while critics have warned about setting a dangerous precedent.

“The regime in Iran should pay close attention to what is happening in Venezuela,” Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid posted on social media on Saturday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not directly link Maduro's detention to Iran but acknowledged the protests sweeping Tehran and other cities, saying: “It is very possible that we are standing at the moment when the Iranian people are taking their fate into their own hands.”

Hours before the US action in Venezuela, US President Donald Trump warned Iran that if Tehran “violently kills peaceful protesters” the US “will come to their rescue.”

On Monday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei denounced the comments by Trump and Netanyahu as an “incitement to violence, terrorism and killing.”

US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican who had been close to Trump but resigned Monday after a falling-out with the president, directly linked the Venezuela operation to Iran.

“The next obvious observation is that by removing Maduro this is a clear move for control over Venezuelan oil supplies that will ensure stability for the next obvious regime change war in Iran," Greene wrote on social media.

‘Make Iran Great Again’

US Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican, put on a “Make Iran Great Again” hat during a Sunday segment on Fox News. He later posted an image showing him and Trump smiling after the president autographed a similar-looking hat.

“I pray and hope that 2026 will be the year that we make Iran great again," Graham said.

Features

Iran at a Critical Crossroads Testing the Survival of its Regime

Burning debris lies in the middle of a street during protests in Hamedan, western Iran, Jan. 1, 2026. (AFP/Getty Images)
Burning debris lies in the middle of a street during protests in Hamedan, western Iran, Jan. 1, 2026. (AFP/Getty Images)
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Iran at a Critical Crossroads Testing the Survival of its Regime

Burning debris lies in the middle of a street during protests in Hamedan, western Iran, Jan. 1, 2026. (AFP/Getty Images)
Burning debris lies in the middle of a street during protests in Hamedan, western Iran, Jan. 1, 2026. (AFP/Getty Images)

Iran is confronting one of the most consequential junctures since the founding of the republic in 1979. The pressures bearing down on the system are no longer confined to economic sanctions or familiar forms of external coercion, but now cut to the heart of the governing formula itself: how to ensure the regime’s survival without accelerating the very forces that threaten to undermine it.

At the center of this moment lies a stark existential dilemma. A permissive response to internal unrest risks allowing protests to spread and harden into a protracted campaign of political attrition, while a sweeping security crackdown would heighten external dangers, at a time of mounting international hostility and unprecedented US warnings.

Caught between these two paths, Tehran finds its room for maneuver shrinking to levels it has rarely faced before.

Passing protests or structural shift?

The evolution of the current protests raises a central question about their nature: are they a containable social wave, or a deeper expression of a shift in public mood? The spread of demonstrations to small and medium-sized cities, and the widening of their social base, reflect an advanced level of discontent, even if it has not yet reached the threshold of a comprehensive explosion.

Farzin Nadimi, a senior Iran analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, argues that this wave differs from previous ones.

He told Asharq Al-Awsat that the latest protests, unlike earlier waves led by university students or low-income workers in major cities, are now driven by young people in smaller towns and supported by university students nationwide.

He described them as “more entrenched and widespread,” though not yet as large as some previous protests, noting the absence of government employees and oil workers, alongside a strong female presence once again.

This assessment aligns with the reading of Michael Rubin, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, who pointed to three key differences defining this wave: the nature of the participating forces, the symbolism of its launch from Tehran’s bazaar, and the impact of Israeli strikes that have punctured the aura surrounding Iran.

By contrast, Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, cautions against overestimating the street’s ability to bring about rapid change, noting that the Iranian system is highly organized and does not hesitate to use violence to control society.

‘Political fuel’

Iran’s economic crisis is no longer a technical issue that can be separated from politics. The collapse of the currency, the erosion of purchasing power, and declining trust in institutions have turned the economy into a direct driver of protest.

With each new round of pressure or sanctions, the sense deepens that the system is incapable of delivering real solutions without making political concessions.

Alex Vatanka, a Senior Fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, argues that what is unfolding goes beyond anger over prices or living conditions.

He told Asharq Al-Awsat that the protests reflect a deeper shift in public opinion, in which opposition is no longer directed at specific policies but at the model of governance itself. This shift, he said, confronts the system with a difficult question: can the economy be saved without rethinking the structure of power?

The security establishment: cohesion or fatigue?

Security institutions, from the Revolutionary Guards and their Basij mobilization arm to the intelligence services, form the backbone of the system’s ability to endure. Historically, these institutions have been the primary guarantor of internal stability, but mounting pressures now raise questions about their moral and ideological cohesion.

Rubin said that cracks are widening, pointing to rumors that Tehran has turned to deploying forces from Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces and Afghanistan’s Fatemiyoun Brigade due to declining confidence in some Revolutionary Guard units’ willingness to carry out orders.

Vatanka, for his part, acknowledged that these institutions remain cohesive for now, but warned that this cohesion is under growing strain from economic and social exhaustion, which over time could erode morale and produce partial fractures, even if open defections remain unlikely in the foreseeable future.

From deterrence to breaking taboos

If internal challenges are pressing on the structure of power, the external environment multiplies the risks. US-Israeli escalation, coupled with the waning weight of regional allies, places Iran before a radically different strategic landscape.

Threats by US President Donald Trump to support Iranian protesters signal a qualitative shift in US rhetoric, in which the focus is no longer confined to the nuclear program, but now includes Iran’s internal dynamics as part of the pressure equation.

Nadimi said that the developments in Venezuela and the arrest of Nicolas Maduro as carrying troubling implications for Tehran, while stressing the differences between the two cases, arguing that Iran is larger and more complex, and that Washington does not believe its system can be easily overthrown without a clear internal alternative.

Vatanka, however, sees a significant psychological impact from that precedent, saying it has weakened the assumption that leaders are immune from personal targeting.

The regional network: asset or burden?

Israeli strikes in June that targeted military leaders and sovereign symbols inside Iran reflect a shift in Israel’s security doctrine, from containment to direct confrontation.

O’Hanlon said that this pattern, following events in Venezuela and attacks on figures linked to Iran’s nuclear program, has become more likely under Trump, reflecting a willingness to break taboos that once held.

At the same time, questions are resurfacing over the effectiveness of Iran’s regional network. According to Vatanka, these arms are no longer a real deterrent, but have become, given their rising costs, a strategic burden.

Rubin agreed, adding that they have drained the state treasury, although he does not rule out the system turning to them if the crisis intensifies on the domestic front.

Amid this complex entanglement between internal and external pressures, the Iranian system’s options are narrowing as never before.

Between those who see this weakness as an opportunity to rebalance the region and those who fear widespread chaos, the core question remains: Is Tehran facing a manageable crisis of governance or an existential crisis that could shape Iran and the region for decades to come?