‘A big hurdle for Iranians without weapons to challenge regime': Trump

US President Donald Trump initially encouraged Iranians protesting their government with a bold message: “HELP IS ON ITS WAY.” When announcing the opening strikes on February 28, he urged the Iranian public to seize control of their country. “When we are finished, take over your government,” Trump said. “It will be yours to take.” However, in a radio interview with Fox News host Brian Kilmeade on Friday (March 13), Trump acknowledged that such an uprising would face serious obstacles. He noted that the Basij militia, a plainclothes force affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, would likely respond violently to any mass protests.

“You just mentioned to me a group of people that go around with machine guns and shoot them down, and they say, ‘Anybody protests, we’re going to kill you in the streets.’ So I really think that’s a big hurdle to climb for people that don’t have weapons,” Trump said. “I think it’s a very big hurdle,” he continued. “So that’ll happen, but it probably will be, maybe not immediately. Who’s going to do that? They literally have people in the streets with machine guns, machine gunning people down if they want to protest. OK?”

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The comments marked a shift from Trump’s earlier rhetoric, when he predicted a rapid victory and suggested a hopeful future for Iran following US military action. After the airstrike that killed Iran’s longtime leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on the first day of the conflict, Trump offered varying ideas about how a new government might emerge. In a brief interview with The New York Times on Sunday, he said he hoped Iran’s elite forces, including officers from the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, might eventually surrender their weapons to the public.

But in the later radio interview, two weeks into the war, Trump acknowledged that Iran’s leadership remains deeply entrenched and unlikely to collapse quickly under public pressure. “These are bad people. They go out shooting protesters. You’re a protester. They shoot you right through the head,” he said. Trump also noted that both he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu understood why many Iranians might hesitate to protest.

The Basij militia, estimated to have around one million members, has long been central to suppressing dissent and played a major role in the violent crackdown on nationwide protests that began in January and reportedly left thousands dead. Trump also claimed that Iran now has “virtually no military left.” Speaking at a news conference Thursday, Netanyahu also expressed uncertainty about whether internal protests could actually topple the Iranian government. “We are creating the optimal conditions for toppling the regime,” he said, “but I won’t deny that I can’t tell you with all certainty that the people of Iran will topple the regime, a regime is toppled from the inside.”

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