Despite the U.S. signaling a possible military action against Iran over the authorities’ crackdown on protests that have been ongoing since December 28, President Donald Trump’s statements keep the diplomatic option open. This explains his claim that Iranian officials contacted Washington requesting a meeting, and that he does not object to that.

Talk of a meeting coincided with Trump raising the threat of a new American strike against Iran to a higher level, setting today as the date for consultations with his senior political and military aides to decide on how the United States could assist the Iranian protesters.

Trump’s initiative to contact Elon Musk, head of SpaceX which provides the Starlink service, is a first step to enable Iranians to resume communication with the outside world, as the government has cut internet access for days.

Trump emphasized that a strike on Iran could occur regardless of any meeting with Iranian officials. This is a way of increasing pressure on Tehran at the most delicate moment the regime has faced since the 12-day war launched by Israel against Iran last June, in which the United States took part by bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities in Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. Since then, there has been no direct or indirect American-Iranian contact.

The United States and Iran today find themselves in two different positions. Trump is encouraged by the swift military operation in Venezuela that resulted in the arrest of President Nicolás Maduro, and by the tendency of his successor, Delcy Rodríguez, to cooperate with Washington, while increasing pressure on Denmark to relinquish Greenland near the Arctic, whether by selling it or by force.

As for Iran, it is in a weaker position after the June war, after two years of Israeli wars limited the capabilities of its allies in the region, in addition to losing Syria which had been an irreplaceable center of gravity for Iran’s regional influence since 1980.

Participants in a solidarity march for Iranian protests in Los Angeles. (AFP)

All of this was reflected in further economic crises internally and in an unprecedented deterioration of the national currency against the U.S. dollar. The national rally that appeared during the Israeli-American war dissipated under the weight of living pressures. Karim Sadjadpour, a researcher at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, believes that the war gave the regime a "temporary euphoric intoxication." After the war, the regime made no changes in its foreign policy, and no reforms domestically. This stagnation contributed to pushing protesters back into the streets in shifting regional and international circumstances.

Nevertheless, the American involvement in efforts to bring change in Iran involves calculations far more complex than those linked to change in Venezuela. Iranian officials threaten to respond forcefully to any American strike. When Israel ordered shelters to be opened in Tel Aviv, it signaled that a new regional war could erupt. Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf warned the United States against “miscalculation.”

While Trump may not want a war to explode in the Middle East, he still wants to seize the moment of the protests in Iran to increase pressure on the regime so that it makes concessions related above all to its foreign policy, much more than to democracy inside Iran. Venezuela attests to that. Washington remains focused on changing the regime’s behavior, not on fully toppling the regime and bearing the consequences.

Not to mention that the political and strategic environment that accompanied the American move in Venezuela differs greatly from that surrounding Iran. It may be for this reason that a return to dialogue could be the appropriate way out for both Washington and Tehran.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by the writers are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Annahar