Middle East policy experts argued on Wednesday that the United States should actively intervene in Iran’s unrest — including through cyber measures, economic pressure and potentially military strikes — amid the regime’s crackdown on nationwide protests. The comments were made during a program hosted by Iran International, one of the largest independent Persian-language news outlets in the world.

President Donald Trump has for days issued repeated warnings to the regime that the U.S. is “watching closely” and that Iran would “pay hell” for killing protesters. On Wednesday afternoon, however, the president said he had been notified that the “killing in Iran is stopping” and that Iran would not be conducting executions of protesters, as was expected, and downplayed the severity of protester deaths.

“The first thing I would recommend is that we use our very impressive capabilities to shut down the communication system for the government,” said Robert Satloff, executive director of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, speaking of a potential retaliation for the regime’s decision to cut internet access to the public. “This will be a huge step.”

Satloff said if that did not work, he would then support subsequent U.S. strikes on Iranian military infrastructure.

“If that first act does not bring about a substantial change in Iranian behavior, then I would target very specifically the barracks and the facilities of the IRGC [Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps],” said Satloff. 

Joel Rayburn, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a former diplomat in the Middle East, argued that any U.S. intervention in Iran should not be a “one-off military strike,” but rather a sustained “campaign” of economic and political pressure. 

Rayburn was tapped by the White House to be assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs in February 2025, however, his nomination was ultimately pulled last October. 

“We have to use all of the tools at our disposal,” Rayburn said Wednesday. “There’s no reason not to be fully implementing maximum pressure to pressure the Iranian regime in order to change its behavior.” 

Responding to questions about whether a weak Iranian regime — in the midst of dire economic and political challenges — can survive the protests, Rayburn suggested it is bound to fall, stating that there will be a “day after this Khamenei regime,” referring to Iran’s supreme leader, and that he believes that day will come “sooner rather than later.”

“The Iranian regime is going to collapse at some point in the not-too-distant future,” said Rayburn. “[It] can no longer function as a state. The last function they can perform is to use violence against their own people. That means they are not a sustainable regime.” 

Tehran has threatened to respond to any military action with retaliation against the U.S. and Israel. Satloff said the fall of the regime would be “an enormous strategic gain for Israel,” but noted that Jerusalem is “playing it quiet.” 

“The Israelis have made at least the tactical decision, that since Donald Trump has been out front, that Donald Trump has drawn a line in the sand, let Donald Trump be the key actor right now,” said Satloff. “There is no comparative advantage for Israel to be out in front in any military fashion. Let the United States play this role, the president seems to have embraced it.”

He also cast doubt on the likelihood that Tehran would strike Israel in response to U.S. action. Reports have indicated that Iran and Israel have conveyed reassurances through Russian intermediaries that neither side intends to carry out a preemptive strike.

“If the Iranians make the mistake of retaliating against Israel or Israeli assets, or Jewish assets around the world, there will be a very high price to pay,” said Satloff. 

Analysts also weighed in on reports that Gulf allies have been lobbying the Trump administration to refrain from striking or intervening in Iran, warning that a U.S. intervention could be ineffective and expose them to retaliation. While the analysts acknowledged those concerns, they argued that regional governments would ultimately like to see the regime fall.

“I don’t think there are any major frontline countries in the Gulf region that believe that the Iranian regime is a regime that they can live with indefinitely,” said Rayburn. “We have not seen real restraint from the Arab capitals to either U.S. or Israeli pressure against the Iranian regime. All of those capitals would be better off without the regime.”

Regardless of whether the U.S. intervenes, Satloff emphasized that any outcome is “ultimately an Iranian process and an Iranian decision.”

“This will be their [the Iranian people’s] revolution, if it happens,” said Satloff. “It will not be something that we trigger or engineer, but to help them to be able to assert their own wishes and desires for the future.”

Multiple Senate Republicans voiced support for President Donald Trump’s threat that the U.S. would intervene directly should the Iranian regime escalate its crackdown on the protests sweeping Iran — which appears to have already begun.

Trump warned in a post on his Truth Social platform last Friday that if Iran shoots “and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue. We are locked and loaded and ready to go.”

The president renewed that threat on Thursday on “The Hugh Hewitt Show,” saying, “If they start killing people, which they tend to do during their riots, they have lots of riots. If they do it, we’re going to hit them very hard.” But on Fox News’s “Hannity,” he said that “for the most part” the regime has not engaged in mass killings of protesters.

Asked on Thursday about the possibility of the U.S. helping the Iranian protesters, Vice President JD Vance expressed his support for the protesters but said he’d defer to Trump on what actions they would take. He also said the U.S. remains open to a “real negotiation” with Iran on its nuclear program.

“I’ll let the president speak to what we’re going to do in the future, but we certainly stand with anybody across the world, including the Iranian people, who are advocating for their rights,” he added.

Trump’s threat has been largely well-received by GOP lawmakers, but lawmakers from both parties have expressed support for the protesters generally. 

“To the people of Iran: We stand with you tonight,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told Fox News on Tuesday evening. “We stand for you taking back your country from the ayatollah, a religious Nazi who kills you and terrorizes the world,” he said, referring to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei “We pray for you. We support you. Donald J. Trump is not Barack Obama. He has your back. … Help is on the way.”

“And to the ayatollah: You need to understand, if you keep killing your people who are demanding a better life, Donald J. Trump is gonna kill you. Change is coming to Iran. It’ll be the biggest change in the history of the Mideast to get rid of this Nazi regime.”

“President Trump has been very clear: If the ayatollah harms the protesters, the consequences would be catastrophically painful,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) told Jewish Insider. “The regime should understand that the president is deadly serious and will enjoy strong support in Congress.”

Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-NE) told JI that “what the president said … [is] one of the things that we can do to help protect the Iranians who are protesting.”

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) told JI that the U.S. should act “in any possible way to support the Iranian protesters” and said he’d back any efforts in Congress to do so. 

“That’s the real truth to power. They started to kill people there. Remember, they are now so desperate. They’re trying to offer people $7 a month. They’re that desperate,” Fetterman said. “How courageous those protesters are — and that’s a testament to the opportunities Israel and our strikes created — they inspire me. These are Iranian protesters. That is real courage and real — being willing to either get killed, beaten, tortured or disappeared, that’s what happens in true autocracies.”

Other senators spoke more broadly about offering U.S. support for the protesters without addressing direct intervention. 

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) noted that lawmakers haven’t engaged extensively about ways for Congress to support the protesters since returning from the holiday recess on Monday, but said it was important for them to express their support. “I’m open to any ideas. I think there’s been very little talk [among lawmakers] in specific terms,” Blumenthal told JI.

“We should speak out and support them in spirit,” Blumenthal said. “I don’t know how much we can do, practically speaking. I know the president has talked about some kind of measures if anyone is killed. I don’t know exactly what he has in mind, but we ought to be supporting the freedom fighters and brave protesters in any way we can.”

Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) said that the “biggest thing that we can do is actually have public officials speak out that our problem with Iran is not the people of Iran, it’s the Iranian regime. Our problem is the same problem the people of Iran have.”

“The regime oppresses them, prevents them from actually being [as] successful as they could be. The people of Iran [are] extremely well educated, extremely sharp people [and] could be a lot more prosperous than they are, but they’re trapped behind a regime that’s obsessed with terrorism, and so they’re holding back their entire country so they can fund Hezbollah,” Lankford said. “So people can’t get food, people can’t have a stable currency, because they want to fund terrorism. Until they have an ability to be able to pick new leaders that will actually represent their values, they’re stuck.”

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) said it is “wonderful” to see the protests happening and that the U.S. “should support them diplomatically, technologically and in other ways, so that they can communicate.”

“But I think we should be very hesitant about expressing our willingness to use military force in yet another country for yet another reason,” Schiff added.

Other Democrats have also discouraged the use of U.S. military force in response to the protests.

Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ) said the U.S. should “continue to show attention” toward Iran, “making sure we’re not just losing track of everything because of Venezuela, and just continuing to show that we want to make sure that the regime doesn’t crack down brutally as they have in the past.”

“I think that that’s an important sign right now, as this is continuing on,” Kim continued.