Mid-January usually passes quietly in Washington. This year it didn’t. Between January 13 and 15, President Donald Trump openly threatened military action against Iran, where the violent suppression of nationwide protests unfolded under an internet blackout and left thousands dead.
The more revealing story is not why Trump threatened force, but understanding why he didn’t use it, and what that restraint says about the limits of American power and the changing role of regional actors.
Over a 48-hour window, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Egypt, and Turkey engaged in urgent shuttle diplomacy aimed squarely at Washington.
“Gulf countries want to send a blunt message: a U.S. attack would not remain contained. It would spill across borders, rattle energy markets, threaten U.S. bases, and ultimately rebound on American interests,” an Egyptian official in Washington told MBN.
At the same time, a senior State Department diplomat said the message to Tehran was equally explicit:
“These same governments warned Tehran that retaliation against U.S. assets in the Gulf would shatter what officials described as a fragile regional reset and leave Iran more isolated than before.”
A Shift Hiding in Plain Sight
The U.S. diplomat explained to MBN’s Joe Kawly that “this marks a departure from January 2020, when regional capitals offered tacit backing for the Soleimani strike. This time, they positioned themselves between Washington and Tehran, signaling that escalation was no longer an acceptable default.”
Two calculations drove that shift.
First, feasibility. “We know that the Pentagon presented strike options on January 13. But officials privately assessed that cyber operations targeting Iran’s internal security infrastructure were more plausible than a military action using missiles,” the diplomat said. “I do not think our partners were prepared for the regional escalation that military strikes would almost certainly trigger.”
Second, vulnerability. “U.S. intelligence assessed that Iranian retaliation would likely focus on American installations in the Gulf, including Al Udeid Air Base. For host governments whose economic strategies hinge on predictability and foreign investment, that risk was intolerable.”
When asked about Saudi Arabia’s role, the diplomat added: “Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman personally raised concerns with Trump—an intervention that would have been unthinkable during the early years of his presidency.”
Strategic Submission, Not Regime Change
Was regime change ever the objective? “The goal is not a democratic transformation like we have seen previously, because we must have learned from that,” the American diplomat said. “The goal is a pragmatic Iran that can operate inside a regional geo-economic order, limit its nuclear and missile ambitions, and reduce reliance on China in exchange for economic reintegration.” This is the framework Trump is testing: pressure without war.
Sanctions as Leverage
On January 12, Trump announced that any country doing business with Iran would face a 25 percent tariff on all trade with the United States, effective immediately. On its face, the threat sounded absolute.
In practice, enforcement remains deliberately opaque. China, the UAE, Turkey, Brazil, and Russia all maintain commercial ties with Tehran. A literal application would risk wider trade disruptions.
That ambiguity is the point.
“The mechanism at work is economic warfare by proxy,” the U.S. diplomat told MBN. “Instead of directly punishing Iran, the U.S. is using access to American markets as leverage to force other countries to stop doing business with Tehran.”
Asked to simplify, he put it this way: “Freeze Iranian finances + threaten tariffs on countries that trade with Iran = countries abandoning Iran as a trading partner, without the U.S. firing a shot.”
Joe Kawly
Joe Kawly is a veteran global affairs journalist with over two decades of frontline reporting across Washington, D.C. and the Middle East. A CNN Journalism Fellow and Georgetown University graduate, his work focuses on U.S. foreign policy, Arab world politics, and diplomacy. With deep regional insight and narrative clarity, Joe focuses on making complex global dynamics clear, human, and relevant.
