One of Donald Trump’s most controversial foreign policy decisions of 2025 came in June, when the president launched a preventive military strike on suspected Iranian nuclear sites. Soon after, the Republican assured the public that Iran’s “key nuclear enrichment facilities” had been “completely and totally obliterated,” though those claims were quickly called into question.

Among the lingering questions was whether this would be Trump’s only offensive against Iran, or the first in a series.

Last week, the American president added fresh fuel to the fire, declaring during a news conference alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Iran “may be behaving badly.” After suggesting that Iranian officials might be taking new steps to advance their nuclear program, Trump added: “If it’s confirmed, look, there will be consequences. Consequences will be very powerful — maybe more powerful than last time.”

As 2026 gets underway, he’s still at it. The New York Times reported:

President Trump said on Friday that the United States would come to the aid of protesters in Iran if the government there used lethal force against them, in a sharp escalation of remarks after days of widespread demonstrations against the Iranian government.

The comments came a day after reports from Iranian state media and activists said that at least one person had been killed in clashes between protesters and security forces, as officials tried to contain protests incited by economic distress. Since then at least two more people have been reported as dead.

While the precise casualty count is the subject of ongoing scrutiny, the demonstrations in Iran — an authoritarian society where mass protests are not common — are real and sizable. The unrest appears to have been caused initially by the collapse of Iran’s rial currency, but as NPR reported, it has become increasingly common to see crowds chanting anti-government slogans.

It was against this backdrop that Trump used his social media platform to publish a message that appeared intended to get Tehran’s attention. “If Iran shots and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue,” he wrote in a missive published at 2:58 a.m. ET. “We are locked and loaded and ready to go.”

This did not go unnoticed. NBC News reported, “Senior Iranian officials fired back, warning that U.S. intervention would spark regional chaos and make American forces in the Middle East ‘legitimate targets.’” In fact, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the head of Iran’s Parliament, said via social media that “all American bases and forces across the entire region will be legitimate targets” if the U.S. interferes.

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Time will tell whether, and to what degree, Trump is serious about further intervention in Iran, and whether the U.S. military is actually “locked and loaded” for another Middle East operation. But it’s worth noting for context that his sudden interest in the rights of protesters is not altogether in line with his broader vision.

On the contrary, in the recent past, Trump has gone to great lengths to celebrate “strongman” and “iron fist” leaders abroad, including those who seem to revel in cracking down on dissent.

What’s more, Trump’s former Pentagon secretary, Mark Esper, has repeatedly claimed that the president pushed to shoot protesters in the legs in 2020. Years earlier, remarking on the 1989 democratic protests in Tiananmen Square, Trump celebrated the Chinese response as a demonstration of “the power of strength.”

Or put another way, when the world saw the image of a student standing in front of tanks, Trump sided with the guys driving the tanks.

Is he now suddenly concerned about violence toward protesters in Iran, or is the incumbent American president looking for an excuse to push fresh threats toward a foe in the Middle East?