US president Donald Trump vetoed an idea by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week to call on Iranians to take to the streets in protest at their government, according to a report.
“Why the hell should we tell people to take to the streets when they’ll just get mowed down,” Mr Trump told him during their call, according to Axios, which cited a US source.
Mr Netanyahu had claimed in the call that the Iranian regime was in disarray and that there was a window of opportunity to further destabilise it, a US official and an Israeli source told Axios.
But Mr Trump expressed concern that such a call would lead to a massacre.
In January, Mr Trump urged protesters in Iran to keep going, and promised that “help” was on its way following the largest protests in the country since 2022.
Then at the start of the war last month, he said Iranians would have a chance to take over the government when US combat operations were over – but he has rarely mentioned protests since.
Human rights groups say thousands of Iranian protesters were killed before the war as they demonstrated against rising inflation, the collapse of the currency and the regime. Reports from doctors in the country suggested the toll could have reached at least 20,000.
The two leaders agreed in their call to wait and see whether Iranians would go out onto the streets the following day for an annual festival of fire, according to a source. But reports on the ground suggested that very few did amid the joint US-Israeli bombing campaign.
Mr Netanyahu told Iranians at the time: “Our aircraft are hitting the terror operatives on the ground, in the crossroads, in the city squares… So go out and celebrate… we are watching from above.”
He is said to see creating the conditions for a popular uprising as a key core objective, but American officials say Mr Trump sees regime change as more of a bonus.
Mr Trump had referred to regime change in the early days of the war, as well a commitment to preventing Iran developing nuclear weapons, prompting criticism that his motives for the war were muddled.
US intelligence has since told the president that Iran’s regime is likely to remain in power.
Mr Trump, under domestic pressure over the rise in oil prices, is reported to have offered Iran a 15-point plan aimed at ending the war. Tehran has pushed back against the offer of direct talks.
Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said on Wednesday that messages had been exchanged via mediators, but this “does not mean negotiations” with the US were ongoing.
