US 'Ill-Prepared' To Deal With Fallout of Potential Strike on Iran Leadership, Says Jen Gavito

Jen Gavito, senior advisor at The Cohen Group and former-acting principal deputy assistant secretary of state for near eastern affairs under President Biden, said that a potential strike against Iranian leadership could open a 'can of worms' that the US is 'ill-prepared' to understand and deal with. Gavito said that a strike could give unpredictable results and have a destabilizing effect on the entire region.

iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff are exchanging messages on an “informal” basis, the semi-official Iranian Students News Agency reported, as rights groups confirm more deaths in the recent uprising against the Islamic Republic.

The two sides are in contact but “do not currently have a fixed channel of communication,” Iran’s Ambassador to Geneva, Ali Bahreini, said in comments published by ISNA, adding “It can hardly be called a negotiation.”

A number of countries have offered to mediate between the US and Iran in the wake of escalating tensions, Bahreini added, without giving further details.

The ambassador’s comments are the first official confirmation since Iran’s deadly wave of protests that Washington and Tehran are actively in touch, though US President Donald Trump said in Davos last week that there is willingness on both sides to talk.

Trump has repeatedly admonished Iran’s leaders online and threatened them with military action over their deadly crackdown on protests that started on Dec. 28 and escalated significantly on Jan. 8, shortly before authorities shut down the internet and restricted telephone communications.

President Donald Trump warned Iran to make a nuclear deal with the US or face military strikes far worse than the attack he ordered last June, ratcheting up pressure on the regime even as regional leaders sought to spur fresh diplomacy between the adversaries.

In a social-media post, Trump said the fleet of US ships he’d ordered to the region, led by the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, was “ready, willing, and able to rapidly fulfill its mission, with speed and violence, if necessary.”

“Hopefully Iran will quickly ‘Come to the Table’ and negotiate a fair and equitable deal - NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS - one that is good for all parties,” Trump wrote.

In response, Iran said it stands ready for dialogue based on mutual respect and interests but warned that “IF PUSHED, IT WILL DEFEND ITSELF AND RESPOND LIKE NEVER BEFORE,” the country’s mission to the United Nations said in a post on X.

Trump has repeatedly warned Iran that the US might launch another attack on the country, but those threats were linked to a deadly crackdown on protests that began in late December. Trump has previously said Iran’s nuclear program was “obliterated” in the strikes last June that targeted three facilities across the country.

Iran has long said it does not want to develop nuclear weapons. Notably, in his latest post, Trump did not demand that Iran end nuclear enrichment, its ballistic missile program or its funding of anti-US proxy militias, all conditions Iran has balked at previously.

At the same time, Trump said earlier this month that Iranian officials had reached out to resume negotiations with the US that were suspended after the June attacks. And signs have emerged in recent months that Iran could restart the program if it wanted. The director of the UN’s nuclear watchdog, Rafael Mariano Grossi, said in an interview last week that the country retains its stockpile of highly-enriched uranium.

Trump has gone back and forth in recent days over whether the US would strike Iran again. He had previously suggested he was less likely to attack after claiming that Iran had agreed not to execute some of the people arrested during the demonstrations.

“We think strikes on Iran are likely, unless the Iranians accept Trump’s extensive demands to decommission their nuclear program — which doesn’t look likely,” Bloomberg Economics analysts Becca Wasser and Dina Esfandiary wrote.

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