President Donald Trump not only canceled anticipated military action against the Islamic Republic of Iran, but he also publicly thanked the regime’s leaders on January 16, 2026, for not carrying out 800 executions—an event that no official Iranian source had announced. The statement stunned Iranians in the United States and abroad, who had pinned their hopes on Trump’s repeated pledges to protect protesters by punishing the regime’s leadership.
“I greatly respect the fact that all scheduled hangings, which were to take place yesterday (over 800 of them), have been cancelled by the leadership of Iran. Thank you!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
“We do not intend to drag the country toward war, but we will not let domestic criminals go free. Nor will we let international criminals go.”
The remark appeared to embolden Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. On January 17, he met with senior officials and acknowledged that thousands had been killed, while warning that the authorities would continue to pursue what he called “troublemakers.” “We do not intend to drag the country toward war,” Khamenei said, “but we will not let domestic criminals go free.” He also issued threats aimed beyond Iran’s borders, adding, “Nor will we let international criminals go.”
On the same day, Tehran’s prosecutor also dismissed Trump’s remarks that Iranian authorities had canceled the execution of 800 people as “nonsense and baseless talk,” stressing that the authorities’ response would be “decisive, deterrent, and swift.”
Shortly afterward, the United States Department of State posted a message in Persian on X, warning that Tehran was preparing options to target U.S. bases. The post reiterated that “all options remain on the table” and cautioned that any attack on American assets would be met with “very, very powerful force,” concluding: “We have said this before and we say it again: Do not play games with President Trump.”
Trump’s decision appears to have been justified internally by the claim that Iran had canceled the execution of 800 detainees. While Iranian judicial authorities had announced plans to begin executions on January 14 and 15, no official statement indicated that 800 people were to be hanged in a single day. Trump introduced that figure without attribution, seemingly to rationalize his decision to withhold the intervention he had hinted at earlier in the week, when he urged Iranians to remain in the streets and continue protesting.
The sequence of events since January 9—when demonstrations escalated and began to resemble a revolutionary uprising—suggests that the U.S. administration was considering immediate military action that never materialized. During the same period, Iranian security forces launched a nationwide crackdown, using sustained military force over four days and killing what activists estimate to be at least 20,000 civilians, effectively breaking the momentum of the uprising.
The scale of the bloodshed exceeds the number of deaths in a full month of the war in Ukraine, where nearly 1.5 million combatants are engaged in fighting. Ukrainian estimates put Russian casualties at roughly 1,000 killed and wounded per day, with total daily death toll typically in the low hundreds.
Reports circulating on Iranian social media describe security forces killing wounded protesters inside hospitals or denying them medical treatment. Hundreds of young Iranians reportedly have lost one or both eyes after being shot at close range with birdshot, echoing the tactics used during the 2022 Mahsa Amini protests.
The regime is widely expected to resume hangings once domestic control is fully restored and international attention fades.
There is little to suggest that the Iranian regime has permanently halted executions. No senior official has pledged restraint, and the regime is widely expected to resume hangings once domestic control is fully restored and international attention fades. It remains unclear what assurances, if any, Trump has received that executions will not resume.
Some observers argue that Trump has not entirely abandoned the option of striking regime targets. Significant military assets are moving toward the region, including the USS Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group, en route from the South China Sea.
NBC and ABC have reported that Trump paused the strike after being warned that Iran could retaliate against U.S. forces in the region. A carrier strike group would be central both to deterrence and to countering Iranian ballistic missile launches, should escalation occur. It would take up to ten days for the USS Abraham Lincoln to reach Fifth Fleet area of operations.
The deployment, however, also may be intended as a warning, rather than a prelude to an air campaign. In that case, Trump’s decision would amount to a choice to deter further atrocities, rather than punish for those already committed. For Tehran, which has already carried out mass killings and reasserted control, such deterrence may come at little cost.
