Trump Aims to Reframe ‘Regime Change’ in Iran Conflict
There has been a change in the regime in Iran. Or it has not. The war has a specific objective. However, that is not the case. These are among the bewildering statements that have emerged from President Trump and his advisors in recent days. The phrase “regime change” has been uttered this week with the same frequency as fighter jets navigating the skies over the Persian Gulf. However, there seems to be a lack of consensus among senior administration officials regarding the interpretation of the phrase, or whether the United States and Israel have accomplished it during the four weeks of conflict with Iran. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth made a clear statement regarding the Iranian government at a news conference on Tuesday: “This new regime, because regime change has occurred, should be wiser than the last.” President Trump is poised to negotiate a deal. “He is willing.” A prevalent definition of regime change refers to a compelled shift in government or leadership that leads to fundamental changes in policies, politics, and governance. In Iran, an authoritarian theocratic leadership that is anti-American — and that continues to wage war — remains in power. On Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who also serves as the president’s national security adviser, conveyed some skepticism in an interview. “The people who lead them, this clerical regime, that is the problem,” he stated. “And if there are new people now in charge who have a more reasonable vision of the future, that would be good news for us, for them, for the entire world. But we also have to be prepared for the possibility, maybe even the probability, that that is not the case.”
Later, in an interview, Mr. Rubio emphasized the significance of dismantling Iran’s weapons, stating that the current leadership — referred to as the new regime by Mr. Hegseth — poses a threat. “I think the best way to stability, given the people who are in charge in Iran, is to destroy the ability of Iran in the future to launch these missiles and these drones against their infrastructure and civilian populations,” Mr. Rubio said. He stated that “our objectives here from the very beginning had nothing to do with the leadership.” However, Mr. Trump initiated the conflict on Feb. 28 by collaborating with Israel to execute a strike that resulted in the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, along with other high-ranking officials. Hours later, he urged Iranians to rise against their government once the bombing ceased. The anticipated uprising, which Israeli leaders assured Mr. Trump would occur, has yet to come to fruition; nevertheless, the president declares mission accomplished regarding regime change. “In fact,” he said, “the United States has been so successful that it has ended not just one, but two Iranian regimes.” Mr. Trump stated “We’ve had regime change, if you look, already because the one regime was decimated, destroyed. They’re all dead.” And “The next regime is mostly dead.” And the third regime, we’re engaging with individuals unlike any we’ve encountered previously. A completely distinct group of individuals. “So I would consider that regime change.” To underscore the point, he stated, “Regime change is an imperative, but I think we have it automatically.” On Tuesday afternoon, the president emphasized that he had “knocked out” two Iranian regimes, one after the other.
Mr. Trump’s remarks regarding the destruction of two regimes seemed to allude to the initial assaults that resulted in the deaths of Mr. Khamenei and other high-ranking officials, as well as the injury of his son Mojtaba Khamenei, who was subsequently designated by a group of clerics to become Iran’s new supreme leader. Officials from Iran and Israel report that the son sustained leg injuries, and he has not made a public appearance throughout the course of the war. The younger Mr. Khamenei is viewed as a staunch ally of a formidable faction within the Iranian military, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. The government in Tehran pledges to resist and persist in its struggle against the United States, Israel, and Arab allies, while also aiming to obstruct energy shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, thereby impacting the global economy. “There has been personnel change in Iran, not regime change,” stated Karim Sadjadpour. “Different men with the same ideology.” Mr. Trump’s remarks about regime change have created confusion. However, his military actions and coercive economic warfare against a select few nations — Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba — are primarily focused on removing leadership to install individuals who will comply with US demands, rather than pursuing a comprehensive overhaul of the political system. The president seeks to establish client states through the coercion of regime compliance, as part of a broader initiative to revive empire. He frequently references a template: the US military’s aggressive intervention in Venezuela in January aimed at capturing Nicolás Maduro, the nation’s president, alongside Mr. Trump’s ensuing discussions regarding oil and other issues with the acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, who, similar to Mr. Maduro, is a staunch leftist.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, stated at a news conference on Monday that the United States and Israel had to eliminate the older Mr. Khamenei along with some of his aides after diplomatic efforts with them proved too challenging. “Those previous leaders are now no longer on planet Earth,” she said, “because they lied to the United States and they strung us along in negotiations, and that was unacceptable to the president, which is why many of the previous leaders were killed.” Mr. Trump’s boastfulness regarding what he refers to as regime change is relatively recent. In 2016, during his presidential campaign, he condemned the extravagant US “forever wars” in Iraq and Afghanistan, asserting that “we must abandon the failed policy of nation-building and regime change.” In May, he delivered a speech in Saudi Arabia where he stated, “in the end, the so-called nation builders wrecked far more nations than they built, and the interventionalists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand.” Despite his embrace of war and military violence, Mr. Trump’s instinct to refrain from committing the United States to completely transforming hostile nations appears to persist for now. The president’s remarks this week asserting that leadership decapitation is regime change can be interpreted as an effort to redefine the phrase, allowing him to claim that his original war goal has been achieved. “The administration as a whole seems to be moving away from deep regime change as a goal of the war,” said Rosemary Kelanic. “A genuine regime change war in Iran would necessitate a significant troop presence — and a substantial number of them — and Trump judiciously refrains from committing to such an extensive endeavor when the costs and risks greatly surpass the potential benefits.”
