Regime Change is a Bell That Cannot Be Unrung
Trump and his administration are backpedaling in their backing for a democratic uprising in Iran, but it's not clear what else the goal might have been
In announcing military operations against Iran on February 28, U.S. President Donald Trump outlined an explicit goal: regime change. In the eight-minute video posted to social media, Trump urged Iran’s people to “take over your government” after the bombing ended. He went on: “No president was willing to do what I am willing to do tonight. Now you have a president who is giving you what you want, so let’s see how you respond. America is backing you with overwhelming strength and devastating force.”
Since then, he has been far less clear. In telephone interviews with The Atlantic and the New York Times and in a press conference on March 2, Trump did not unequivocally endorse regime change. He declined to tell the Atlantic whether he would continue bombing if a popular uprising began, and told the Times that the operation in Venezuela was a “perfect scenario” for Iran, while later contradicting himself that the people would “have an opportunity” to rise up. What happened in Venezuela was not regime change: while dictator Nicholas Maduro was abducted by U.S. forces to stand trial in New York, the autocratic regime stayed in place and the country’s vice-president, Delcy Rodriguez, took power.
Administration officials have further backed off regime change as being a goal of the operation. U.S. Vice President JD Vance told Fox News on March 2 that regime change was “incidental” to the president’s goal of making it clear that Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon. However, this rationale strains credulity because Trump declared last June after the U.S.-Israel bombing campaign that Iran’s nuclear program had been “completely and totally obliterated.” Trump’s claims of Iran posing an “imminent threat” to the U.S. also don’t hold water as U.S. intelligence estimated that Iran wouldn’t possess a missile that could reach the U.S. until 2035. U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth further muddied the waters by saying in a March 2 press conference: “This is not a so-called regime-change war, but the regime sure did change.”
Try as they might to backpedal, once regime change is called for, it is like the proverbial bell that cannot be unrung.
