Will Trump Keep Going Until Regime Change in Iran?

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Those who thought President Donald Trump would. be satisfied with the death of Ayatollah Khamenei and forty other senior leaders, both civilian and military, the destruction of Iran’s store of ballistic missiles, its anti-missile defense systems, radar installations, naval ships, and attacks on nuclear sites that Iran had been rebuilding since the June war, have another think coming. It is now clear that Trump has no intention of stopping until the regime has collapsed, which he now predicts might take “four weeks.” More on his new war aim can be found here: “Trump will stay in the fight against Iran until regime is toppled, sources tell ‘Post’ – exclusive,” by Amichai Stein, Jerusalem Post, March 2, 2026:

Israel is confident that not only is regime change in Iran possible, but also that the US will stay in the fight until it happens, senior Israeli officials told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.

This is contrary to claims made by American officials who spoke with Reuters and expressed skepticism about the possibility of regime change.

“Trump intends to go all the way with this move,” one senior official told the Post. “He has already marked the target. He wants to replace the regime, and he has no intention of taking his foot off the gas.”

In recent days, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump have said that the objective of the operation is to “create the conditions for the Iranian people to replace the regime.”…

Another senior official said that the significant and indiscriminate missile fire directed at Gulf states has led those countries to conclude that regime change in Tehran is necessary.

The barrage of missiles that the Iranians have launched at Sunni Arab states in the Gulf, including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, and nearby, at Jordan, have turned those states into enraged enemies of Iran, promising to exact their revenge on the Islamic Republic. And they have concluded that it’s not enough for the American and Israeli attacks to weaken the rabid regime in Tehran; it needs to be replaced.

Trump said on Sunday night that he has three individuals in mind whom he views as possible leaders of Iran in the post-war period, but he did not disclose their names.

One of the three, surely, is Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, whose name has been shouted by the protesters on the streets of Iran — those cries of “Javid Shah,” which means “Long live the shah.” He has made clear he would only be a temporary figurehead for a transitional government, and would remain, unless the Iranian people demanded that he stay, only until elections could be held and a new government put in place.

Dr. Raz Zimmt, director of the Iran and the Shi’ite Axis Program at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), estimates that the more plausible scenario at this stage is not regime change but rather a change within the current leadership.

“At the moment, the only scenario, even if it would be difficult to implement, is some form of change within the existing regime and the rise of more pragmatic leadership. Even that is not simple right now, because the atmosphere at the top of the political system is highly militant,” he said….

But as long as the Revolutionary Guards remain dominant, no leadership will be able to bring about significant change in Iran.”

And it is the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) senior leaders, IRGC headquarters, IRGC command-and-control centers, that the Israelis are now relentlessly targeting in Tehran. The Israelis have so far conducted more than 2,000 strikes in the country in the space of two days. When the Israelis predict that regime change is possible, while some Americans officials are doubtful, whom should we trust? Who knows more about the inner workings of the Iranian government, the mood of the Iranian people, and the morale of the IRGC and the Basij? Is it the CIA, most of whose operatives left Iran in 1979, or the Mossad, that has maintained a large presence in the country out of necessity, ever since the anti-Israel Ayatollah Khomeini replaced the pro-Israel shah?

Until the Iranians do come onto the streets, by the millions, the regime will not fall. And since that is now President Trump’s war aim, the Americans and the Israelis will continue their attacks on the IRGC, the regime’s main instrument of oppression, until it is so weakened, not just in weaponry but in its morale, that Iranians will again feel safe enough to go out on the streets, demanding the regime change that Trump insists is now his war aim. Within about a month, we will see if, as the Israelis claim, regime change is possible or if, as all sorts of talking heads in Washington predict, the regime, battered but not bowed, remains in place.