Some have called for a regime change in Iran. Though a change is unlikely to happen by itself, should President Donald Trump push for one, he would be making a grave mistake.
It is not the first time that foreign powers have imagined Iran as a crumbling house—one that only needs a gentle push, or a series of airstrikes, before it falls into new hands. This was the fantasy in 1953, when the CIA and the British intelligence overthrew Mohammad Mossadegh, Iran’s prime minister who had nationalized the country’s oil, and delivered Iran to Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s autocratic rule. And this was also the fantasy in the 1980s, when Saddam Hussein invaded Iran with military and economic support from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Israel, who believed the newly revolutionary Iran would collapse in months. It was the fallacy in 2003, when the George W. Bush Administration imagined the “axis of evil” could be undone through further isolation of Iran.
Now, the myth of a seamless regime change in Iran has been resurrected. “As we achieve our objective we are also clearing the path for you to achieve your freedom,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video address to the Iranian people.
The shape of Israel’s effort is clear: sabotage operations, assassinations, and strikes.
President Trump’s response has varied widely. First, he sought out a renewed nuclear deal with Iran. Later, he demanded its “unconditional surrender,” posting about the possibility of killing Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran. He moved American refueling jets closer to Europe and maintained a degree of ambiguity about the U.S. military’s commitment to Israel. Since, he has come to support Israel’s attacks on Iran.
But Iran is not Syria, Libya, or Iraq. If President Trump joins the war on Iran and commits the United States to removing the Iranian regime, the results will likely be more catastrophic than the 2003 war on Iraq, which killed more than 1.2 million people, displaced more than nine million Iraqis, contributed to the emergence of the Islamic State, and cost the United States about $3 trillion. America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan also contributed significantly to the squandering of its unipolar moment and setting off the decline of the American century.
American analysts often underestimate the strength of the Iranian state, which is structured for survival. The Iranian military has a dual architecture designed to resist coups and invasions: Artesh, the regular armed forces of around 420,000 men across ground, naval, air, and air-defense forces, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), an elite, ideologically driven military with roughly 190,000 personnel across ground, naval, and air branches. Beyond them is the Basij, a vast paramilitary network with hundreds of thousands of members embedded in every corner of Iranian society—in the streets, in neighborhoods, in schools, and mosques. They aren’t just loyalists of Ayatollah but woven into a deeper idea of the state and committed to the independence of Iran.
Despite Israel’s extensive and quite successful campaign of assassinations targeting senior IRGC commanders, the core of this group has not been hollowed out but hardened. A younger generation of more ideologically rigid commanders has emerged. They came of age in a regional military power, see themselves as the stewards of an embattled regional order, and push for more aggressive postures toward the United States and Israel—stances their more pragmatic predecessors, shaped by the war with Iraq, often resisted. This new generation of Iranian military commanders has also been battle-hardened in close-quarter conflict in Syria and understand how wars of state collapse can unfold.
If this war morphs into a war of state collapse—and it very well might—then what comes next will likely not be surrender. The Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force, which helped organize a patchwork of militias that bled American forces in Iraq for years, is well-positioned to do the same again. These networks—Lebanese, Iraqi, Syrian, Afghan—were built precisely to extend deterrence and sow instability in the event of direct conflict. Israel has deeply weakened Iran’s axis of non-state actors in the region, but Tehran retains the ability to foment militias to fight against American and Israeli troops and interests.
Bombing campaigns could significantly destroy military and civilian infrastructure in Iran but to replace the Iranian regime, President Trump has to be prepared to fight not just a standing army but a system with decades of experience in asymmetric warfare.
Yesterday, Trump posted on social media that the U.S. will not kill Iran’s Supreme Leader “at least not for now.” But Iran is not governed by a single man or clique that can be decapitated. The Iranian state is a competitive authoritarian system with institutions that have evolved over a century. Even amid crises, the system generates new leaders, factions, and power centers. Even the deaths of some influential figures would not bring the system down—it would renew it.
And Iran remembers: the invasions, the coups, the chemical attacks, and the long war of attrition it fought in the 1980s when the West bet on Saddam Hussain. At that time, the Islamic Republic was relatively young, with comparatively miniscule military resources, almost no idea of governance, and no battlefield experience. Saddam owned the skies. He wielded nerve gas. He had Western and Soviet support. Still, Iran did not fall.
The war with Iraq scarred Iran, however it taught the country that survival does not require parity but endurance. In the decades since, the Iranian state has reorganized itself not for peace, but for siege. Its military doctrine is not built for conquest but for resistance. Iran won’t simply absorb aerial bombardment or shrug off sabotage.
Moreover, Iran is a civilizational state. The identity binding many Iranians is not limited to a flag or a government but rooted in a deeper historical memory stretching back through empire, invasion, forced partitions, foreign coups, and colonial interludes. To be sure, the Islamic Republic has inflicted great suffering upon the Iranian people and enraged many Iranian protestors, but to mistake that rage for a longing to be “liberated” by foreign forces is to repeat the catastrophic delusions that defined the Iraq war in 2003.
Iran’s geography and demography will also affect the course of this conflict. Iran is four and a half times the size of Germany, with 92 million people. There are millions of Iranians who want an end to the Islamic Republic, but there are also millions who would fight any foreign attempt to decide what replaces it.
The talk of regime change was no doubt intensified by the success of Israel’s extensive intelligence campaign against Iran, leading to assassinations of Iran’s military leaders and nuclear scientists, sabotage of defense facilities, and aerial dominance. But these operations, while exposing Iran’s weakness and reducing its deterrence, also eviscerated the space for diplomacy and increased the possibility of violence and paranoia within the Iranian state.
Some argue that Iran, under pressure and humiliated by foreign penetration, may be more willing to strike a deal and abandon its nuclear ambitions. But many in Iran’s security establishment are likely to believe that only nuclear deterrence can ensure regime survival. The lesson they are likely to draw from the past two decades is that surrender does not lead to safety. Saddam gave up his weapons. He was invaded. Gaddafi gave up his nuclear program. He was overthrown.
In this view, the path to survival for Iran is not disarmament—it is deterrence. Iran may not yet be racing to build a nuclear bomb, but if the regime comes to believe that collapse is inevitable without it, it may sprint to make sure no one else dares to come for them again.
The irony is that the most ardent proponents of regime change in Iran may be accelerating the very nuclear program they claim to fear.
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