Name: Regime change: The real test of Trump’s Iran strategy | Fareed’s Take
Uploaded: 2026-03-01T21:32:04.000Z
Duration: 10 min 18 s
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My first reaction to news of the death of Ayatollah Khamenei was relief.

Basic passive voice

Relief for the 92 million Iranians who are freed from the grip of an 86 year old tyrant, a man who over nearly four decades ran his country into poverty at home and isolation abroad.

Khamenei was the hardest of the hardliners who defined Iran's unyielding opposition not only to America and the west and Israel, but

He shaped the modern Islamic Republic into the strange hybrid regime that it is run by clerics, military officers and bureaucrats, all repressive, dysfunctional and corrupt to the core.

But when we step back and ask where does this go next, things look murky.

President Trump has chosen to go to war with a country that did not pose an imminent threat to the United States.

His claims to the contrary are belied by his own words.

After the United States bombed Iran last June, the President loudly and repeatedly declared that he had obliterated Iran's nuclear program.

Yet eight months later, he asks us to believe that this obliterated program posed such an urgent threat to the United States that Trump had to act without seeking authorization from the United States Congress.

In his brief speech announcing the attack, President Trump revealed the true purpose of the military action, regime change.

He explicitly called on the Iranian people to overthrow their government.

In doing so, he has defined the purpose of this war and the measure by which it will be judged a success or failure.

Historically, regime change from the air has rarely taken place.

I cannot think of a single case in which a government fell without military forces on the ground actually doing the toppling.

And more broadly, the record of American sponsored regime change in the Middle east is not a happy one.

From Afghanistan to Iraq to Libya, there's always the possibility that this time will be different, that Iranians are more educated and desperate for freedom.

But it is likely to be a long and complex struggle.

Fears of a broader regional war are likely unfounded because Iran has already acted in self defeating ways that are uniting the region against it.

Rather than drive a wedge between the United States and the Gulf states which had expressed neutrality in this conflict, the Tehran went after the Gulf states in attacks that caused little military damage but incensed those countries.

Above all is the basic reality Iran is very weak.

Iran's military battered, dozens of its leaders killed in airstrikes.

Its allies like Hezbollah and Hamas are also in tatters.

Meanwhile, Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are bristling with military might.

Yet none of this will easily translate into success on the terms that Trump has implied regime change and a substantially better government for the long suffering Iranian people.

The most likely outcome is that a badly bruised government stays in power with new faces.

Perhaps the military becomes more powerful and the mullahs less so.

Perhaps Iran comes back to the table with even more concessions on the nuclear issue.

President Trump seems already to have recognized the complexity of the regime change strategy and has floated the idea that one of his off ramps might be to deal with new leaders of the same regime.

But once you call for the overthrow of a government, that becomes the definition of success or failure.

There is also the legacy of the way that Trump went to war.

The United States has a messy and far from perfect record of using force abroad, but

in modern times it has usually done so by first defining the broad principles at stake, working with international law and organizations, building a broad coalition of allies, and

consulting with Congress and the American people.

None of this was done in Operation Epic Fury, an apt name.

This was a decision making process that was fast and furious, as much about a dramatic show of strength as anything else.

As other countries look around and think about what kind of world they are living in, what rules they can rely on, what institutions they look to for stability, they're confronted by the reality that the world's leading nation, the creator of the international rules based system, has said loudly and clearly might makes right.

It's a new rule, and one that will gladden the hearts of Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin.

service members were killed in action as part of Operation Epic Fury and five more were seriously wounded.

Joining me now is retired Admiral James Stavridis, the former NATO Supreme Allied Commander and a Vice chair at the Carlisle Group.

And tell us first what has surprised you so far about the military side of things?

As you look at where we stand now, Day two, Day three, I'm happy to tell you what surprised me, and

But first, whatever your political persuasion, wherever you are on the political spectrum or however you feel about this set of events, please take a moment and hold those service men and women in your thoughts.

Raise a glass to them if that is your tradition.

That is 50,000 US sailors, airmen, marines, army, commanded, by the way, by an Admiral, Admiral Brad Cooper of U.S.

And we're just learning of the deaths of three and injuries, sadly.

Fareed, what has surprised me and I should get over Being surprised by this, but.

But is the ruthless lethality, particularly of the Israelis who are able in their side of the strike, to take out the equivalent of President Trump.

General Dan Kaine Secretary Pete Hegseth I mean, this really is a decapitation.

So that has been a surprise to get in that easily and take out that layer of leadership.

You know, you point out that this lethality and precision is unusual.

I was talking to the historian Timothy Naftali, who pointed out the US in the past had tried assassinations, famously of people like Fidel Castro, and

This is a new feature on the international stage stage.

And I suspect that while the United States and Israel are in the forefront, you know, this might become something, I don't want to say common practice, but

the other countries will have precision targeting and drones.

And I wonder whether this opens up a kind of can of worms in which countries are going to be targeting senior leadership.

However, it's always been a feature of war.

What has prevented more of that kind of decapitation, taking out the leader is simply the lack of intelligence, command and control.

But I can remind you In World War II, the United States shot down the aircraft that was carrying the commander in chief of the Japanese armed forces, for example.

we talked about what are the effects of air power and use of precision.

I commanded the NATO war in Libya in 2011.

We had plenty of opportunities to take out Gaddafi.

They'll be used against every level of military activity.

What do you suspect, Jim, is going to be the next wave of targets?

Because they seem to have gone in, you know, in a fairly dramatic way.

Senior leadership, but also military sites, ballistic missile sites.

So what do you think the next waves will.

you know, the Admiral is going to say this, I think we'll go against the maritime capability of Iran, which is not insignificant.

And by knocking that out preemptively while it hopefully sits in port, we can take out their minelayers, we can take out their small combatants, we can take out their diesel submarines.

This reduces risk to our own naval forces offshore.

But more importantly, perhaps it allows us to put prevent the full closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

That's happened because commercial shipping is making a decision not to go through it.

Going after naval targets would be smart.

And then a second level of targeting I think could be applied against mid tier Revolutionary Guard, not so much the conventional military because there is your hope of finding partners for protesters, rebels on the ground.

James Tavridis, always a pleasure to talk to you and we will be following this.

We'll probably be back to you for more in the weeks to come.