Name: What if the Iranian regime can’t be overthrown? Lyse Doucet analysis | BBC News
Uploaded: 2026-03-06T23:02:22.000Z
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President Trump keeps saying he wants to create an opportunity for Iranians to take control of their government.

The United States and Israel are launching airstrikes across Iran.

To the great, proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand.

I'm the BBC's chief international correspondent.

And I've been visiting Iran for a very long time.

So since 1988, this is the moment for action.

Everyone keeps asking, why did this war start and where will it end?

And it's difficult to answer that question because every day a leading member of President Trump's administration gives a slightly different version of what the end game is.

What we do know is President Trump has always been clear, Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.

Now, Iran always said that it has not been developing a nuclear weapon and has no ambition to do so.

Last night, on President Trump's orders, US Central Command conducted a precision strike in the middle of the night against three nuclear facilities in Iran.

So this time, again, they are also hitting some of the nuclear sites in the same way they did last year during the June war against Iran.

Ballistic missiles are especially a target.

And from what we can see so far, they're going after the launches from which allow Iran to attack not just Israel, but

what we're seeing in this war, it's attacking countries across the Middle East.

It says it's doing that in self defense, but those leaders are really angry at Iran.

It also wants to ensure that Iran doesn't have the capacity to produce more ballistic missiles.

Well, it's targeting the offices of the leadership, the security forces which protect the leadership, the bases of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, the Basichi, their volunteer militia, and

both the Islamic Revolutionary Guards in the Basichi, those are volunteer militia.

They are the foot soldiers of this revolution.

They were set up in 1979 with a task to defend, to protect and to preserve the Islamic Republic.

And they are still in action, although they are getting pounded every day.

Will it be also that President Trump is not going to end this war until he brings down the regime?

Well, he set out concern, conflicting signals about that.

Whether he would be willing to work with someone else in the clerical regime or whether he wants a totally new order, the end of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Every time there's a wave of protests in Iran, and

there's been waves of protest every few years, many ask, is this going to mean the end of the Islamic Republic.

But even in January, there were no cracks in the security forces, no major defections.

Well, we know day after day the Israeli American attacks are killing Iranian leaders.

The last number we had was that 49 very senior leaders had already been killed, including the top cleric, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader.

He was killed in the first wave of attacks on Saturday.

So far, even though there has been several significant damage to the leadership at the buildings, to their offices, to the military bases, there's still no sign, no one is defecting.

So so far, even though it's under attack, the regime seems to be holding.

The United States armed forces conducted an extraordinary military operation in the capital of Venezuela.

President Trump talked about what happened in Venezuela.

In January, where with American military action, they were able to extract the President of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro.

His wife insisted on going with him, too, and he's now on trial in New York.

And President Trump's administration is working with what's left of his order.

It's not that simple in the Islamic Republic of Iran that you would get one person who may be more pragmatic.

Suspicion and hostility towards the United States, more broadly to the west, runs deep in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

And there are layers and layers of security, political, ideological organizations.

It isn't just a question of taking off the top and you can work with the new order.

But there is discussion that perhaps if there is new leading.

President Trump has said, well, we're looking for new leaders.

He said, most of the leaders that we had in mind are now dead.

And, of course, President Trump keeps changing his mind.

Sometimes he talks about changing the regime, and sometimes he talks about change in the regime.

Could the people of Iran even take over their government?

We saw in January an extraordinary wave of protests which went right across the country, and

it was put down with lethal force, causing thousands, many thousands of death, the greatest number in Iranian history.

Even before this war, Iran was at a crossroads, pulling in different directions.

And even those Iranians who would like to go out on the streets to call for change, they're now trying to help protect themselves against the missiles which are landing in Tehran and many other cities.

Iranians now feel conflicting emotions, and

they've been warned by the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards that if you go out into the streets to protest you'll meet an iron fist and be considered a collaborator.

This war is being regarded by the leaders of the Islamic Republic as a battle for survival.

And Iranians now are asking, is it a battle for their survival, too?

It's hard to give an exact idea what the people of Iran are thinking.

There are no reliable opinion polls, and the Internet is always restricted.

But I was really struck when we went to Tehran in February, just how many people came up to us and says, we need change now.

For some people, it's simply a question of making their lives better.

Remember that this last wave of protests had been triggered by financial woes, by the spiraling inflation.

And also the currency, the real currency, in free fall against the dollar.

They just want a normal life and they want the international sanctions to be lifted.

But for other Iranians, there are no quick fixes.

The only way to bring about change is to change the Islamic Republic of Iran to bring down the current order.

How many people came up to us and they wanted.

Their emotion was so raw after what had happened in January during the crackdown.

Some people burst down and broke down in tears.

So those are people who were hoping that the end of the top leadership would bring about the end of regime.

But as this war goes on, they know it's not that easy.

How many people support the current regime?

We do know that, for example, when you take the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was assassinated in the early hours of this war, that there are those who revered him and they were those who reviled him.

But I think you can say everyone, no matter whether they support the government or don't support the government, before this war started, they knew something had to change.

Change in Iran's relationship with the world, particularly with the west, and

most of all with the United States, and change in their own lives.