During his three presidential campaigns, Donald Trump lambasted “forever wars” and “regime change” interventions. More than any candidate, he sensed the war-weariness of Americans after the fiascos in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, and especially the dismay of military veterans, 60% of whom voted for him over Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Trump’s maverick, anti-interventionist “America First” narrative also resonated strongly with those in the Maga movement who have never served in the military, particularly blue-collar workers.
Now, Trump, once an unsparing critic of military misadventures, has bombed the nuclear enrichment installations of Iran, a country that hadn’t attacked the US, wasn’t preparing to and didn’t even threaten war. Since the bombing, Trump has gone further: he has ruminated about regime change in Iran. His transformation has startled many of his Maga acolytes who share Tucker Carlson’s view that Trump risks being dragged into Israel’s fight with Iran and becoming embroiled in his own forever war. The fragile truce agreed to by Iran and Israel may ease their worries if it holds, but Trump might be drawn to regime change again if fighting resumes.
Perhaps Trump floated regime change to scare Iran’s leaders into dismantling their entire enrichment operation, something Tehran rejected from the outset of the negotiations with Washington. The president may believe that the risk of losing power will force Iran’s leadership, which is already under military pressure from Israel, to relent.
But Trump doesn’t need to go down this path. Having hit Iran’s enrichment installations – though it is now evident that they weren’t obliterated, contrary to his boast immediately after the strike – the president could declare victory. He could tell Israel’s strongest American supporters that he delivered on his pledge to protect it and then turn to reassuring Maga’s stars, such as Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon, that he remains a foe of forever wars. He won’t get Iran to sign a no-enrichment deal, but so what? He could claim that, contrary to the malicious mainstream media’s claims, he did in fact demolish Iran’s enrichment capabilities.
Taking this path would make sense. Despite his tough-guy persona, Trump has an instinctive aversion to needless wars that could turn into quagmires. The recent strike on Iran was risk-free: Iran lacked the air defenses needed to down the B-2 stealth bombers, so there was no chance of American pilots being killed or captured. And Tehran does not have the means to strike the American homeland in return. Even its ineffectual, face-saving missile salvoes against the US military base in Qatar were preceded by a warning – proof that Iran doesn’t want to do anything that might push Trump to join Israel’s war.
Iran has, in effect, provided Trump an opportunity to forget about regime change. He’d be foolish not to take it. Moving forward with the idea will create problems – politically at home, militarily in Iran.
On the domestic political front, the Carlson-Bannon wing of Maga will soon look past Trump’s attack on Iran, which JD Vance and the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, have already said doesn’t presage something bigger. But a war of regime change will be the equivalent of a bombshell. It will create a canyon-sized rift in Trump’s base between the unconditional supporters of Israel and those who think that the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, seeks to drag the US into his war because he believes that the destruction of the Iranian political system can prevent a nuclear-armed Iran. Trump has nothing to gain from such an outcome.
The military and strategic hazards of a regime change war are even worse, and one of them stems from the sheer size of Iran. It has nearly 92 million people and a land area of 636,371 sq miles (1,648,193 sq km). By contrast, Iraq’s population is less than half as large, and its territory is less than a third the size. Moreover, the Iranian army and ancillary forces, more than half a million active-duty soldiers, won’t go quietly into the night. They will have the advantage of fighting an invader on home ground and on many fronts across a vast area. Though many Iranians dislike the existing political order, it is hardly certain that they will welcome an invader rather than rallying as nationalists to defend their homeland.
Moreover, a military intervention in a multi-ethnic country like Iran could precipitate prolonged disorder and bloodletting. Persians comprise only 60% of the country’s population. Azerbaijanis account for 16%, Kurds for another 10%, and there are numerous smaller nationalities. The relationship between the Iranian state and minority ethnic groups, especially the Kurds, has featured periods of tension, even violence. The expectation of a regime collapse could trigger rebellions and, in response, repression by the state.
An optimist could counter that regime change need not require an occupation force tasked with creating stability. But the idea that a country’s political order can be revamped through airpower alone is an illusion. Regime change zealots could say, bombs away, stability be damned, upheaval will achieve the goal. The problem, however, is that the US can’t insulate itself from the resulting shock waves.
Iran exports 1.3 million-plus barrels of oil a day and overlooks the strait of Hormuz, the conduit for 20% of global oil exports. Iran also adjoins seven countries and shares maritime borders with six others. The latter are all closely aligned with the US, which has bases or a military presence on their territories. Shia Muslims, who make up 90% of Iran’s population, comprise between 55% and 70% of Bahrain’s population. Shia Muslims constitute only 10-12% of Saudi Arabia’s population but are concentrated in its oil-rich eastern province, where they account for 25-30% of its denizens. An American intervention in Iran won’t necessarily produce solidarity protests in these underdog Shia communities, but they could, and the Gulf monarchies may struggle to contain the consequences.
Given these sobering realities, it would be naive to believe that the US could take a wrecking ball to the Iranian state and walk away unaffected. Here’s hoping that Trump comes to understand this and won’t revert to dreams of regime change if the truce collapses. For now at least, Trump’s recent disavowal of regime change on the ground that it would produce chaos is welcome news. We must hope that the mercurial president doesn’t change his mind, as he does so often.
Rajan Menon is a professor emeritus of international relations at the City College of New York and a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies
