After decades of disastrous wars in the Middle East, the U.S. may have finally learned one lesson: regime change is exceedingly difficult. Removing a head of state is the easy part; what comes after is not. If the underlying goal is regime change, it’s expected the US will cultivate an alternative leadership overseeing a somewhat functioning state. This is when things go awry – and why few are meaningfully working towards a regime change in Iran.
The examples of such failed endeavors are numerous. The U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003; they killed Saddam Hussein in 2006. Twenty years later, the U.S. is still in Iraq. Preemptive declarations of “mission accomplished” contradicted the long complications of nation-building that were yet to come. Today, Iraq is deeply divided with a convoluted political system fractured along ethnic lines – still, it is a functioning state, but it took two and a half decades, billions of dollars, around a million dead, and a wave of terror across the region. Whatever stability Iraq has achieved also owes more to Iraqi political adaptation than to American design.
Meanwhile in Afghanistan, the U.S. spent two decades attempting to replace the Taliban – only to get the Taliban, once again. And in Syria, Washington armed rival factions seeking to topple Bashar al-Assad, stoking ethnic tensions and plunging the country into civil war. At one point, militias armed by the Pentagon were fighting those armed by the CIA.
But Libya provides a different kind of cautionary tale. In 2011, U.S. strikes aided in the killing of Muammar Gaddafi. Yet officials in the Obama administration weren’t particularly concerned with installing a replacement or wanted to become enmeshed in the messy business of nation building, leaving Libyans to deal with the aftermath and subsequent power vacuum alone. In 2010, Libya was one of the wealthiest countries in Africa and enjoyed a high standard of living. Today, it’s a failed state primarily run by violent militias and slave traders, marred by years of civil war.
Presently, the U.S. has assassinated Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei under the pretext of bringing democracy to Iran, or because they will soon have nuclear weapons, a false assertion. What comes next?
Though Washington officials may feign efforts to reinstall the Shah, this attempt is perfunctory at best. The exiled son of Iran’s brutal dictator, overthrown in the 1979 Islamic Revolution, is not poised to ride into Tehran on a white horse and set the country right with a monarch’s flair. While he retains a loyal following among the Iranian diaspora in the United States – particularly those from wealthy families who flourished under the violent monarchy – he is deeply unpopular within Iran. Few are seriously entertaining such fantasies that reinstalling a king who has lived in America for four decades will be smooth-sailing.
Worse, American and Israeli strikes on Iran have eliminated more viable opposition leaders, including jailed critics of the Islamic Republic. When discussing a potential clerical successor to Khamanei, Trump himself told a reporter: “The attack was so successful, it knocked out most of the candidates. It’s not going to be anybody that we were thinking of because they are all dead. Second or third place is dead.” Reportedly, the U.S. is also intentionally targeting leftist activists.
Because ultimately, replacing the Islamic Republic is not the main objective, or even a desirable one. Rather, the goal in Iran is ethnic balkanization and a failed state. They don’t want to change the regime in Iran, they want to collapse the state itself. The purpose of military strikes is to disintegrate the state’s institutions, fueling ethnic tensions and secessionist movements, leaving Iran deeply divided and marred by civil war and sectarian violence — a parallel to 2015 Syria.
Political collapse could intensify separatist pressures among Kurds in the northwest, Baluchis in the southeast, and Azeris in the north, particularly if outside powers sought to weaponize ethnic grievances. Already, the Trump administration has discussedarming separatist groups within Iran, which would mirror the horrific strategy used in Syria and Afghanistan: empowering brutal militias fighting amongst one another. But in this instance without American boots on the ground.
The “Department of War” is thus not concerned with Iraq and Afghanistan syndrome, because they seemingly have no intent on getting entangled in another round of nation-building and forever war. Rather, they intend to destabilize Iran, leave it to the wolves, and withdraw.
This dystopian trajectory clears the way for Israel to eliminate all meaningful military opposition in the region. In Syria, Israel has spent the last year bombing the country’s military infrastructure and obliterating its capacities – despite the new government being a western ally and issuing no threats against Israel. It’s clear Israel will tolerate no one in the region even having the potential to challenge it.
Israel’s security doctrine has long centered on maintaining a “qualitative military edge” – ensuring overwhelming technological and operational superiority over any regional rival. Codified in U.S. law, the principle is clear: no neighboring state should be allowed to develop the capacity to challenge Israeli military dominance. Within that framework, a fragmented state would pose far less of a long-term threat than an independent regional power capable of rebuilding its forces.
It’s evident Netanyahu desires the eradication of any and all regional powers. He has been warning since 1990 that Iran was on the brink of nuclear capability, spending three decades searching for an excuse for the US to intercede on Israel’s behalf and strike Iran. Though weakened, the Axis of Resistance still proves a stubborn obstacle to Israel expanding its borders in pursuit of “Greater Israel” – not just seizing the remaining Palestinian territories, but stretching into Syria and Lebanon. Therefore, the resistance must be eliminated, and the path goes through Iran.
As Danny Citrinowicz, senior researcher at Tel Aviv’s Institute for National Security Studies, told the Financial Times this week, summarizing his government’s position on Iran: “If we can have a coup, great. If we can have people on the streets, great. If we can have a civil war, great. Israel couldn’t care less about the future [or] the stability of Iran.”
From an Israeli perspective, a splintered Iran trapped in civil war is preferable to a new government, however beholden to western interests it may be (See: Syria). Meanwhile, Trump may nominally prefer a regime change to state collapse, but he is unwilling to put forth the resources to achieve it and will eventually disengage when the costs begin to mount.
If the Iranian regime falls, not just figureheads but the state apparatus itself, the inevitable result will be massive destabilization and Libya 2.0, if not worse. This is by design. The U.S. most certainly has no illusions of bringing democracy to Iran, which could potentially be achieved via support for the opposition or reformists organizing within the country, instead of bombing them. But Israel doesn’t want Iran to have a sovereign democracy, it wants incapacitation – clearing the way for its own firepower in the region to go unchecked.
Iran’s security apparatus is deeply entrenched and unlikely to unravel quickly. But if sustained strikes succeed in breaking the state rather than merely weakening its leadership, the consequences would be catastrophic. A country of nearly ninety million people does not fracture quietly. Hundreds of thousands will die, and millions more will be displaced. Because bombs never liberate – they fragment: bodies, countries, societies.
