As the Iran war, sparked by U.S. and Israeli airstrikes, enters its first month, interpretations within the Donald Trump U.S. administration are diverging over regime change in Iran.
The New York Times (NYT) reported on Oct. 31 (local time), "President Trump and his aides have made conflicting statements about whether the U.S. and Israel's bombing has changed the Iranian regime," adding, "Even among senior administration officials, there appear to be differing views on what the term 'regime change' means, or whether the U.S. and Israel have achieved it in the four-week war with Iran."
At an executive order signing ceremony at the White House that day, President Trump said, "We toppled one regime. And we toppled a second regime," adding, "Now we are faced with people who are very different from before and much more reasonable and not radical. We achieved regime change."
He has continued to claim "regime change," citing the situation in which Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed by U.S. airstrikes and his second son, Mojtaba, succeeded him. On Oct. 29 aboard Air Force One, he also said, "There has already been regime change. The first regime was completely destroyed and they all died. The second regime is almost over. And the third regime is people entirely different from before."
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also backed President Trump's claim. At a press conference that day, he said of the current Iranian government, "Because regime change has already occurred, this new regime should be wiser than before."
By contrast, Secretary of State Marco Rubio took a much more cautious stance. In an interview with Al Jazeera, he said, "Do I believe the Iranian people deserve better leadership than Khamenei's theocracy? One hundred percent. Would the United States be heartbroken if there were changes in (Khamenei's) leadership? Not at all. But Iran's theocracy was not the main objective of this operation," drawing a line against regime change. In interviews with ABC and others, he also said, "The United States always welcomes a scenario in which a leader emerges in Iran with a future vision different from (what we have seen), but it is also highly possible that will not happen, and we must prepare for that scenario as well."
Amid this split within the Trump administration over regime change in Iran, the NYT pointed out that, contrary to the president's claims, no substantive regime change has occurred inside Iran. The general definition of regime change is that a government or leadership is forcibly replaced, bringing structural changes in policy, politics, and governance. In Iran, however, the authoritarian, anti-U.S. theocracy remains in place and the war continues.
Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, said, "In Iran, there has been a change of personnel but not a change of regime," adding, "They are simply different people with the same ideology."
Mojtaba, who inherited the position of supreme authority after Khamenei's death, is known to be closely aligned with hard-liners in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The Iranian government has declared resistance to the United States and continues retaliatory attacks against the U.S.-Israel-Arab alliance, while disrupting energy shipments in the Strait of Hormuz and affecting the global economy. In short, Mojtaba can be seen as sharing the same tendencies as his predecessor, his father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. However, Mojtaba's current condition, reportedly seriously injured, is not known, and it remains uncertain whether he is the one actually directing the Iran war.
Given these circumstances in Iran, the NYT said President Trump's claim that the Iranian regime was changed through the war could be interpreted as an attempt to redefine the very concept of "regime change" to emphasize that the initial war objectives were achieved.
Meanwhile, Rosemary Kelanic, director of the Middle East program at the Washington think tank Defense Priorities, said, "The Trump administration as a whole appears to be moving farther away from the 'complete regime change' it set as a war goal," adding, "A true regime-change war requires the deployment of large-scale ground forces. President Trump is unlikely to make that choice because the expense and risks far exceed the benefits."