Despite calls for regime change in Iran, history, logistics, and strategic analysis suggest it would likely backfire, destabilizing the region, increasing anti-American sentiment, and failing to produce better outcomes.
If the Israel-Iran ceasefire falls apart, what will be the Trump administration’s next move?
On June 22, President Donald Trump posted on Truth Social “If the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change???”
Would the Trump administration authorize a regime change operation in Iran? Some politicians and analysts have been arguing for years that Supreme Leader Khamenei’s government should be overthrown. Beyond the critical legal and ethical questions, US-backed regime change in Iran would be, in strategic terms, a march of folly. The stated motivations: the “why” for regime change, including dismantling Tehran’s nuclear program and installing a less repressive regime, fail under scrutiny.
Moreover, the means and methods that could be used: the “how” to produce regime change, either decapitation or occupation, would likely fail to produce the desired outcome and cost far too much in blood and treasure.
Why Would the US Pursue Iranian Regime Change?
The US Iran hawks who have been clamoring for a regime change operation for at least twenty years, and in some cases since the 1979 Revolution, may finally get their wish. As the saying goes, be careful what you wish for.
Today, the top-line logic is that regime change is needed to halt or dismantle Iran’s nuclear program, especially in light of Israeli claims that Tehran was very close to having a weapon. We should take these claims with a grain of salt.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has been arguing for years that an Iranian nuclear weapon was imminent. In March 2025, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard testified that Iran was not building a weapon. The most recent IAEA reports put their best estimates of Iran’s enrichment close to 60 percent (80-90 percent is considered weapons grade), and, though opinions vary, there is no concrete evidence to suggest that they are rushing toward weaponization.
Beyond this, the Israeli and American airstrikes have damaged the Iranian nuclear infrastructure. Especially given the experience of the US war in Iraq, built on unfounded claims of weapons of mass destruction, the United States should be circumspect regarding regime change operations built on dubious claims of WMDs.
It is also unclear why US leaders believe that pursuing regime change would wipe out the nuclear program.
There are factions within Iran’s political establishment that take a harder line on the nuclear program than Khamenei. Removing the top leadership could very well bring in a regime more hostile to the United States and Israel, and more committed to a weapons program. Moreover, the open discussion of regime change (and the bombing campaign) gives ammunition to this hard-line position by reaffirming that Iran needs this credible deterrent.
The biggest reason regime change seems like an odd answer to Iran’s nuclear program is that diplomacy has proven successful in the past. Imperfect as any agreement is, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was working to limit Iranian enrichment activities until Trump tore up the deal in 2018.
Until a few weeks ago, it appeared that US Special Envoy Witkoff and the administration were attempting to negotiate a new nuclear deal to address the now higher levels of Iranian enrichment. However, the administration seems to have shifted away from this initiative, at least for the time being.
US leaders have also referenced Iran’s support for terrorist groups, including Hezbollah, Hamas, and Iraqi militias, as a rationale for regime change. These Iranian-supported groups have and continue to target and kill Americans, but regime change is a strange antidote to the problem.
Any government in Iran is going to be Shia, and given their sense of encirclement, they are likely to provide at least some support for these armed groups. While Iran does provide them with significant resources, these groups are also expected to endure even without Tehran’s backing. The instability associated with a regime change operation is more likely to increase the risk from existing and potentially new armed groups.
Another reason proponents give for regime change, generally in tandem with the first two, is that it is necessary because the current regime is brutal and repressive. This is unequivocally true. Many Iranians, both within the country and abroad, harbor tremendous disdain for the government.
This sentiment has grown stronger following the 2022 crackdown, including imprisonments and executions after regime forces killed Masha Amini, igniting the Woman, Life, Freedom protest movement. Of course, the US government, and the Trump administration in particular, have been, at best, highly selective in their disapproval of human rights abuses, casting doubt on the sincerity of much of the criticism, and ringing particularly shallow to those who saw how quickly the US abandoned its “priorities” of protecting women and girls in Afghanistan.
Even if this rationale were taken on faith, there is no reason to believe that toppling the regime would improve the rights of the Iranian people.
Nonetheless, if we were to accept that denuclearization, halting Iran’s support for non-state actors, and advancing Iranians’ human rights are reasonable and sincere priorities, how would regime change work in practice?
How Could the US Change the Iranian Regime?
Regime change operations rely on various methods, everything from covert assassinations to direct support for military coups, and military occupation, and dismantling of political structures and institutions. The recent Israeli attacks seemed to center on targeting top Iranian military (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps) officials, nuclear sites, and scientists, with the potential to expand to other political leaders.
Though at times, President Trump has denied wanting to overthrow the government in Tehran, some US officials seem to be considering a decapitation strategy. It is not apparent, though, how this could produce an Iranian government and associated foreign policy more friendly to US and Israeli interests.
Although Iran is, by most measures, a personalist regime with a Supreme Leader who enjoys undisputed executive power, it has political institutions and constitutional processes in place for succession to virtually all political positions. Were the Supreme Leader to be killed, the Assembly of Experts would vote on a new one.
Iran underwent a transition in 1989 with the passing of its first Supreme Leader, Ruhollah Khomeini. Although the constitutional elements changed, an institutionalized process remained in place. If the president were killed, new elections would be held, as they were after former President Ebrahim Raisi was killed in a helicopter crash in 2024. If the Iranian Congress (Majlis) were attacked, the Guardian Council, given its role in elections and legislation, would likely convene.
The Expediency Council would aid all of these activities. Given that the Guardian Council disqualifies the vast majority of applicants wishing to run for office, the ideological spectrum of the political establishment in Iran ranges from moderate reformers to hard-line conservatives, none of whom are particularly keen on doing the United States’ bidding.
It is possible that, in the event of the death of the Supreme Leader, especially at the hands of the United States, there could even be a power grab by the Revolutionary Guard, a situation that would, if anything, make US-Iran bilateral relations worse.
Even if the United States were able to destroy somehow these political bodies, who would govern? There is no cohesive government opposition, neither the Women, Life, Freedom movement nor the earlier Green Movement exists as a permanent organization or political party. Furthermore, within these groups, even at the height of the protest movements, there were not unified calls for regime change, but rather for reforms.
Is Iran’s Current Government Strong?
To be sure, the Iranian regime is very unpopular. Gallup polls in 2023 indicated that Iranian disapproval of the regime was around 53 percent, while other estimates have been significantly higher. An estimated 40 percent turnout was reported in the last Iranian presidential election, the lowest since the 1979 revolution.
It is vital, though, that we make conservative inferences based on this. Too many interviews rely on Iranian sources with dual citizenship, or intel from diaspora members who are significantly more likely to be critical of the regime and whose preferences don’t necessarily reflect those still living in Iran.
Additionally, the bombing campaign likely created a bit of a rally around the flag effect, increasing support for Iran’s leadership.
Occasionally, analysts who oppose the Iranian regime will pitch two alternatives to lead the government: the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), or the last Shah’s eldest son, Reza Pahlavi. Both the Shah’s son and the MEK are widely disliked (if not despised) in Iran, and would have no public support or mandate to govern. The fact that the US-backed coup in 1953 was responsible for overthrowing a democratically elected government and reinstalling the Shah has not been forgotten.
If a decapitation strategy is therefore implausible, how else might regime change be accomplished?
In all likelihood, a ground invasion and occupation well beyond the scale of the 8-year conflict in Iraq and the 20-year catastrophe in Afghanistan. Iran is a country of over 90 million, almost four times the size of Iraq. Taking on the 150,000-strong IRGC, not to mention Iran’s conventional military, would be a herculean task. Given Iran’s mountainous topography and borders with Iraq and Afghanistan, a drawn-out insurgency could also easily bleed into and draw in its unstable neighbors.
Lastly, even if decapitation were plausible, and the American public had the appetite for a long, drawn-out occupation, as political scientists Alexander Downes and Lindsey O’Rourke have demonstrated, regime change operations often fail to produce long-term improvement in bilateral relations. The authors first find that national interests extend beyond the preferences of individual leaders, meaning that regime change does not necessarily alter a state’s core positions. Second, newly installed regimes frequently face difficulties in reconciling the needs of their domestic population with the pressures from the foreign powers that supported their rise to power, leading to renewed conflict.
A US-Backed Regime Change in Iran Would Fail
Given both the flawed logic of regime change and the impossibility of successfully implementing it, what might motivate its advocates?
One explanation is a lack of understanding or unwillingness to acknowledge Iran’s history and political structure.
Second, regime change advocates often rely on a particular combination of wishful thinking and liberal narratives, particularly the notion that democracy will naturally emerge if autocrats are removed from power. Despite numerous examples to the contrary, this myth appears to persist.
Third, some see a policy of regime change as punitive. In that respect, regime change isn’t so much a means to accomplish something else; punishment is the whole ballgame. It is also possible that some supporters of regime change hope to create instability in Iran, reasoning that a chaotic country would present less of a risk (somehow). This is ethically repugnant, risking the safety of the entire country, and, beyond that, just a bad gamble.
Although US foreign policy leaders are tasked with considering trade-offs and making difficult decisions daily, determining whether to pursue regime change in Iran is not particularly challenging. Calls for regime change are, at best, buttressed by a highly questionable strategy with a low probability of success, and, at worst, an a-strategic misadventure that will not only be ineffective, but make things far-far worse.
About the Author: Madison Schramm
Madison Schramm is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto and a nonresident senior fellow in the Reimagining US Grand Strategy Program at the Stimson Center. Previously, Schramm was an assistant professor in the Department of National Security and Strategy at the US Army War College, a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Politics and Strategy at Carnegie Mellon University , a postdoctoral fellow in Innovative Approaches to Grand Strategy at the International Security Center at the University of Notre Dame and the Hillary Rodham Clinton Research Fellow at the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace, and Security. She received her PhD from Georgetown University in Government (2019), and her dissertation, entitled “Making Meaning and Making Monsters: Democracies, Personalist Regimes, and International Conflict,” was the recipient of the 2020 Kenneth N. Waltz Best Dissertation Award from the American Political Science Association’s International Security Section.
Image Credit: Shutterstock/thomas koch.
