Stumbling Blocks Enroute To Regime Change In Iran – Analysis

The joint US-Israeli air attack on Iran was a bid to bring about a regime change and establish total US-Israeli dominance in the West Asian region. The nuclear enrichment issue, which the duo had touted as the reason for the deadly strikes, was only a pretext to forcibly overthrow the radical Islamic regime and install a puppet.  

Yes, decapitation has taken place. Ayatollah Khamenei along with other key leaders has been killed. But the next critical step, setting up an alternative puppet regime which will last, will be very challenging, experts on Iran say.  

Equally importantly, the Trump-Netanyahu action does not have the full support of the American people and the US Congress. Therefore, the troubles both in Iran and West Asia are compounded by challenges at home.   

The Liberal Wall 

American Liberals disapprove of it, saying that President Donald Trump had broken the law by not getting Congressional sanction first. He has disregarded Iran's offers for a peaceful and reasonable settlement of the nuclear issue and has gone to war without consulting the American people. 

Congressman Ro Khanna demanded swift action from Congress to stop the Trump administration's unauthorised military assault on Iran. In a video posted on social media, Khanna said, "The American people are tired of regime change wars that cost us billions of dollars and risk our lives. We don't want to be at war with a country of 90 million people in the Middle East. Every member of Congress should go on record today on how they will vote on my War Powers Resolution." 

Dr Brahma Chellaney, an Indian expert on international affairs, said that the Omani Foreign Minister — a key mediator in U.S.–Iran talks — had publicly disclosed that Iran had agreed, during negotiations, to surrender its enriched uranium stockpiles and forswear the acquisition of nuclear weapons indefinitely. The disclosure was intended to strip Trump and his team of a nuclear pretext for war. 

Officials of the Obama Administration who had worked on the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran were quoted as saying that Trump was wrong when he said that Iran was insincere in its dealings with the US. Trump wanted Iran to abjure all nuclear projects, including peaceful ones.  But this was rejected by Iran as it would be against international law and equity. 

But Trump had a totally different perspective. He believed that given Iran's regional ambition to displace Israel and the US as the dominant force, it should not be allowed to emerge as a challenge.  

It appears that for the US, it is alright for North Korea, Pakistan or India to have nuclear weapons, because these countries do not challenge the US or its allies in their regions. But Iran, under the Ayatollahs, is a different kettle of fish. It threatens vital US interests in West Asia. 

War Unpopular in the US 

Trump had gambled by going to war when war had become unpopular among Americans. A YouGov/The Economist poll, conducted between June 13 and 16, 2025, had revealed that only 16% of Americans believed that the US should take military action against Iran. The survey reflected a growing public dissatisfaction with Trump's aggressive foreign policy.   

The YouGov report showed that 56% of Americans supported diplomacy over force regarding Iran's nuclear program. This included majorities in both political camps - 58% among Democrats and 61% among Republicans. 

The Gallup poll on Americans' opinion on Israelis and Palestinians, published last week, said that 41% of Americans sympathised with the Palestinians in contrast to 36% who sympathised with the Israelis. A year ago, Israelis had a clear lead (46% for Israelis vs 33% for the Palestinians. 

There is thus a clear swing in America towards peace, human rights and justice, justice not only for Americans but for all people of the world. 

Supporters of Military Action 

However, supporters of military action in Iran point out that its leadership was out to destroy America and Israel. Others say that kinetic action is needed to liberate the Iranian people from the medieval bondage imposed by the Ayatollahs. West Asia had to be liberated from a disruptive force spawning rebel groups like the Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and Hamas in Gaza. Iranian-backed groups have been active in Iraq and Syria too. 

In a video message to the Iranian people, Trump said - "When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will probably be your only chance for generations." On February 13 he said that regime change was "the best thing that could happen." 

An Iranian scholar, Karim Sadjadpour, who is a senior fellow at the 

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote in The New YorkTimes, that since 1989, when he took over Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei had been dangerously extending his tentacles.  

Paranoid about being eliminated, Khamenei governed with hypervigilance and brutality. For him, the chief schemers against him were the US and Israel. He also believed that the Islamic Republic required enmity with America to survive. According to Sadjadpour, the Khamenei regime's slogans were   "Death to America" and "Death to Israel," and not "Long Live Iran". 

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the Munich Security Conference and later in Hungary that the Iranian Shia clerics could not be trusted to be rational. "These people make policy decisions on the basis of pure theology. So, it's hard to do a deal with Iran."

Sadjadpour points out that Ayatollah Khamenei had isolated Iran's population from the global financial system. Its currency was among the world's most devalued, its passport among the most denied, its internet among the most censored. Brain drain became one of Iran's top exports as some 150,000 Iranians left the country annually. 

Khamenei spent billions of dollars funding an "Axis of Resistance" throughout the Middle East. He funded Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. His missiles struck not only Israel but the Qatar because it hosted US bases. 

In retaliation, Israel struck devastating blows against Iran and the 

"Axis of Resistance". Hamas' leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed in Tehran. Yahya Sinwar was killed in Gaza. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was also eliminated. 

In the 12-day war in June 2025, Israel battered Iranian cities and military installations and assassinated top Revolutionary Guards commanders in their bedrooms and bunkers, paving the way for the US to drop 14 bunker-busting bombs on Iran's nuclear sites. 

Khamenei Targeted Citizens 

Khamenei turned his wrath on the Iranian population also. In January 

2026, as protests over the economy engulfed the country, he ordered a crackdown which claimed 6,800 lives, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, to as many as 30,000 killed in a 48-hour rampage, according to estimates from two senior officials in Iran's Ministry of Health, as reported by Time Magazine. 

Challenges in Regime Change 

By decapitating the Iranian political structure, the US and Israel have established that they are, at least for now, the top dogs in West Asia. As a next step, they would try to install a friendly or puppet government as the US did in Venezuela. 

But in an article in the Middle East Monitor, Timothy Hopper debunks the theory that an external agency can bring about a desirable regime change.   

He says, "Contrary to popular belief, domestic protests and widespread societal discontent are not necessarily signs that the public is ready to accept a power vacuum or foreign intervention. In many instances, external pressure has not weakened the regime; instead, it has reinforced its internal cohesion and provoked nationalist sentiments." 

"This policy—pursued by Washington and its allies in various forms since the 1980s—has not only failed in the case of Iran but has also produced instability rather than lasting political transformation in other countries. Experiences in Libya and Venezuela show that relying on external pressure without internal consensus leads to chaos, not sustainable change. In Iran, the regime sustains itself not merely through repression but also via social connections and ideological cohesion. Thus, change imposed from the outside— without first disrupting these internal bonds—has consistently failed. The continued push for this outdated policy reflects not a solution, but a lack of strategic imagination in Western foreign policy." 

"The Islamic Republic of Iran is not just a political regime; it is deeply embedded in religious, military, and ideological institutions that form part of the Iranian state identity. Therefore, efforts to force its collapse without a gradual and deliberate replacement process lead not to liberation, but to the reproduction of structural violence."