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Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2026/03/09/trump-iran-bush-regime-change/
Trump Is Trying Something New in Iran
(Washington Post) Douglas J. Feith - The Trump logic seems to run as follows: There are two possible outcomes of the U.S.-Israeli air campaign. The first is that the Iranian people oust the current regime and create a new one. The second is that they don't. History says there aren't many cases of air campaigns producing regime change. The president may figure that the second possibility would also be a good result. The air campaign is intended to destroy the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Iran's navy, air force, air defenses, missile capabilities, and nuclear weapons program. Even if new leaders arise out of the old Islamic regime, they will have far less power to harm their neighbors or the U.S. Moreover, if the new leaders remain fanatical and hostile, oppressive and aggressive, Trump may assume he can hit them again. He appears confident that, as the U.S. is powerful and the Iranian authorities impotent, he will be able to do whatever he considers necessary. That thinking is altogether different from the ideas that shaped U.S. foreign policy after 9/11. When U.S. troops overthrew the regimes of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq, President George W. Bush was intent on helping those countries lay foundations for governments that would neither be repressive nor give safe harbor or support to anti-American terrorists. Trump sees giving the Iranians a chance to take control away from the ayatollahs as a gift. He doesn't think the U.S. owes Iranians an on-the-ground effort to make their country stable, let alone democratic and prosperous. The president's goal is to deprive Iran of the power to hurt the U.S. and its interests. If dangers develop down the road, he expects to be able to deal with them far more easily than if he had left in place the Islamic regime that was pursuing nuclear weapons and developing ever-longer-range missiles. Ironically, critics who are demanding to know the "day after" plan are implying that Trump should adopt Bush's outlook. The writer, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, served as undersecretary of defense for policy from 2001 to 2005.