What is Trump's real strategy on Iran?
Much of the commentary on Donald Trump’s approach to Iran begins from a familiar assumption: that he is bent on toppling the Islamic Republic—the reading mistakes both his instincts and his record. Trump has little interest in regime change and even less appetite for nation-building.
He does, however, have a very real interest in bending adversarial regimes to his will. His objective with Iran can therefore best be characterized as “regime reorientation”—that is, forcing the existing machinery of rule to adjust its external behavior and strategic alignments so that they no longer collide with American interests. The model here is Venezuela. In that case, Trump left the regime essentially untouched—minus Maduro, to be sure, but in place and functioning—while sharply curtailing its freedom of action regarding energy access and its geopolitical alignment with US rivals.
Strategic Ends: Reorientation, Not Regime Change
Trump’s desired end-state, then, is not a post-theocratic Iran. It is an Iran that still governs itself internally but no longer treats nuclear escalation, proxy warfare, or strategic alignment with Russia and China as viable strategic options. He wants a Tehran that understands its external behavior will be conditioned by American power and pressure, not by Iranian ambitions or anxieties.
This is why Trump’s rallying cry ought to be “regime change if necessary, but not necessarily regime change.” Trump does not need new rulers in Tehran to achieve his objectives. He needs the current ones to govern differently. The persistent suggestion that regime survival is conditional is meant to concentrate attention inside the system, not to provoke collapse. As in Venezuela, the regime remains in place, but its strategic autonomy is steadily reduced. It can rule, but only within boundaries it did not set.
This being the case, how is Trump going about setting those boundaries?
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