What does President Trump actually want to do with Iran? The week that the U.S. struck the country’s nuclear sites, he posted on Truth Social that “if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!” But since then he has been pushing to end the Israel-Iran war.
The instinct behind Mr. Trump’s post was the right one. If unimpeded, Iran’s jihadist rulers will rebuild their nuclear program. Iran’s deputy foreign minister told NBC News on July 3: “Our policy has not changed on enrichment.” To prevent Iran from achieving its ambitions, the U.S. should press its advantage and work openly with Israel and the Gulf states to undermine the regime.
The phrase “regime change” understandably makes Americans nervous. Since the Soviet Union’s collapse, the U.S. has struggled to match military capability with coherent political purpose. Washington didn’t define a clear political objective during its long Afghanistan campaign. The goal should have been to maintain an Afghan government in Kabul that would deny al Qaeda and the Taliban a haven at a low cost to America and allies. The U.S. objective instead became an impossible transformation of the country. It’s no surprise this failed.
Compared with this incoherence, Mr. Trump’s decision to strike Iran’s nuclear program and then engineer a rapid cease-fire looks like a strategic masterstroke. Tehran’s nuclear program has always been about weapons development, and crippling it was the right move.
The Iranian threat to America, however, is broader. Iran’s support for its terrorist proxies endangers regional stability and U.S. lives. Iranian assistance with Russia’s illegal oil exports reduces America’s ability to pressure Moscow on the Ukraine war. Because China also relies heavily on Iranian and Russian crude, keeping Iran in check would give the U.S. more leverage over Beijing.
Iran remains a dangerous threat, and the policy question is whether taking out that threat requires deposing the current regime now rather than waiting it out. History suggests the time to act is now.
Much like Mr. Trump aimed to do with his strikes on Iran, in the 1991 Gulf War the U.S. used overwhelming force to achieve a clearly defined political objective: the liberation of Kuwait from Iraqi conquest. America suffered almost no losses and received broad international backing. The U.S. so thoroughly humiliated Saddam Hussein that American forces could have removed him from power. But President George H.W. Bush declined to do so, fearing regional instability.
Read the rest at WSJ.
Seth Cropsey is the founder and president of Yorktown Institute.
