Trump talks regime change in Iran after strikes, but history shows that could be very hard

Barely an hour after the first U.S. and Israeli missiles struck Iran, President Donald Trump made clear his hope for regime change. “Now is the time to take control of your destiny,” he told the Iranian people in a video. “Now is the time to act. Don’t let this pass.”

It doesn’t seem complicated. After all, with Iran’s fundamentally unpopular government weakened by heavy airstrikes, some of its top leaders dead or missing, and Washington signaling support, how difficult could it be to overthrow a repressive regime?

Maybe very hard. That’s what the story says.

Washington has a long and complicated history of regime change. There was Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s, and Panama in 1989. There was Nicaragua in the 1980s, Iraq and Afghanistan in the years after 9/11, and Venezuela just a few weeks ago.

There was also Iran. In 1953, the CIA helped stage a coup that overthrew Iran’s democratically elected leader and gave near-absolute power to Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. But as with the Shah, who was toppled in Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution after decades of increasingly unpopular rule, regime change rarely goes as planned.

Attempts to introduce U.S.-friendly governments often have clear intentions, whether it’s hope for democracy in Iraq or support for an anti-communist leader in Congo at the height of the Cold War. But often these intentions stumble into a political quagmire where democratic dreams turn to civil war, once-compliant dictators become embarrassing, and American soldiers return home in body bags.

This story has long been a talking point for Trump. “We must abandon the failed policy of nation building and regime change,” he said in 2016.

“In the end, the so-called ‘nation builders’ have destroyed far more nations than they have built,” he said in a speech in Saudi Arabia in 2025, ridiculing U.S. efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq. The “interventionists intervened in complex societies that they did not even understand.”

Today, after Saturday’s actions, a key question arises: Does the current U.S. government understand what it is getting into?

Iran’s economy is in ruins and dissent remains strong even after a brutal crackdown on protests in January that left thousands dead and tens of thousands arrested. Many of the country’s key proxies and military allies – Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Assad government in Syria – have been weakened or eliminated. And early Sunday, Iranian state media confirmed that Israel and the United States had killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The United States has not presented a postwar vision and does not necessarily want a complete overthrow of Iran’s leaders. As in Venezuela, there may already be potential allies within the government ready to fill a power vacuum.

“But there is a lot of work to be done before a possible scenario along these lines plays out,” said Jonathan Schanzer, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank deeply critical of the Iranian government. “We must have the feeling that there is no salvation for the regime as such and that it will have to work with the United States. »

In a country where top leaders are deeply united by ideology and religion, this can be extremely difficult.

“The question that comes to mind right now is whether we have managed to penetrate the ranks of the regime that are not true believers and are more pragmatic,” Schanzer said. “Because I don’t believe true believers will turn around.”

It is simply too early to know whether – or to what extent – ​​the political tide is turning in Tehran. Subsequent leaders could prove equally repressive or be seen domestically as an illegitimate stooge of the United States.

“We will see if elements of the regime start to pit each other against each other,” said Phillips O’Brien, a professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. “Air power can be detrimental to leadership,” he said. “But that can’t guarantee that you will bring something new.”

In Latin America, the history of Washington’s intervention goes back a long way: when President James Monroe claimed the hemisphere as part of the American sphere of influence more than 200 years ago.

While the Monroe Doctrine began as a way to keep European countries out of the region, in the 20th century it justified everything from coups in Central America to the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961. Very often, historians say, this intervention led to violence, bloodshed and massive human rights violations. This, they say, is a lesson.

Direct U.S. involvement has rarely “resulted in long-term democratic stability,” said Christopher Sabatini, senior fellow for Latin America at the London think tank Chatham House. He cites Guatemala, where American intervention in the 1950s led to a civil war that did not end for 40 years and left more than 200,000 people dead.

Or Nicaragua, where support for Contra rebels against the Sandinista government in the 1980s contributed to a prolonged civil conflict that devastated the economy, caused tens of thousands of deaths and deepened political polarization.

While overt, large-scale U.S. involvement in the region largely petered out after the Cold War, Trump has revived that legacy.

Since taking office last year, Trump has launched boat strikes against suspected drug traffickers in the Caribbean, ordered a naval blockade on Venezuelan oil exports and gotten involved in electoral politics in Honduras and Argentina. Then, on January 3, U.S. forces captured Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro and sent him to the United States to face drug and weapons charges.

What followed in Caracas could be a sign of what the White House hopes will happen in Tehran. Many observers believed the United States would support María Corina Machado, who has long been the face of political resistance in Venezuela. Instead, Washington effectively sidelined her and repeatedly showed its willingness to work with President Delcy Rodríguez, who had been Maduro’s number two.

“Some might argue that what we did in Venezuela does not constitute regime change,” said Schanzer of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “The regime is still in place. Only one person is missing.”

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Tim Sullivan has reported from more than 35 countries for The Associated Press since 1993. Danica Kirka in London and Eléonore Hughes in Rio de Janeiro contributed to this report.