Tehran’s rulers are once again betting that escalation, intimidation, and asymmetric retaliation can preserve a collapsing system. But beneath the propaganda and threats lies a deeper reality: a regime that has long confused destruction with strength, and survival with control, is now facing a crisis that may finally expose the limits of its power.
The U.S. media also reported that Trump is considering, or has ordered preparations for, a new phase of military operations against the Iranian regime that could begin as early as this weekend, and that it will focus on Iran’s energy infrastructure such as power plants, refineries, and the energy grid. However, he has now backed down.
These attacks against the regime were intended to paralyze its governing capacity, reduce its military support capability and operational capacity, and weaken its ability to run the country. Unfortunately, from day one they had a wrong assessment of the military capacity of this terrorist regime; otherwise, the Islamic terrorist republic could have been paralyzed much earlier. Even today, Trump also behaves like a hesitant person, and in practice, regarding regime change, acts as if paralyzed.
The strategic message of the Trump administration appears to be this: to increase pressure on the dictatorial government of Iran and reduce its ability to continue the war and govern the country, which naturally will also lead to a new wave of popular protests, because this warmongering and crisis-making regime has, over the past half century, brought no benefit or gain to the development and growth of the Iranian people.
The people of Iran welcome the surrender and humiliation and defeat of the Iranian regime. Although cutting the regime’s vital lifeline will for a time put pressure on Iranian society, for the people this period of hardship is like a kind of labor pain that will lead to the regime’s collapse.
The propaganda machine of the Iranian government is also boasting about readiness for a broad response and is warning that such attacks will be met with retaliation. This is an implicit admission of preparation to respond to attacks against vital infrastructure, the U.S. and Israel, and perhaps activate sleeper cells of terrorism inside the U.S. and the West. That, of course, is the only expertise of the Islamic terrorist regime and it affects President Trump.
It seems to be the regime’s final gamble, and they repeatedly and openly say they are happy with the destruction of Iran and the destruction of the entire region. This government is living in an apocalyptic dream and illusion with repeated miscalculations. It is willing to destroy all of Iran and set the entire Middle East on fire, yet it still clings to its delusions and destructive ideology and does not want to surrender. Khomeini and Khamenei are gone, but their destructive thought and mentality still remain.
The situation is extremely disappointing. One reality cannot be denied, and that is that Iran is in danger. Iran is facing complete destruction, civil war, and gradual annihilation, and even with the collapse of this regime, Iran will still pass through a horrifying tunnel of terror.
President Trump must face reality: there is no diplomatic path with this destructive, repressive, occupying, and ruinous regime, and it is a waste of time. Perhaps Israel will remove other layers of the ruling structure from the way and other people will determine the outcome. But the chance of compromise inside the regime is very weak and to some extent impossible. The Shiite clerical regime and government, with stubbornness, fanaticism, and delusion, does not think of surrender; they are willing to have all of Iran destroyed and burned, yet they still insist on their imaginary ideology.
Striking infrastructure will not compel this brutal Islamist terrorist regime to surrender, because the destruction of infrastructure means little to it; this is not a normal government, and it will never act with reason or restraint. The only way for Trump to break out of the cycle of war, extortion, and failed negotiations is to support a transitional government led by, for example, Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, while backing intelligence-led efforts to bring about regime change. And the CIA and Mossad should also prepare the ground for covert operations aimed at regime change. That is all.
What happens next will not be decided by rhetoric alone, but by whether the international community is willing to confront the regime’s machinery of coercion with clarity, resolve, and a strategy that breaks its cycle of war, hostage-taking, and deception. Iran’s future will not be secured by appeasing a destructive order; it will be secured by ending its capacity to govern through fear.