•  U.S. & Israel Attack Iran

Trump Targets Regime Change

By Shashi P.B.B. Malla

The United States and Israel launched a major areal attack on the Islamic Republic of Iran on Saturday.

At the same time, President Donald Trump called on the Iranian people to ‘seize control of your destiny’ by rising up against the Islamic leadership that has ruled the nation since 1979 after the overthrow of the royal regime of Shah Reza Pahlavi by the Islamic Revolution instigated by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei who was succeeded as Supreme Leader by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The Islamic Revolution has gone full circle with the assassination of 86 year-old Supreme Leader Khamenei in one of the first strikes on Iran which hit areas around his offices in the capital (AP/Associated Press, Feb. 28).

Top commanders of the all-powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) have also been liquidated.

The supreme leader held ultimate authority over all bra nches of government, the military and the judiciary, while also acting as he country’s spiritual leader.

Now the first cracks in the autocratic clerical domination have now appeared.

According to Aljazeera, a short-term leadership council has been formed comprising the President Masoud Pezeshkian, the speaker of parliament and a jurist from the Guardian Council.

In a video announcing the ‘major combat operations,’ Trump told Iranians that ‘when we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations’ (AP).

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, the main protagonist for decisive action against Iran, echoed that goal, saying, “Our joint operation will create conditions for the brave Iranian people to take their fate into their own hands.”

The strikes during the holy fasting month of Ramadan opened a stunning new chapterin US intervention in Iran and marked the second time in eight months that the Trump administration has used military force against the Islamic Republic.

They also came weeks after a US military operation that captured Venezuela’s president, Nicolas Maduro, and brought him and his wife to New York to face federal drug conspiracy charges.

The targets included members of Iran’s leadership and several family members of the supreme leader.

It has been reported that, among others, the defence minister, the commander of the IRGC and the head of the army’s intelligence have been killed.

Even if Iran’s top leaders were to be killed, regime change is not guaranteed and neither the US nor Israel have articulated a vision for what the new leadership would look like (AP).

However, without naming names, Trump has hinted that befitting candidates are already waiting in the wings.

One such aspiring leader is the former crown prince, Reza Pahlavi, currently living in exile in the U.S., who is preparing to return.

Rising Tensions

Tensions have soared in recent weeks as American warships, including two aircraft carrier groups and assault planes, have moved into the region.

Trump said he wanted a deal to constrain Iran’s nuclear programme at a moment when the U.S. itself is struggling at home with growing dissent following nationwide protests.

Many U.S. observers and commentators consider Trump’s actions against Iran a state of war, for which he has not sought the Congress’s approval.

The immediate trigger for the strikes appears to be the unsuccessful latest round of nuclear talks.

But they also reflect the dramatic changes across the region that have left Iran’s leadership in its weakest position since the Islamic Revolution nearly half a century ago in 1979 with the ousting of the Shah.

Israeli and American strikes last June greatly weakened Iran’s air defences, military leadership and nuclear programme.

A region-wide war, sparked by Gaza’s Hamas on October 7, 2023 a sudden and unexpected attack on Israel, has left Iran’s network of proxies across the Middle East – Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, Houthis in Yemen, and others in Iraq — greatly weakened.

 U.S. sanctions and global isolation, meanwhile, have decimated Iran’s economy.

Iran has warned that the U.S. has crossed a very serious red line.

Thus, Iran responded to the latest strikes as it had been threatening to do for months, including by launching missiles and drones targeting Israel as well as attacks on U.S. military installations in the entire region – Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, UAE and Qatar.

The new leadership seems to have decided going the whole hog by also attacking civilian installations in the entire Persian Gulf region, including also in Oman, which had been a facilitator in the recent bilateral diplomatic negotiations.

There has naturally been great disappointment with Iran’s behaviour.

Attack Coordinated Between Israel & U.S.

Regardless of the ongoing diplomatic negotiations between U.S. and Iranian envoys in Switzerland and Oman aimed at finding a peaceful solution, the U.S. military has for weeks simultaneously amassed forces in the region.

The Ultimate War of Choice

According to the New York Times’ leading columnists, David E. Singer, with his broad attack on Iran early Saturday morning and his call to the Iranian people to overthrow their government, Trump has embarked on the ultimate war of choice (March 2).

When historians look back at this moment, they are likely to ask two questions:

• Why did Trump act now?
• And why was Iran his target?

Trump was not driven by an immediate threat. There was no race for a bomb. Iran is further from the capability to build a nuclear weapon today than it has been in several years, thanks largely to the success of the president’s previous strike on Iranian enrichment sites last year.

So in choosing this moment, and this vector of attack, a president who came to office promising an end to reckless military interventions – and wars intended to prompt regime change – is taking a huge risk.

There are few examples in history of overthrowing the government of a large nation — in this case of over 90 million people – with air power alone.

A study by the Rand Corporation identify three major factors that identify three major factors that determine whether an invaded nation ends up better off as a result.

The first is the pre-existing level of ethnic and religious tension.

Iran has long been a relatively cohesive society.

But 47 years of state violence against ethnic and religious minorities by the Islamic Republic has awakened long-dormant fault lines, significantly raising the spectre of sectarian bloodshed in the chaotic aftermath.

Next came the existence of reliable political institutions.

In Iran rampant corruption, the systematic hollowing out of democratic institutions and deep popular distrust of the political elite have rendered those structures largely ineffective.

Finally, Iran’s economy today is notoriously fragile. Inflation rose about 70 percent. The currency lost 84 percent of its value in 2025 alone.

It is compounded by a worsening environmental crisis.

By all accounts, the Iranian economy is on the edge of disaster (NYT/Amir Ahmadi Arian, March 2).

Trump’s strategic bet rides almost entirely on the ability of the Iranian people, largely unarmed and unorganized, to seize the moment and overthrow a government that millions of them find both brutal and odious.

The protests that filled the streets of Iranian cities and led to severe crackdowns that killed thousands gave Trump his chance (NYT).

Britain’s wartime prime minister, Winston Churchill has given an apt warning to leaders who would start wars: “The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.”

The writer can be reached at:

shashimalla125@gmail.com