Finish It or Lose It

President Trump wrote on Truth Social this week that the United States is in serious discussions with “a new, and more reasonable, regime” to end military operations in Iran. Before that deal is struck, one question cuts through everything else. Is this truly a new regime, or the same one rebranded?

Any honest answer begins with a number: 30,000. That is the approximate number of Iranian citizens murdered in one week by their own government during the January protests. They were shot in the streets, hanged in public, and disappeared into a system that has made the suppression of its own citizens into a religious mandate. The people asked for basic freedom and instead received bullets.

The January bloodshed provided a ripe moment for American intervention in Iran. Each president prior to this administration chose the path of least resistance. The result was decades of a regime on the threshold of a nuclear weapon, tens of thousands of dead Iranians, and exported terror proxies stalking the region. But President Trump discerned the moment and is rewriting the playbook on American deterrence in the Middle East.

The U.S. administration has carefully communicated its top three objectives in the offensive strikes: dismantle the proxy network, end the nuclear program, and eliminate the ballistic missile threat. Each rightly responds to the years of Iranian aggression and decades of Western forbearance. This could be the liberation of Iran and therefore the entire Middle East. However, regime change is noticeably not on the list.

Americans have an inherent aversion to regime change, a taboo subject in the wake of failed nation building endeavors and years of foreign entanglements while domestic struggles persisted. But the current Iran conflict begs a different question. Can any of the three stated objectives be sustained in the long term if the regime remains intact?

Tehran understands how all this works. The regime does not need to win on the battlefield if it can outlast the political will behind it. American polling is already providing the cover the regime has bet on. A Reuters/Ipsos poll this week puts the president’s approval at 36 percent, the lowest in his second term. Support for the strikes stands at about a third. And gas prices have risen nearly a dollar a gallon since the campaign began on February 28. All in the shadows of the midterms.

For over four decades, the regime has acted on that assumption that America will back down on its threats against Iran and there will be no meaningful consequences for its actions. It built Hezbollah and Hamas into massive non-state military forces that have killed Israelis and Americans. It undermined U.S. efforts in Iraq by embedding proxy militias across the country. It destabilized the region by arming violent factions in Syria and Yemen. All the while, it advanced its nuclear program despite every Western diplomatic agreement meant to restrain it.

Approval ratings can recover. But unfinished objectives will etch a lasting mark on an already fragile Middle Eastern landscape. A campaign that leaves the regime standing has a predictable aftermath. The nuclear programs will rebuild. The proxies will replenish. The beleaguered regime will reconstitute. And Iran’s long-standing calculus that the United States applies pressure but does not sustain it will yet again be confirmed.

If the regime remains, we can go ahead and anticipate more October 7th attacks, ballistic missiles that are not only capable of reaching Europe but eventually U.S. soil, Iranian drones that can easily be shipped to U.S. coasts. Their reign of terror will continue. The radical religious clerics are prepared to wait out the will of the United States to finish the job. Their eternity depends on it.

Trump is the first president to draw a different conclusion on Iran’s record and act accordingly. Whatever one thinks of his methods, he took a risk that his predecessors declined. That risk required strong leadership and political will. That same leadership and will is needed to finish the job.

As the administration explores a deal with this “new regime,” it must ascertain that this is not the same regime rebranded. Trump boldly started this campaign. The only question now is will he boldly finish it or lose the once in a generation opportunity to reset the Middle East? The regime itself must go in order to secure the long-term objectives and to solidify his legacy.