“It’s not politically correct to use the term, ‘Regime Change,’” President Donald Trump posted Sunday on Truth Social, a day after the U.S. bombed Iran, raising questions of the ultimate end-goal of American military involvement in the Middle East. “But if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change???”
Trump ended with an Iranian spin on his famous campaign acronym: “MIGA!!!”
Following the U.S. strikes, which targeted three nuclear facilities in Iran, multiple high-ranking members of the Trump Administration had insisted that the goal is not to topple the current Iranian government.
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“This mission was not and has not been about regime change,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a press conference on Sunday morning. “The President authorized a precision operation to neutralize the threats to our national interests posed by the Iranian nuclear program and the collective self-defense of our troops and our ally Israel.”
Vice President J.D. Vance said on NBC on Sunday morning: “Our view has been very clear that we don’t want a regime change. We do not want to protract this or build this out any more than it’s already been built out.”
Vance said that the U.S. is “not at war with Iran” but only with “Iran’s nuclear program.” And he even suggested that the U.S. attack could help put negotiations between the current Iranian government and the U.S., which had begun months ago but had stalled when Israel attacked Iran earlier this month, back on track. “I actually think it provides an opportunity to reset this relationship, reset these negotiations, and get us in a place where Iran can decide not to be a threat to its neighbors, not to be a threat to the United States,” said Vance, “and if they’re willing to do that, the United States is all ears.”
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Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Israel and the U.S. “decided to blow up” diplomacy with their respective attacks.
“That’s certainly not the goal,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said of regime change on Fox News on Sunday. “I don’t like the regime, but we’re not into the regime change business here. We’re into the safety and security of the United States business.”
“At the end of the day, if Iran is committed to becoming a nuclear-weapons power, I do think it puts the regime at risk,” he added. “I think it would be the end of the regime if they tried to do that.”
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Rubio urged Iran to negotiate seriously and directly with Trump, warning: “What we are seeing is that this is a President that tells you what he’s going to do, and then he does it.”
Trump had floated the idea of forcing a regime change by killing Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on June 17, before he authorized strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, when he posted that the U.S. knows Khamenei’s location and that he was “an easy target” but that “for now” he would be spared. “But we don’t want missiles shot at civilians, or American soldiers,” Trump added. “Our patience is wearing thin.”
As Iran threatened after Saturday’s attack that it planned to retaliate, Trump added: “ANY RETALIATION BY IRAN AGAINST THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WILL BE MET WITH FORCE FAR GREATER THAN WHAT WAS WITNESSED TONIGHT.”
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Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said last week, after Iran struck an Israeli hospital, that Khamenei “cannot continue to exist.”
Amid the threats on his life, the 86-year-old Khamenei, who has led Iran since 1989, is sheltering in a bunker and has even named potential successors in the event of his death, according to the New York Times.Trump previously said, before this weekend’s strikes, that what he wants from the Iranian regime is “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER.” But Khamenei responded then that the U.S. President “should make threats against those who are afraid of being threatened. The Iranian nation isn’t frightened by such threats.”