Iran regime change ‘may become an option’ Trump ‘simply cannot ignore’

During President-elect Donald Trump’s first term in the White house, Iran was reduced to a shell of its old terror power because his sanctions decimated the cash available for those agendas, and more.

During Joe Biden’s four years in office, the rogue terror regime regained access to billions in cash and the result was events like the Oct. 7, 2023, atrocity on Israel by terrorists in Hamas, who killed some 1,200 civilians and kidnapped hundreds more.

Now that Trump is returning to office, even though his campaign has made no point of calling for a regime change there, that move soon may become evident.

That’s according to Con Coughlin, the Telegraph’s defense and foreign affairs editor, who also is a distinguished fellow at the Gatestone Institute.

“Trump may not be thinking about regime change in Iran as he prepares to take office, but it may become an option he simply cannot ignore if the dramatic collapse in the Islamic Republic’s fortunes means that its survival can no longer be guaranteed,” he explained.

“Trump may come to see as well that, unfortunately, due to the deep-seated commitment of Iran’s regime in exporting its brand of Islam, as enshrined in its constitution, there can be no real long-term peace in the Middle East without regime change, especially if Iran has nuclear weapons – not to mention the global arms race that would follow such an event.”

Coughlin explained that it was Trump’s “no-nonsense approach to confronting the ayatollahs’ malign influence in the region” that was “one of the defining characteristics during his first term in the White House.”

During that time Trump pulled the U.S. out of the “flawed nuclear deal” set up with Iran by Barack Obama when he was in the White House in 2015.

Citing its major defects, Trump said at that time, too, he was applying “maximum pressure” on Tehran.

“Trump also demonstrated during his first term that he was not afraid of a direct confrontation with Tehran. His decision to authorize the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, the master terrorist who headed the elite Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, in a drone strike in January 2020 dealt a devastating blow to Tehran’s terrorist infrastructure,” he explained.

It was, he reported, because of Trump that Iran had to scale down its terrorism.

“It was only after Joe Biden replaced Trump in the White House in 2021 that Tehran revived its terrorist network, a development that was greatly facilitated by Biden’s policy of appeasement towards Tehran, which saw the ayatollahs gifted billions of dollars in a misguided attempt by the Biden administration to revive Obama’s nuclear deal,” he explained.

That also prompted Iran to respond with renewed attempts to gain nuclear weaponry.

But now, as Israel’s military is on the offense against two of Iran’s proxies, Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iran is facing a point of collapse.

Iran’s inability to protect its terror allies “reflects Tehran’s own fundamental weakness, which was graphically laid bare when Israeli warplanes launched their massive air assault against the Islamic Republic last month, which succeeded in destroying a number of key Iranian military installations,” Coughlin reported.

And, just now, there are reports of a deep split in Tehran between Islamist factions.

He added that such a change would relieve Iran’s neighbors and free “captive citizens,” but also renew interest in Trump’s Abraham Accords, negotiated agreements between Israel and several of its Arab neighbors.