US President Donald Trump said this week that Iran’s new leadership is “less radical and much more reasonable.” Trump and the Pentagon have repeatedly claimed that regime change has happened. “So, I would consider that regime change.”But what most political scientists and analysts would consider regime change involves an outside power transforming how a country is governed, not merely replacing the people at the top of that system. By definition, regime change is systemic change – something that has yet to be seen in the Islamic Republic, which remains under the same authoritarian theocracy that has been in place since the Iranian Revolution in 1979. And he hammered home his claims of regime change, while also arguing that the US is dismantling that same regime’s “ability to threaten America.”“Regime change was not our goal. We never said regime change, but regime change has occurred because of all of their original leaders’ death,” Trump said.

Source: CNN April 03, 2026 16:28 UTC