His brief remarks on Iran in last week’s state of the union speech referred to the threats from its nuclear programme and ballistic missiles but made no mention of regime change. Democrats have voiced fears that the decision to attack Iran could be open-ended without a clearly stated goal. “Where does this all go?” Jim Himes, the senior Democrat on the House of Representatives’ intelligence committee told NPR. “Is the intention regime change? They should’ve done it sooner.”The comments appeared to support Vatanka’s view that the president “doesn’t have a plan for regime change” but is instead seeking a “weakened regime that doesn’t hurt anyone”.

Source: The Guardian March 02, 2026 11:01 UTC