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regime change
There Is No Good Reason for the US to Attack Iran
A new US attack on Iran, besides being an act of aggression contrary to the United Nations Charter and international law, would only exacerbate rather than resolve any of the issues that have been raised as possible rationales for war.
Feb 03, 2026
Shifting justifications for a war are never a good sign, and they strongly suggest that the war in question was not warranted.
In the Vietnam War, the principal public rationale of saving South Vietnam from communism got replaced in the minds of the war makers—especially after losing hope of winning the contest in Vietnam—by the belief that the United States had to keep fighting to preserve its credibility. In the Iraq War, when President George W. Bush’s prewar argument about weapons of mass destruction fell apart, he shifted to a rationale centered on bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq.
Now, with President Donald Trump threatening a new armed attack on Iran amid a buildup of US forces in the region, the Washington Post’s headline writers aptly describe the rationale for any such attack as being “in flux” and, for the online version of the same article, ask, “What’s the mission?”
A related question about the latest threat to attack Iran is: “Why now?” The initial peg for Trump talking up the subject during the past month was the mass protest in Iran that began in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar in late December and rapidly spread through Iranian cities during the next couple of weeks. Trump urged Iranians to “keep protesting” and promised that “help is on the way.” This rhetoric led to widespread expectations, not least of all inside Iran, that US military action was imminent.
The answer to the question “why now?” is to be found... in domestic politics, including the motivations of diverting attention from political troubles and being able to claim some accomplishment regarding Iran that is bigger or better than what a predecessor achieved.
No such action materialized, and perhaps a valid reason it did not is the difficulty in identifying targets for military attack that would be more likely to help the protesters than to hurt them. If a regime is gunning down innocent citizens in the street, there is no target deck an outside military power can devise that would distinguish the gunners from the innocents on that street.
A brutal crackdown by the Iranian regime that has quelled the protests leaves a couple of implications. One is a sense of betrayal among Iranians whom Trump encouraged to risk their lives by protesting without delivering any help that supposedly was “on the way.”
The other implication is that, without an ongoing protest, the link between any US military action and favorable political change inside Iran is even more tenuous than it would have been a month ago. Iranians—like Americans or any other nationalities—can distinguish between their domestic grievances and external aggression. Another Israeli or US attack out of the blue risks helping the Iranian regime politically by enabling it to appeal to patriotic and nationalist sentiment. Statements from such prominent reformist leaders as former Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi and former parliament speaker Mehdi Karroubi are simultaneously calling for sweeping constitutional change and explicitly rejecting foreign intervention, including military intervention.
An alternative view is that with the Iranian regime at least as weak as it has been for years, an armed attack from outside might constitute just enough extra pressure to precipitate the regime’s collapse. But the idea that the Islamic Republic is just one nudge away from falling has been voiced many times before, including during previous rounds of protests.
Moreover, the operative word is “collapse,” with all that implies regarding uncertainty about what comes next. Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared to recognize that uncertainty when asked in a Senate hearing last week about what would happen if the Iranian regime were to fall and he replied, “That’s an open question.” The Iranian opposition lacks a unified leadership and structure ready to take power comparable to the movement led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini that toppled the shah in 1979.
Regime decapitation to oust current Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei would be even less likely to yield a regime responsive to US wishes than the ouster of President Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela. A more probable successor regime in Iran would be some kind of military dictatorship dominated by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Regime change in Iran is a classic case of needing to be careful what one wishes for.
Trump has been vague about what Iran would need to accept to avoid being attacked, but there appear to be three issues at play. One is a demand for Iran to end all enrichment of uranium. But Iran is not enriching uranium now and does not appear to have done any enrichment since the Israeli and US attacks last June. If this issue is to make a difference in determining whether the US attacks Iran, it means war or peace would hinge on a demand that makes no practical difference, at least in the short term.
A formal commitment by Iran to forgo enrichment forever conceivably could have value over the long term, but history shows that expecting such a commitment is not realistic. Moreover, to place importance on such a commitment is a tacit admission that Iran is better at adhering to its obligations on such things than the United States is, given Trump’s reneging on an earlier nuclear agreement despite Iran observing its terms.
A second issue involves limiting the range and number of Iran’s ballistic missiles. There is a strong case to be made for a region-wide agreement limiting missiles in the Middle East, but neither the Trump administration nor anyone else has explained why Iran should be singled out for such restrictions while no one else in the region is, or why one should expect Iranian policymakers to accept such disparate treatment. Iran considers its missile capability to be a critical deterrent against the missile and other aerial attack capabilities of adversaries. A deterrent—to be used in response to being attacked—is how Tehran has used its missiles, as in responding to the US killing of prominent IRGC leader Qasem Soleimani in 2020 and to Israel’s unprovoked aerial attack on Iran last June.
The Israeli government would, of course, like to see Iran’s retaliatory capability crippled. This would leave Israel—the Middle Eastern state that has started more wars and attacked more states than any other country in the region—freer to indulge in more offensive operations without having to worry about even the amount of retaliation that Iran mustered last year. Those operations may include attacks that, like the one in June, drag in the United States. This sort of Israeli freedom of action is not in US interests.
The third reported US demand is that Iran cease all support to groups in the region it considers allies, including the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Hamas in Palestine. Despite the habitual application of the label “proxy” to such groups, they are separate actors with their own agendas, as illustrated by how the Houthis acted against Iranian advice in capturing the Yemeni capital of Sanaa.
As with uranium enrichment, Iranian support to these groups is a “problem” that is being solved without new Iranian commitments. Iran’s severe economic difficulties, coupled with popular demands within Iran to devote scarce resources to domestic programs rather than foreign endeavors, are already making it difficult for Iran to sustain its support to regional allies.
As with the missile issue, a demand to end such support as part of an agreement disregards how much that support is a response to aggression or predations of other governments. Aid to the Houthis, for example, became of significant interest to Iran only after Saudi Arabia launched a large-scale offensive against Yemen that was the most important factor in turning that country into a humanitarian disaster. The Iranian-supported establishment of Hezbollah and the group’s early rapid growth were a direct response to Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982. The nature and methods of Hamas, like those of many other Palestinian resistance groups, have been responses to Israeli subjugation of Palestinians.
Also like the missile issue, any such demand disregards the outside support that other governments give to parties to some of the same conflicts in the Middle East. This includes, of course, the voluminous US aid to Israel. Iran is being told it cannot have a full regional policy while others do. It is unrealistic to expect any Iranian leader to agree to that.
None of these issues, individually or collectively, constitutes a casus belli. The answer to the question “why now?” is to be found less in those issues than in domestic politics, including the motivations of diverting attention from political troubles and being able to claim some accomplishment regarding Iran that is bigger or better than what a predecessor achieved.
Claimable accomplishments that serve not just such domestic political needs but also the US national interest are possible through diplomacy with Iran. President Trump is correct when he says that Iran wants a deal, given that Iran’s bad economic situation is an incentive to negotiate agreements that would provide at least partial relief from sanctions. Feasible diplomacy would not entail Iranian capitulation to a laundry list of US demands but instead a step-by-step approach that might start with an updated nuclear agreement, which could build confidence on both sides for coming to terms on other issues.
The Trump administration’s saber-rattling is not building such confidence but instead is having the opposite effect. The Iranian regime’s lethal response to the recent popular protests shows that it believes the regime’s survival depends on not showing any weakness in the face of pressures either domestic or foreign. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said last week that Iran would negotiate directly with the United States only if Trump stops threatening a military attack against Iran. Araghchi also ruled out any unilateral limitations on Iranian missiles, which he described as essential for Iran’s security.
A new US attack on Iran, besides being an act of aggression contrary to the United Nations Charter and international law, would only exacerbate rather than resolve any of the issues that have been raised as possible rationales for war.
A US attack would disadvantage Iranian oppositionists by associating them with an assault against the Iranian nation. It would strengthen the position of those within the regime who argue that Iran should seek a nuclear weapon. It would raise, not lower, the importance Tehran places on its alliances with nonstate groups in the region. And Iran would use its missiles to retaliate in ways that probably would hurt US interests more than its response last June did.
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US Military Told Mideast Ally That Trump Attack on Iran is 'Imminent': Report
"This isn’t about the nukes or the missile program. This is about regime change," a former senior intelligence official told Drop Site News.
Jan 30, 2026
Senior officials in the US military have told a key Middle East ally that President Donald Trump may strike Iran as soon as this weekend, as part of an operation that may seek to decapitate the Islamic Republic's government, according to a report published Friday by Drop Site News.
While the Trump administration reportedly envisions attacks against nuclear, ballistic, and other military sites around Iran, a former senior US intelligence official who is acting as an informal advisor to Trump told the outlet: "This isn’t about the nukes or the missile program. This is about regime change."
As Iran has been roiled by the largest wave of protests since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Trump has repeatedly threatened to launch strikes, which he has claimed would be in retaliation for the nation's security forces killing demonstrators.
While counts vary widely, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency reported Friday that Iranian security forces have killed more than 6,000 protesters in a brutal crackdown that has largely quelled the unrest seen earlier this month.
According to the senior official, who has worked as a consultant for Arab governments, Trump's war planners hope that a strike on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) would galvanize Iranians to return to the streets and eventually deliver a knockout blow to their government.
He said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has long sought to push the US to engage in direct conflict with Iran, “is hoping for an attack,” and is “assuring Trump that Israel can help put in place a new government that is friendly with the West.”
In the Oval Office on Friday, Trump told reporters that the US has a “large armada, flotilla, call it whatever you want, heading towards Iran right now." He said that the armada was "larger than Venezuela," referring to the buildup of ships leading up to the US invasion of the Latin American country earlier this month to overthrow its president, Nicolás Maduro.
According to Drop Site, two senior intelligence officials from an unnamed Arab country said they received word that a US attack could come “imminently," potentially as soon as Sunday.
Brigadier General Mohammad Akraminia, Iran’s military spokesperson, in an interview on Iranian TV on Thursday, said that a strike against Iran would likely play out very differently from the one launched in June against three Iranian nuclear sites. Iran's response was limited: an attack on a single US military base in Qatar, which it telegraphed beforehand.
“If such a miscalculation is made by the Americans, it will certainly not unfold the way Trump imagines—carrying out a quick operation and then, two hours later, tweeting that the operation is over,” Akraminia said.
“The scope of war will certainly extend across the entire region, he added. "From the Zionist regime to countries that host American military bases, all will be within range of our missiles and drones.”
Trump has said "time is running out" for Iran to come to the table to negotiate a new nuclear agreement with the United States, one with much more stringent restrictions than the one the president ripped up in 2018.
According to the New York Times:
US and European officials say that in talks, they have put three demands in front of the Iranians: a permanent end to all enrichment of uranium and disposal of its current stockpiles, limits on the range and number of their ballistic missiles, and an end to all support for proxy groups in the Middle East, including Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis operating in Yemen.
As the Times pointed out, "Notably absent from those demands... was any reference to protecting the protesters."
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stated on Friday that Tehran would “welcome negotiations that ensure Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear activity” and that it would not “negotiate anything related to our conventional arms, including missiles. This is something we cannot risk.”
He said Iran would not agree to any deal that halts uranium enrichment on its soil, which it has said it has the right to pursue under the terms of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). "We do not want to enter into any kind of negotiation that is doomed to failure and can then be used as another pretext for another war," he told Al-Monitor.
Speaking to reporters at the White House on Friday, Trump said Iran “wants to make a deal” but did not elaborate on what that meant. “We’ll see what happens. I can say this: They do want to make a deal."
Mohamed ElBaradei, former director general of the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency, has condemned Trump's threats.
"The continued unilateral threats of a military strike against Iran in the absence of any clear and present danger and in violation of international law, bring to mind the same grim scene before the illegal and immoral Iraq war with its lies and horrifying consequences," he wrote on social media. "Human life and regional destruction don’t seem to matter."
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Coercion Disguised as Consent: Why US Claims of Venezuelan ‘Cooperation’ Are Null and Void
Consent given under the barrel of a gun—or under the crushing weight of engineered economic catastrophe—cannot be recognized as valid.
Jan 28, 2026
In the aftermath of the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro by US forces in early 2026, the Trump administration has repeatedly proclaimed the full “cooperation” of Venezuela’s interim leadership, prominently naming Acting President Delcy Rodríguez as a key partner. Under the clear framework of international law, however, these assertions are legally meaningless—null and void from their inception. Cooperation, to carry legal or diplomatic weight, must be freely given. What has been presented instead resembles consent extracted under duress.
A growing body of evidence indicates that the purported “partnership” with Rodríguez and the interim government was not the product of diplomacy or mutual interest, but of military intervention, direct threats, and sustained economic coercion. Reports circulating widely describe a leaked audio recording in which Venezuelan officials were issued a fifteen-minute ultimatum by US forces following Maduro’s ouster: comply or face lethal consequences. While the recording has not been independently authenticated, neither its gravity nor its substance has been officially denied or investigated. The allegation remains unrefuted and gains plausibility from its consistency with publicly observable executive conduct.
At the same time, US officials publicly took credit for controlling Venezuela’s transitional arrangements. State assets, including oil revenues, were placed under American authority. Sanctions were explicitly framed by senior Treasury officials as instruments of “economic statecraft,” designed to impose maximum financial pressure to influence political outcomes. In substance and by their foreseeable consequences, this strategy operates as a form of hybrid coercion—seeking regime change through economic collapse rather than direct military engagement. This is not diplomacy; it is coercion through threat and deprivation, as a matter of law and practice.
International law leaves little room for ambiguity. The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties provides that any agreement secured through the coercion of state representatives is legally void, and that arrangements born of the threat or use of force are nullities as a matter of law. These provisions reflect foundational principles: the legitimacy of state action rests on the free will of its representatives. Consent given under the barrel of a gun—or under the crushing weight of engineered economic catastrophe—cannot be recognized as valid. By this standard, claims of Venezuelan “cooperation” do not demonstrate diplomatic success; they amount to admissions of coercion.
That Rodríguez now serves as interim president under these conditions does not confer legitimacy on her actions as a freely acting representative. If her authority emerged under duress, shaped by ultimatums and bounded by ongoing threats of renewed military action or economic devastation, then any subsequent “cooperation” attributed to her must be treated with profound skepticism. Acting where refusal is not a viable option is not partnership; it is submission enforced by power.
The broader danger lies in normalizing coercion disguised as consent. If executives can compel foreign leadership changes through military or economic force and then cite “cooperation” from installed interlocutors as proof of legitimacy, international law is rendered meaningless. Domestic safeguards erode as well: war-powers constraints are sidelined, congressional oversight is bypassed, and a precedent is set for repetition elsewhere, wherever the next “strategic interest” is declared. This is not solely a Venezuelan concern; it is a warning for global governance and democratic accountability.
Every claim by the Trump administration regarding Venezuelan “cooperation” after the forceful removal of President Maduro must therefore be regarded as legally and morally suspect. International law does not grant impunity to victors, validate arrangements imposed under threat of annihilation, or recognize coerced submission as consent. Until coercion is replaced by a genuinely free and verifiable process grounded in real diplomacy, all current assertions of cooperation with Hon. Delcy Rodríguez and the interim Venezuelan government are, by definition and by law, null and void.
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