Regime change is the only option for peace
Regime change is the only option for peace
By Daniel Ben Abraham
President Trump has been the most correct, brilliant, and courageous American president in history with his Gaza plan, support of Israel in this conflict, and bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities. The wonder of how such a pragmatist found universal truth when decades of past presidents could not is a topic unto itself.
However, he took a huge gamble forcing a ceasefire against Israel’s wishes that leaves the Ayatollah regime in power. If only Trump’s heroic efforts toward peace and idealism were reciprocated.
But days later on June 25th, Iran’s defense minister went to meet Russia’s, and China’s, and Pakistan’s defense ministers for talks. The topic was, of course, not surrender nor peace, but surely Iran’s list of military demands, all but certainly up to and including completed nuclear weapons, while they rebuild their own program.
Immediately after the U.S. bombing of Fordow, on June 22, former Russian President Dimitri Medvedev publicly posted, "A number of countries are ready to directly supply Iran with their own nuclear warheads."
When Trump responded with a threat of his own, Russia announced it had no intention of giving nuclear weapons to Iran. Yet the next day, June 23rd, Iran’s foreign minister Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, met with Putin in Moscow.
Reiterating such concerns, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on a June 26th phone call that “Iran can never develop or acquire a nuclear weapon”, speaking directly to the possibility of acquisition.
Trump thought Iran would be humbled by the bombing, change course, return to the negotiating table seriously this time, and appreciate saving the Ayatollah’s life and his offer of sanctions relief.
Instead, it turns out the Israelis were right. Iranian bulldozers have also already begun digging out the bombed nuclear sites, and IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said on June 29, 2025 that Iran could start enriching uranium again in a matter of months.
President Trump admitted his surprise in a post after Iran threatened U.S. interests again, "...But no, instead I get hit with a statement of anger, hatred, and disgust, and immediately dropped all work on sanction relief, and more".
President Trump‘s sole miscalculation may have been believing Iran’s Mullahs would learn their lesson, and become a peaceful trading nation, as rational players might. In reality, the Iranians will cleverly wait out Trump’s term, if not obtain nukes from allies beforehand, instigate the Middle East Conflict as cover, and continue exactly as they had been, even more determined. Iran has already returned to defiantly shouting “death to America, death to Israel”, and its parliament already voted unanimously on June 25th to reject cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency. The IDF also suspects Iran has plans to destabilize Jordan as another tactic going forward.
As brilliant as President Trump has been, here’s what his idealism misunderstood:
The same way Leftist ideology in America biased judges and prosecutors to target Trump through criminal charges with “Trump derangement syndrome” affecting their moral compass and legal interpretation, and the same way Netanyahu is being irrationally targeted by Israel’s Left now, in Islamism, ideology, not rational thought, controls moral perspective, and resulting human behavior.
Islamist ideology is not a realm of rational players acting in their own best interests. That’s just a cover, at best, for the ideological dynamics that are the true players, whether dealing with Iran, or the Arabs.
America won WW2 against Japan and Germany in three years, and we became allies. But the reason Palestinians cannot accept Israel after 50 years, the Arabs cannot after 75, and the Afghans couldn’t reject the Taliban in 20, is the same reason Iran’s current regime cannot give up its nuclear pursuits and make peace even if they wanted to:
The individual will to act in their own best interest cannot override the ideological entity’s forces, and its separate collective goals.
Terrorism is not the problem, but a symptom of the uncontrolled power dynamics of Islamist expansion. This is why Islam divides the world into “dar al Islam” (house under Islam) and “dar al harb” (house of war). Islamism is expanding globally, and the Iranian ideology feeds off of it like a fire feeds off oxygen, as Khomeini and Khamenei both promoted the idea for a global Islamic state under sharia. The regime is not in control, but a pawn of these broader forces, and like a non-player character (NPC), and doesn’t have a choice but to engage in terrorism, seek nuclear weapons, and pursue Israel’s conquest, to the regime’s last breath.
The Israelis were right that ending Iran’s nuclear program can only truly happen with regime change, and hopefully President Trump is realizing this fast.
The explanation why is, as psychiatrist Carl Jung said, “people don’t have ideas, ideas possess people.” Ideologies are not just viewpoints that a group holds. They are collective neurochemical phenomena, like a mob riot that takes over individual will, and compels a group to smash cars or burn down their own neighborhood, against their own individual interests. It’s not reasoned analysis, but a subconscious mass-amygdala phenomenon that takes over rational will and decision-making.
The true party player and decision-maker to an ideological dispute is not the human individual actor, but an invisible intangible ideological entity with its own separate interests fed by conflict. The individual human actor, whether Hamas, a Palestinian, or even the Ayatollah, is merely a pawn of the ideological entity. What else is suicide bombing, if not the ideological entity sending a human adherent to die for its own interests, showing it is the sovereign entity, and the bomber merely its drone.
The Ayatollah cannot act in his own best interest, let alone his country’s, because the same ideological entity controls him and his Mullahs as well. The ideological entity will wait out Trump‘s term, and seek to enrich again during future, weaker American presidential administrations. Players like Pakistan cannot act in their individual best interest, controlled by ideological forces as well. The broader supergroup ideological entity will sacrifice individual bombers, terrorist groups, leaders, and even nations like Iran and Pakistan, for its broader goal of conquering Israel, making even deterrence largely ineffective. Such an ideological entity will wage war for centuries, replacing leaders like a serpent growing a new head every time Israel cuts one off. Unless we correctly address the underlying ideological forces, even the Ayatollah’s replacements of the same ideology will continue Iran's nuclear pursuits. For the same reasons, Hamas and Hezbollah will reconstitute or other groups will take their place, and even Arab "allies" will shred their peace deals the moment Israel appears weak, all to continue the endless war to conquer Israel. This is especially true if the Iranian ideology is left in power to feed off enflaming the Palestinian conflict the moment we try to fix it, as Trump plans to try.
Trump once asked why there is such tremendous hatred in that part of the world towards us. The reason is, that while it causes individual suffering, such ideological entities are empowered from conflict. They work by a different set of rules than their human adherents, and unless we understand those rules, we are stuck in this war like the 1400-year-long Sunni-Shiite conflict, bound to go nuclear sooner or later. At least Iranian regime change buys us time to find the better solutions to the broader ideological problems for the sake of all parties.
A people acting in their own disinterest, suffering generation after generation, is not a war – it’s a riddle to solve. But until humanity is ready for the answers, about 80% of the Iranian people are struggling to dismantle the ideology’s grip on a once great Persian nation. And, we must help them, for their sake, and our own.