Regime Change, the Double-Edged Sword

“Epic Fury” was initiated with the end of the Iranian regime in mind. Regime change may indeed be the result of this attack. But the question of who will be gone when the dust settles is not clear.

President Trump has gambled his entire legacy on a quick and relatively bloodless victory over Iran.

His goal (and the goal of his Israeli masters/partners) is regime change.

The plan his “Secretary of War” (a name which is fundamentally at odds with the concept of a “Peace President”) has convinced him to implement involves decapitating the Iranian leadership, suppressing the Iranian security apparatus, and waiting for the Iranian people to take matters into their own hands. In his concluding remarks made in an 8-minute video posted on his Truth Social account shortly after the joint Israeli-US attacks began, Trump laid out the basic gist of his plan:

To the members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, the armed forces and all of the police, I say tonight that you must lay down your weapons and have complete immunity. Or in the alternative, face certain death. So, lay down your arms. You will be treated fairly with total immunity, or you will face certain death. Finally, to the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand. Stay sheltered. Don’t leave your home. It’s very dangerous outside. Bombs will be dropping everywhere. When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.

For many years, you have asked for America’s help. But you never got it. No president was willing to do what I am willing to do tonight. Now you have a president who is giving you what you want. So let’s see how you respond. America is backing you with overwhelming strength and devastating force. Now is the time to seize control of your destiny, and to unleash the prosperous and glorious future that is close within your reach. This is the moment for action. Do not let it pass.

Using intelligence provided by the United States (and openly bragged about by Donald Trump in the lead up to this war), Israel attacked and killed some 46 members of Iran’s senior military and civilian leadership—including the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

This single action, more than anything else the United States has done (including yet again carrying out the war crime of perfidy by lulling the Iranians into a false sense of security through so-called “peace negotiations” that neither the US nor Israel ever intended to follow through on) shows both the moral and intellectual vacuum that exists within the Trump administration when it comes to Iran.

Ali Khamenei was a major religious figure in the Shi’a faith, second only to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husayni al-Sistani, who resides in Najaf, Iraq. The Islamic Republic of Iran is predicated on a religious doctrine known as Velâyat-e Faqih, or the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist, which is a defining principle of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and is grounded in the faith of the Twelver branch of the Shi’a faith. The Twelver branch dominates in Iran and Iraq, and has a very powerful presence amongst the Shi’a faithful throughout the Middle East.

Killing Ali Khamenei is the equivalent of killing the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury, or the Head of the Russian Orthodox Church in terms of the impact it will have on the faithful.

Shi’ism is born on the backs of the martyrdom of Hussein, the youngest son of Ali, the cousin of Mohammed who was designated as the rightful heir to Mohammed’s work, and who was appointed the Fourth of the Rashidun, or “rightly guided”, caliphs, at the Battle of Karbala on October 10, 680. Hussein embraced martyrdom to save the lives of his followers and to awaken the collective conscience of the Muslim community to the reality of the anti-Islamic nature of the Umayyad regime, which had usurped leadership from Hussein’s older brother, Hassan.

The final post on Ali Khamenei’s X account, on February 28, 2026, declared “In the exalted name of Haidar (peace be upon him)”, invoking Haidar—a reference to Imam Ali, the first Shi’a Imam who was himself martyred at the hands of an assassin. The X post, released after the announcement by Israel and the United States of their assassination of Ali Khamenei, stands as a posthumous message of defiance.

In attacking Iran, Donald Trump believed he was laying the foundation for the Iranian people to rise up and seize the moment, to take matters into their own hands and help define their future.

The assassination of Ali Khamenei was meant to be a triggering moment for motivating the Iranian people to rise up and take to the streets.

Donald Trump and his close circle of pro-Israeli advisors have succeeded beyond their wildest imagination.

Today the streets of Iran are full of enraged citizens.

But instead of shouting “Death to Khamenei”, they shout “Long live the Martyr Khamenei!”

The people of Iran are voting, and the choice they are making is stark: no to Trump, no to America, no to Israel.

No to Pahlavi.

And yes to Iran.

Yes to the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Ali Khamenei had predicted his death. He did not want to die a feeble old man. He wanted to die like Hussein, a martyr’s death in the service of his faith, in the service of his people.

Trump brags about how US intelligence tracked down Ali Khamenei and provided his location to the Israelis so they could murder him.

Ali Khamenei died in his home.

He wasn’t hiding.

He was working.

Surrounded by fellow Shahids who knew that by meeting with Ali Khamenei as they were they were inviting their own deaths.

Ali Khamenei and his fellow patriots sacrificed themselves for Iran. They knew that their deaths would not hurt the defense of Iran, because Iran was a Constitutional Republic with well-defined lines of succession.

Because of the January 2026 violence that struck Iran, Ali Khamenei knew the goals and objectives of the US and Israel was to promote a popular uprising amongst the people of Iran to overthrow the Islamic Republic.

Ali Khamenei knew that if he opted to spend the war hiding in bunkers, his reputation would be at risk, and confidence in the Islamic Republic reduced.

By sacrificing his life, Khamenei became a martyr to his cause.

The people of Iran and the Shi’a faithful of the Middle East are rallying to the defense of Iran in a way none of the warmongers in Washington, DC or Tel Aviv could have imagined.

On the morning of February 28, Israel launched a salvo of missiles into Iran as part of a surprise attack designed to decapitate the leadership of Iran.

The first six missiles struck the residence of Al Khamenei, resulting in his death, the death of his family members, and the death of senior Iranians who were meeting with Khamenei at the time.

Donald Trump brags that the United States and Israel won the war at that moment, having cut off the head of the snake.

But the reality is that the US and Israel lost the war with Iran the moment those missiles exploded.

Ali Khamenei’s death is the spiritual fuel that will empower the Iranian people and their government to persevere in the face of perfidy and adversity.

Iran won the war the moment it began.

In attacking Iran, Donald Trump has made the gamble of a lifetime. His political legacy, already shaken by his gross mismanagement of the issue of immigration and deportation, has been further tarnished by allegations of criminal conduct related to his past association with Jeffrey Epstein. The mid-term elections in November are on the line, and the stakes have never been higher. Not only is the political viability of the Trump administration on the ballot (where a democratically-controlled House of Representatives being able to paralyze all policy initiatives coming out of the White House), the President is in danger of seeing the Republican Party lose control of the Senate, meaning the inevitable House tactic of impeachment carries with it the threat of conviction.

The realities associated with the logistics of moving massive amounts of military resources in support of a military campaign put President Trump in a damned if you do, damned if you don’t quandary. By redeploying critical air defense systems allocated to European and Asian defense postures, Trump created a self-imposed window of strike opportunity that could not be sustained more than a few weeks. Moreover, the flow of military material (aircraft, fuel, weapons) likewise produced a “use it or lose it” time factor, since this level of military power projection was not sustainable for more than a few weeks.

Trump’s senior leadership informed him that the US probably lacked the resources necessary to sustain the scope and scale of military operations necessary to attain the mission objective of regime change. If Trump listened to his commanders, he would have to begin retrograding missile defense and combat aircraft back to their home bases. By the time these forces could be reassembled, it would be summer.

But summer is too close to the critical mid-term elections, and not a good time for a President who ran on a platform of peace to begin an illegal war of aggression, a war of choice driven by domestic American political prerogatives and not by any real threat to the security of the United States of its allies. The main driver of this conflict is Israel, and the political legacy of its long-time Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has made the elimination of the Iranian government the cornerstone of his security-focused vision of creating a “greater Israel.”

Trump’s crafting of the most pro-Israeli cabinet in history has not escaped the notice of the “Make American Great Again” (MAGA) crowd which serves as the core of his political base. The Israeli press understands this. Writing in the aftermath of a devastating interview by Tucker Carlson of the US Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, in which the former Arkansas governor openly said he supported Israel’s right to seize the territory of its Arab neighbors in order to achieve the goal of a modern-day version of biblical Israel, Israeli media underscored the dangerous divide that was growing in the ranks of the MAGA faithful as they come to grips that their “America First” president is, in fact, a hard-core proponent of “Israeli First.”

This divide will grow the longer this unprovoked war of aggression by the United States, on behalf of Israel, against Iran continues.

Every dead American servicemember is a reminder that their lives were sacrificed not in support of the defense of the United States, but in promotion of Greater Israel.

And the American people will never forgive this.

Donald Trump faces the political challenge of a lifetime this coming November, a midterm election that will determine whether he is able to continue his agenda for another two years, or find himself paralyzed by impeachment trials that could very well lead to his conviction.

On February 28, Donald Trump started a regime change operation against Iran.

But regime change is a sword that cuts both ways.

And in the end, it is the regime of Donald Trump that is at risk of finding itself thrown into the dustbin of history, while the Islamic Republic of Iran lives on, empowered by the memory of its newest martyr, Ali Khamenei.

https://scottritter.substack.com/p/regime-change-the-double-edged-sword