Donald Trump will be briefed on Operation “Epic Wrath” at his Mar-a-Lago residence on Saturday.Image: keystone
analysis
Donald Trump is looking for a way out of the war with Iran. He seems willing to accept a Venezuela scenario. It would be the end of hope for regime change.
Mar 2, 2026, 3:10 p.mMar 2, 2026, 3:10 p.m
What was the Iranian leadership thinking? Despite the threat of war, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei met with high-ranking military officials and politicians on Saturday not in a bunker, but in an ordinary office building in Tehran. Did they assume that the Israelis would not attack on Shabbat, let alone during the day?
And did you believe that US President Donald Trump would continue to negotiate? It would have been a grotesque mistake. The US and Israeli intelligence services were apparently Khamenei on his heels for months and knew exactly where he was. In the end, killing him was almost child’s play. But that doesn’t mean anything has been decided.
The joy of exiled Iranians like here in New York could soon be disappointed.Image: keystone
Videos indicate that brave Iranians are on the streets of the capital cheered the death of the hated dictator. But their country is not Iraq, Libya or Syria, where when the tyrant was overthrown his regime also collapsed. The Iranian power structure is complex and often difficult for outsiders to understand.
The regime’s solidarity
This can get tricky when the different factions start fighting each other. This does not appear to be the case in Iran so far. From the outside, there are still hardly any cracks in the leadership, to the chagrin of the oppressed people. The attacks by Israel and the USA seem to have led to a closer solidarity.
In any case, the regime is striking back with the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and air strikes that do not spare the Arab Gulf states. They are attacked with missiles and drones and hit in one of their weak points: the image as a safe destination for business people, expats and tourists who experience adventure holidays, that they would have liked to have done without.
Appease the US population
It’s not a conflagration yet, but fires are burning everywhere. The risk that the situation will escalate further is real. This also seems to concern President Trump. In a cascade of video messages and interviews over the weekend, he tried to calm Americans worried about a new intervention in the Middle East.
Trump with his first assessment of Iran
Video: watson/truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump
The war against Iran will last “four to five weeks” if necessary, he said in a telephone interview with the New York Times. The resources are available and there are “enormous amounts of ammunition”. Even the Pentagon is worried that the war could use up reservesthat would be needed in view of other conflicts.
Conflicting visions
The New York Times writes that Trump offered “a series of sometimes contradictory visions” regarding the future of Iran after the death of Ali Khamenei. This included the hope that the Revolutionary Guard would submit to the people and hand over their weapons to them. In other words, the armed force that mowed down the people in January.
It became unmasked when Trump’s actions in Venezuela as a “perfect scenario” for Iran designated. Even his advisors pointed out the enormous differences between the countries, according to the New York Times. It is “almost impossible” to equate the removal of Nicolas Maduro with the killing of Khamenei.
Iran is not Venezuela
Or to put it another way: removing the supreme leader does not mean that one can simply continue with the current government, as in Venezuela. Trump was correspondingly vague on the question of who should lead Iran. He shifted the responsibility for regime change onto the population: “It’s up to them.”
In fact, it can be concluded: Trump is looking for a way out of the war and is ready to abandon the Iranian people. Statements from Republican hardliners in Congress go in the same direction. The Iranian people should decide for themselves who will lead the government in the future, said Senator Lindsey Graham on NBC on Sunday.
Civil war in a multi-ethnic state?
Help yourself, is the bottom line. The Iranian opposition, which has pinned its hopes on Trump and military intervention, is threatened with disillusionment. At best, she can hope that a new leadership will allow some liberalization, such as an end to the requirement to wear a headscarf, which is hardly observed in cities any more.
The opposite is just as possible. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy warned on CBS that given the Trump administration’s lack of plans, “we are likely to get even worse Iranian leadership.” And his party colleague Mark Warner expressed the fear on CNN that the multi-ethnic state could sink into civil war.
No plan for after that
These are murky but realistic scenarios. Democratic Senator Chris Coons also emphasized on CNN that he knew of “no example in modern history where regime change was achieved through air strikes alone.” And even with ground troops, nothing is gained without a plan for the time afterwards, as the USA learned in Iraq.
A man in front of the Gandhi Hospital in Tehran, which was damaged in the attack on state television.Image: keystone
Iran’s leadership is under massive pressure, but if it doesn’t lose, it has already won. Security expert Peter Neumann brought it to the point in the “CH Media” interview: “As sorry as I am for the Iranians who are now hoping for democracy, the death of the Ayatollah does not mean that the road to democracy has become shorter.”
Rather, they may soon discover that relying on Donald Trump has never been a good idea.
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