A new military campaign could weaken the Islamic Republic’s capabilities without toppling it. It could then prolong the cycle of strikes, retaliation and unresolved negotiations. The question is whether Washington will continue seeking concessions or now aim for regime change.
A decision of this kind would not necessarily be deterred by a Republican defeat in the midterm elections. Donald Trump might instead seek a historic achievement through a dramatic transformation of the international order—one his domestic opponents could not easily dismiss. The stakes would then extend far beyond electoral calculations and Benjamin Netanyahu’s personal ambitions.
For the fall of the Islamic Republic could offer the United States a strategic gain of exceptional scale, with no regional equivalent for several decades.
It would bring to an end a political system that has made hostility toward Washington and Israel one of the foundations of its legitimacy. Iran, whose national interests have long been subordinated to this ideological orientation, could regain the ability to rebuild relations with the United States and reconsider its ties with Israel. Such a realignment would serve powerful economic and geopolitical interests: ending isolation, attracting investment, modernizing infrastructure and making full use of the country’s energy resources.
If Washington’s rapprochement with Caracas proves durable, and is followed by the fall of the Islamic Republic and the establishment of an Iranian government allied with the United States, Washington would gain strategic influence over two of the world’s three largest proven oil reserves. This realignment would challenge Beijing’s privileged access to Iranian oil, deprive Moscow of a major regional partner and substantially strengthen the United States’ position in global power relations.
Such a transformation would also alter the calculations of the Persian Gulf monarchies. A rapprochement between Iran and the United States, potentially accompanied by the normalization of relations between Iran and Israel, could remove one of the main obstacles to a regional realignment that includes Saudi Arabia.
The strategic value of such a shift helps explain why a new offensive could have objectives substantially different from those of previous campaigns. The aim would no longer be simply to destroy nuclear or military facilities, but to make possible a political transformation capable of changing both the balance of power in the Middle East and the international positions of Russia and China.
If Washington were considering a strategy on this scale, its current diplomatic efforts could also serve to give Tehran one last opportunity to avoid escalation. Seen in that light, the recent sequence looks less like a routine attempt to resume negotiations than a final warning. Qatari mediators recently travelled to Tehran to convey proposals for de-escalation. JD Vance, the U.S. vice president, then sent a letter through Qatar to Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council and a former commander of the Revolutionary Guards. Vance proposed resuming direct talks, with the nuclear issue at their center. As Trump considers resuming strikes, the signal may be read this way: a negotiated way out remains open, but the time to take it appears limited.
The central question, then, is this: will Donald Trump settle for another demonstration of force against the Islamic Republic, or seek to make his presidency historic by ending an antagonism that has shaped U.S. policy in the Middle East since 1979?
From this perspective, the Israeli and U.S. elections would no longer be the main determinants of the conflict. They would become secondary factors in a decision whose ambitions could be far greater.
