US President Donald Trump’s Venezuela gambit worked, to the extent that it did, because the state did not collapse. This might not be the outcome in Iran, because the Trump administration’s war partners, Israel and the Kurds, have their own interests and ambitions, which do not necessarily include avoiding the fragmentation of authority.
BERLIN — A senior US State Department official recently summarized the Trump administration’s approach to regime change in three words: “decapitate and delegate.” Remove an intransigent leader, weaken the regime through airstrikes, sanctions, and proxies, then compel a successor to strike a transactional bargain – eliminating a geopolitical irritant while opening the door to diplomatic normalization, oil access, and, in the case of Iran, nuclear concessions.
