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RICHARD NEPHEW is Senior Research Scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University and Bernstein Adjunct Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He served as Deputy Special Envoy for Iran during the Biden administration and on the National Security Council and State Department during the Obama administration.
America Should End the War but Keep Up the Pressure
Richard Nephew
When U.S. President Donald Trump announced that the United States was at war with Iran, he called on the country’s people to rise in revolt. “When we are finished, take over your government,” Trump said on February 28. “This will be probably your only chance for generations.” But in the days after, his administration backed away from calls for regime change. “This is not a so-called regime change war,” U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on March 2. Vice President JD Vance reinforced this message: “Whatever happens with the regime in one form or another, it’s incidental to the president’s primary objective here, which is to make sure the Iranian terrorist regime does not build a nuclear bomb.” Eventually, Trump began suggesting that by killing Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his top deputies, Washington had already done what it needed to make Iran less threatening—and had, in fact, achieved regime change of a sort. “They have a new set of leaders, and we find them very reasonable,” the president said in mid-April.
It’s easy to see why the White House has seemingly abandoned its efforts to topple the Islamic Republic wholesale. Research shows that it is extremely difficult—perhaps impossible—to down a government through a bombing campaign. Practical experience, meanwhile, shows that successful regime change endeavors can produce a wide array of unfortunate consequences, such as the chaos in Libya that followed Muammar al-Qaddafi or the decade of violence that came after Saddam Hussein in Iraq. But if Trump thinks Iran’s new leaders are less radical than their predecessors, he is sorely mistaken. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps generals who now control the country are, if anything, more hard-line than their predecessors. Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, is Ali Khamenei’s son. His entire family was just killed by the Americans and Israelis, and he was likely put in charge by the IRGC. These new elites will thus remain highly repressive at home and aggressive abroad. They will continue to menace the United States and its regional partners. It would be better for Iran and better for the world if they lose power and are succeeded by actual representatives of the population.
That does not mean Washington should return to war and keep fighting until the regime is finished. That is a task for the Iranian people, and they are up to it: over the last five years, Iranians have taken to the streets in increasing numbers to protest the regime’s repression and economic mismanagement. There is a reason Trump began the war with a call for them to resume demonstrations. But it does mean Trump must help their cause by being very selective about the peace deal he signs. Any deal that affords Iran widespread sanctions relief—even if it features hard limits on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, missile programs, and support for proxies—could give the hard-line Iranian leaders Trump helped install a new lease on life. Instead, then, the United States should pursue more modest arrangements, like one that continues the current cease-fire agreement while opening the Strait of Hormuz and maintaining intense pressure on the Iranian system. Such an outcome won’t be as satisfying for Trump, who wants to make sweeping deals. But it is the best way to prevent Iran from rebuilding its damaged military over the long term—and to get actual regime change.
Thanks to American and Israeli action, the Islamic Republic of Iran has a new generation of leaders. Yet they are every bit as extreme as their predecessors, and now they have extra motivation and fewer structural constraints. They may want to make a peace deal with the United States. But there is no proof whatsoever that they are willing to fundamentally change the character of their government. The top IRGC officers now running Iran are all longtime regime loyalists. The new head of the IRGC, Ahmad Vahidi, was previously responsible for the IRGC Quds Force, which supports terrorist groups around the world. He is suspected of planning the AMIA Jewish community center bombing in Buenos Aires in 1994 that killed 85 people. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and Supreme National Security Council Secretary Mohammad Qalibaf are former IRGC soldiers. Even when these individuals differ on tactics, they are all determined to defeat the United States and strengthen the Islamic Republic. Little wonder, then, that Tehran has continued to put out statements declaring it will use force to quell protests. It has promised, should the cease-fire break down, to resume attacking not only U.S. and Israeli targets but also Gulf Arab states. Such rhetoric suggests that Tehran is in no way moderating.
But just as Iran’s new leaders have inherited their predecessors’ hard-line mindsets, they have also inherited their predecessors’ challenges. Three months ago, millions of Iranians were on the streets protesting the poor state of the country’s economy and its pitiful provision of public goods and services. Those demonstrations were only the latest round of unrest that Iran has experienced in recent years. Corruption and economic malaise, including the unrealized expectations of millions of college graduates, have produced a set of economic pressures that the Iranian political system simply cannot address, particularly under U.S. sanctions.
The regime has used the war with Washington to try to whip up public support and unify the population, just as it did during the United States’ June 2025 bombing campaign (when it invoked Persia of antiquity). But the conflict will not fix these underlying challenges. No matter what happens in the weeks and months to come, Tehran will struggle to provide water, electricity, and gas to its people. It will remain wildly corrupt and poorly managed. In fact, its problems might all get worse after the fighting ends. For starters, the IRGC-controlled Khatam al-Anibya has an effective monopoly over Iran’s construction and industrial sector, and its graft-ridden subsidiaries are almost certain to acquire more financial and political power as they haphazardly rebuild damaged infrastructure. Iran will also be forced to choose between rebuilding its military or improving social services—what political scientists call the “guns or butter” challenge—and it will almost certainly select the former. The result is likely to be more rounds of unrest.
The government will retain its formidable repressive apparatus, and so in theory, at least, it can keep putting down protests. But even with all its force, Iran’s leaders will feel increasingly precarious. In fact, they might already. Iranian officials have gone to pains to stress that government services have returned to normal during the cease-fire, and they seem keen on reaching a broader peace settlement.
The fact that the war is causing problems for Tehran does not mean Washington should start striking Iran again. The war might be reducing the IRGC’s raw capacities, but it is not reducing the organization’s strength within its country. The IRGC’s leadership group may internally debate what decisions to make, but the war has helped hard-line elites consolidate power and reduced elite fragmentation to its lowest level in decades. The IRGC has squeezed out seemingly all alternative voices, including ones that were once quite powerful (and that, in theory, should still carry weight). That includes Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, who does not belong to the IRGC clique. Pezeshkian, for example, declared on March 7 that Iran would stop attacking Gulf Arab states—only to be quickly overridden by IRGC commanders.
But the United States also shouldn’t rush into a comprehensive peace deal. It should, instead, be selective—including by rejecting both Iran’s ten-point proposal and Trump’s own 15-point one. Both feature comprehensive sanctions relief for Iran, which would help flood the country with enough money to overcome its legacy of mismanagement, corruption, and failed governance. In doing so, it might relieve popular pressure on the regime. Major inflows of foreign cash would also enable the IRGC to further dominate the country’s markets, given that the organization now has unassailable political control and would be able to control the influx.
Tehran could try to tempt Trump into making such concessions by agreeing to place serious limits on its nuclear program and even parts of its military in exchange for expansive relief. But it is unclear whether Iran could ever prove that it made good on its commitments, especially given the collapse of international verification and inspections over the last year. Tehran, for example, might secretly keep some of its enriched uranium. It could retain a clandestine stockpile of centrifuges. And it might maintain underground missile and drone programs. Any Iranian promise around the Strait of Hormuz would thus also be immediately suspect. After all, it only takes a modest number of drones and short-range missiles to close the passage.
Instead of pursuing a comprehensive settlement, then, the United States should focus more narrowly on its immediate priority: unblocking the Strait of Hormuz and avoiding future attacks across the Persian Gulf. An arrangement to do so could be straightforward. The United States would cease its blockade and commit to maintaining the cease-fire (as would Israel) in exchange for Iran opening the strait, cooperating on demining, and committing to stopping its attacks, directly and through proxies, against Israel, the United States, and Gulf Arab countries. The resulting cease-fire might still be fragile. It would not address the nuclear issue. But it would unburden the rest of the globe from the interruption of trade in and out of the Persian Gulf.
It is possible that Iran, having established dominance over the Strait of Hormuz, might reject a modest deal. Publicly, at least, the IRGC is projecting confidence and demanding major concessions. But by agreeing to the current cease-fire, Iran has demonstrated that it will accept a deal that does little other than put a stop to violence. And a continued, fragile cease-fire is not a bad outcome when compared with the alternatives.
There are, of course, theoretical grand bargains the United States would and should consider for its own national security interests. After all, the United States still has an abiding interest in preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and the means of their delivery against the United States. It is thus reasonable to examine such a possibility again, especially if such a deal might also address Iranian proxies or shorter-range missiles. Ultimately, this is why the United States pursued and concluded the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). It was in Washington’s security interest. Alternatives at the time—including pushing for regime change—were risky, costly, and bordered on the fantastical, given the nature of regime stability and the status of Iran’s nuclear program.
What is critical, however, is that agreement offered Iran targeted sanctions relief tied to clear Iranian concessions. The IRGC itself remained subject to U.S. economic restrictions that effectively barred it from working with any foreign bank or company. The Iranian economy improved after the deal took effect, thanks to the broader relief, but the IRGC sanctions discouraged so much of the trade and investment the JCPOA was supposed to bring about that Iranian politicians and commentators started publicly debating whether the corps should play a major role in the economy. Part of the IRGC’s value to Iran was that it was good at smuggling and sanctions evasion, and those skills were less in demand under the nuclear deal. The JCPOA, in other words, did not empower Iran’s militaristic elite. It may have even weakened it over the long term.
But then Trump withdrew the United States from the JCPOA and imposed sweeping restrictions on almost every facet of the Iranian economy, eliminating whatever comparative advantage non-IRGC firms had. In fact, by mastering sanctions evasion, the IRGC became the main conduit for getting goods and revenue in and out of the country. Tehran also pivoted away from reform-leaning policies. The IRGC became ever more powerful.
The Iran of 2026 is therefore very different from the one of 2015, both in terms of its power centers, its nuclear program, and the challenge it faces from a restive population. The U.S. policy response should shift, as well. As Trump seemed to initially understand, the best hope for sidelining the IRGC comes from inside the country. Ordinary Iranians are fed up with the organization’s vast corruption and terrible policies, and they have demonstrated they can menace both it and the broader regime.
As the Trump administration pursues an end to the war, it must therefore avoid any deal that would bail the regime out. It should not dismiss a broader negotiated settlement out of hand; it would be reckless to object to a deal not yet negotiated. But it should set a high bar for significant sanctions relief and ensure that the IRGC-led regime is not the primary beneficiary of any deal. Only then will the Iranian people have a chance to finally control their own destiny.
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