A senior White House official said the Trump administration has no plans to topple the Islamic Republic by force but said Washington hoped what he described as the people of Persia would ultimately "liberate themselves".
“We are not in the business of deploying the 82nd Airborne to do regime changes anywhere,” Sebastian Gorka, deputy assistant to the president and senior director for counterterrorism at the White House, told an event at Washington DC thinktank the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
“We would like the people of Persia, including all the minorities in Persia, to eventually liberate themselves.”
A ceasefire late last month ended a 12-day conflict between Israel and Iran that was capped off by US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump both mooted killing Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei at the height of the conflict and Trump hinted at favoring Iranian regime change.
"It’s not politically correct to use the term, 'Regime Change,' but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!" Trump said in a post on Truth Social in late June.
Israel’s prime minister also said on Tuesday that Iran’s clerical leadership will fall from within not through any foreign military intervention.
“Everybody talks about regime change and they envision the American army and Israeli forces invading Iran — boots on the ground and all that stuff people spew. No,” Netanyahu said in an interview with the Full Send Podcast.
Israel's surprise campaign of airstrikes and drone attacks killed hundreds of Iranians including civilians, military personnel and nuclear scientists. Iran's retaliatory missile strikes killed 27 Israeli civilians.
