Speaking on Veterans Day, Zakheim said President Donald Trump had set “the first principle” right by vowing to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, a promise he said Trump had made more than 90 times.
“My own view is that as long as this regime is in place, it will pursue a nuclear weapon,” he said. “So if he’s going to prevent the nuclear program, the regime will have to change as well.”
The interview came as Qatar stepped up its mediation. Its foreign ministry said on Tuesday that talks had made progress and that both sides had spoken positively about a diplomatic solution, a day after Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, met Trump at the White House. Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, called reports of negotiations or a meeting in Qatar “a pure lie.”
Talks only with pressure
Zakheim, author of a new book on Reagan’s doctrine of peace through strength, said he had no objection to diplomacy, pointing to Reagan’s talks with Mikhail Gorbachev, as long as the pressure continues.
“I’m fine with talks to probe, to explore, to push, as long as we’re squeezing them at the same time: the blockade, the covert operation, the military presence, the ability to carry out a military operation at any moment,” he said. “If it’s diplomacy and everything else stops, I’d be very concerned.”
The US naval blockade of Iranian ports, first imposed in April, remains in place alongside a Treasury sanctions campaign the administration calls Economic Fury. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in Paris on Tuesday that the economic campaign was “so devastating that right now there is no need for major combat operations.”
Zakheim called the memorandum of understanding reached in June “a very flawed agreement.” Any new deal would need verification involving the United States, “not some third party we can’t trust or don’t know,” he said, and should be “ripped up” if Iran failed to comply.
The June 17 memorandum declared an end to military operations and set a 60-day window for a final deal on Iran’s nuclear program and sanctions. It soon unraveled over control of the Strait of Hormuz, and the deadline passed in August without an agreement.
“They’re just talking about talking,” Zakheim said.
‘The beginning of the end’
Zakheim gave Trump high marks for Operation Midnight Hammer, the June 2025 US strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites at Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan, and for Operation Epic Fury, the US-Israeli campaign launched on February 28 that killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
“The decapitation, the attacks on the nuclear sites, taking out both the ballistic and cruise missile sites, has made this regime weaker,” he said.
But voters had soured on the war, he said, because the president “didn’t win decisively and got stuck in 140 days of diplomacy with a regime that will never compromise.”
He said he hoped a “very consequential covert program” was under way, with Washington backing those who want to replace the Islamic Republic. “We’ve never had an opportunity like the one we have right now to support the people in Iran who are freedom-loving,” he said, adding that Iran’s borders were “more porous than ever” and its skies open.
“It’s an unnatural regime that oppresses its people,” he said.
Iran executed at least 691 people in the first ten months of 2026, including 36 protesters, according to Norway-based Iran Human Rights, which recorded at least 77 executions in October alone.
No one was calling for US troops on the ground, Zakheim said, but Washington must be ready to strike again if Tehran rebuilds its nuclear or ballistic missile programs.
“After Midnight Hammer and Epic Fury, I felt it was the beginning of the end of this regime, and I still stand by that,” he said.
Midterms and the ‘declinists’
Democrats won control of both chambers of Congress in the November 3 midterm elections, with anger over the war’s part in pushing up the cost of living helping drive the result, according to Reuters. They also plan to cut Trump’s $1.5 trillion defense budget request, Military.com reported. Zakheim said the president was right to seek it.
The Constitution gives the president, as commander in chief, authority over military and foreign affairs that Congress does not share, Zakheim said, and presidents often turn to foreign policy after midterm losses “because it’s the one thing they can control.” Congress holds the power to declare war and to fund the military.
He warned against a “new generation of détente advocates” and what he called “full-on declinists,” some of whom won seats in the midterms.
“They believe that if only America would retreat from the world and leave, the Iranians would be just fine,” he said. “There’s no evidence of that in the history since 1979.”
He traced Washington’s experience with the Islamic Republic to the 444-day hostage crisis, which ended as Reagan was sworn in in January 1981, and the 1983 bombing of the US Marine barracks in Beirut, which he described as America’s first encounter with Hezbollah.
“You don’t have to look far back to find the number of times this regime has murdered Americans,” he said
