How Trump’s War Gamble Backfired and Strengthened Iran’s Hard-Liners

In early 2026, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convinced President Trump that airstrikes targeting Iran’s leadership could trigger a swift uprising and bring down the Islamic Republic. The plan seemed straightforward: eliminate Supreme Leader Khamenei and key figures, and watch the regime crumble. But reality had other plans.

As Foreign Affairs reports, the brutal U.S.-Israeli military campaign did not break Iran’s grip on power. Instead, it disrupted a fragile process of internal reform and handed the regime’s hard-liners a golden opportunity to consolidate control. The unrest that had gripped Iran since late 2025, driven by economic collapse and popular anger, was already pushing Tehran toward cautious liberalization and talks with the U.S. to ease sanctions. Khamenei’s natural decline and a potential moderate succession offered a chance for gradual change.

But the war shattered that possibility. With Khamenei’s sudden death amid conflict, the IRGC-backed Mojtaba Khamenei—an uncompromising hard-liner—rose swiftly, sidelining more moderate voices like Hassan Khomeini. Power centralized around the Revolutionary Guard, which expanded its reach into the presidency and security councils. The regime’s response to external pressure was not collapse but militarization and repression.

Trump and his allies misread Iran entirely, treating it like Venezuela, where Maduro’s removal seemed imminent after U.S. pressure. Iran’s complex, layered institutions are built to absorb shocks, and the regime’s legitimacy crisis was more about internal fractures than leader removal. The war hardened Tehran’s stance: missile tests increased, attacks on Gulf neighbors ramped up, and diplomatic openings closed.

This miscalculation matters deeply. Trump’s reckless military adventurism didn’t just fail to topple a foreign regime—it helped entrench authoritarianism abroad and distracted from his own administration’s scandals at home. The war did not save Iran’s people; it saved the regime’s most brutal elements and set the stage for more regional instability.

We’ll keep tracking how these dangerous gambits play out and who pays the price for this administration’s disastrous foreign policy blunders.