Toppling Iran’s regime - a gamble for Trump
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Welcome to The World in 10. In an increasingly uncertain world, this is The Times' daily podcast dedicated to global security. With me, Toby Gillis, joined today by Alex Dibble. Donald Trump has told Iran he'll decide over the next two weeks whether to join Israel in its military campaign aimed at destroying Iran's nuclear program.

When we spoke to Lina Khatib on Wednesday, she told us she believes the regime in Iran, led by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is taking its last breaths, whether the US becomes involved militarily or not. The Times correspondent Richard Spencer has long covered Iran and reported on other efforts to bring about regime change elsewhere in the region. He's our guest today. Richard, we often hear the term regime change thrown around.

Does that just mean getting rid of the Supreme Leader in Iran? You know, I think this is the biggest question that's never asked. People talk very glibly about regime change. And it's just one of those phrases that's latched into the public consciousness, particularly since, obviously, the Iraq war, where the designated...

aim of the invasion of 2003 was to get rid of the regime of Saddam Hussein. And so everyone just says, oh, well, that's what regime change is. But it's just a phrase. And different countries have different systems of government and they're entrenched in different ways. And if you want your adversary in a geopolitical standoff to change the way it runs itself, there are many different ways of achieving that.

And there are many different forms a regime change operation could take place.

The thing about the Islamic Republic in Iran is it is not a one-man show in the way that the Saddam Hussein regime was, where you could just go and take out Saddam Hussein and say, job done, you know, now let's reestablish the state. I mean, not that anyone managed to do that successfully in Iraq, but that was clearly the aim. Similarly, we've had Syria where, you know, the aim was to get rid of the Assad family and his henchmen. And again, we've seen that.

Richard, can you explain the leadership that is currently in action, in operation in Iran, and what would regime change look like, therefore?

It has, we may not like it, but it has its systems. It has elected parliament. It has a presidency and a government and cabinet ministers who have a variety of views and functions like any other government. Then sitting behind that, you do have this clerical regime led by Ayatollah Al-Khan.

Kamenei, but he is a successor appointed after some sort of procedure, not a very clear procedure from his predecessor, Aitara Rahola Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic. If you say we want to change the regime in Iran, it's understandable that its adversaries want to do that. That's what adversaries want to do. You know, other countries would like to see different governments put in place in Britain and America. And, you know, but how does that happen?

Can you just remove the clerical aspect like that and then leave an elected, functioning parliamentary presidential system? Not clear that that's particularly easy to do. The clerics will still be there as a religious society. Those imams will still be there. Will they be ignored if you remove the one supreme leader? Then what about the Revolutionary Guard? They have their own systems in place. It's an army, but it's also a social force. It has...

a domestic policing element in the besiege it's kind of unofficial police force

militia. They are connected to ordinary police as well. You know, how you can extract these elements from Iranian society and whether you want to try and do that. Or do you just want to, more likely, in my view, the aim is to influence the regime, to alter its behavior, weaken the personal authority of Ali Khamenei.

and shift them into a position where when he dies, whenever that is, he's 86 now, you know, more amenable voices will take his place. I mean, that's one possible outcome. I think the goal of this operation is to substantially weaken the personal authority of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and to damage the reputation of the Revolutionary Guard.

What do you make of these reports, Richard, that Donald Trump personally vetoed an Israeli plan to actually kill the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei? I personally, and I may be a minority voice on this thing that we have to take seriously,

Such claims with a huge pinch of salt. It serves both sides' interests to say that Trump is acting as a restraint on Netanyahu, both in Gaza and in terms of Israel's wider policies in the Middle East. Trump was elected on a basis of ending the wars in the Middle East, of making America great again. So there's a conflict there, which it serves Trump's purpose to slightly disguise. It

It also serves Netanyahu if he's able to keep the cover of America for his actions while saying, well, I could go much further, you know, nod, nod, wink. If only Trump would give me the go ahead and present what he's doing in terms of that dynamic. It doesn't serve him ill either.

It gives him quite a lot of freedom of movement to say, well, you know, it could be much worse. You know, I could be much worse over Gaza. I could be much more aggressive over Iran. That sends a message to Iran that, you know, be careful because if you irritate us all, then things could get even worse for you.

Could Israel have killed Khamenei? Would it be in its interest to do so at this point? Not entirely clear. If you just decapitate the top man, as was shown with Saddam Hussein, you're never quite sure what's going to come next. Trump and Netanyahu both think they've got Iran on the back foot. That would introduce a measure of unpredictability. You may feel safer doing a deal with the devil you've got.

From Israel's point of view, you can see why they might be thinking now is the time to remove the regime, can't you?

They do appear weak, but having said the comparison with 2003 and Saddam Hussein isn't straightforward. I mean, that is in the background of everyone's minds. To invade a country and take out its leadership, it does have a lot of knock-on consequences that you can't plot out and may not be for the best. Trump himself made this strange comparison. The only previous example where a regime change has happened purely by bombing

is the bombing of Kosovo and the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, when that did ultimately lead to a crowd surrounding the presidential palace of Milosevic in Belgrade, the Serbian stroke-rump Yugoslavia leader,

and say enough. And he went quietly. I mean, if this is what the US and Israel are thinking of with Iran, that would be much more in keeping with precedent and also looks much more like what they're doing in a sense. If you look at Trump's messaging to Iran, it isn't we're going to come after you. It's not like George Bush in 2002, 2003 and his people saying, you know, you have to surrender or we will come get you.

There's a lot of mixed messages being sent to create this sense of uncertainty in Iran. You know, you saw Trump tweeting to the population of Tehran saying, you must evacuate your city. I mean, that's incredible. I mean, I just want people to pause a little bit and just say how extraordinary that is. I mean, we live in an extraordinary world. But the idea that an American president is sending out through social media a one-line instruction

to the 10 million residents of a capital city on the other side of the world, they all have to up and leave or an unstated consequence will happen is extraordinary. But it does add to this sense of chaos. But I think the aim is to

engender a feeling of this whatever this is it can't go on much longer you know we may survive this current war with israel but can we go on accepting these rounds of sanctions these crises these wars these bombardments you know something has to happen

And Richard, clearly, it is difficult to gauge when people live under an autocratic regime. But as Iranians deal with that sense of chaos you spoke about, how much appetite do you think there actually is there for change? I think there is a strong minority of people who really would take the streets. We've seen that in the last few years in Iran, who would take the streets and get rid of the regime right now, if they could. There's a

Equally, a strong minority of people who actually want to protect the regime and particularly don't want it.

an American or Israeli backed regime change operation. There's obviously a lot of people in the middle who would quite like the regime to go, quite like things to get better, quite like more personal freedoms, quite like to be able to go to America more easily on holiday or have American investment in their firms. But on the other hand, they don't really want the turmoil that might come about if you try and bring that about.

You know, a lot of people have said, you know, if you want to bring about regime change, bombing the country is the worst thing you can do because no one's going to go out and take to street demonstrations in Tehran if it's being bombed. And I totally agree with that. But as I said before, you know, I don't think the aim here is to bring about regime change tomorrow. I think the aim here is to

destabilise the regime, weaken its standing with a view to some sort of change happening down the line, whether that's in six months or six years. Okay, Richard Spencer, correspondent for The Times. Thank you for joining us. For more on the calculations and considerations going on in Tehran, scroll back to our episode on Monday, how Trump's military threat could force Iran-Israel deals.

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