Why won’t President Trump’s foreign affairs advisers call their approach to Iran by its true name? They owe that to the American people.
If the administration’s goal is regime change, they should come out and say it. They should present a plan outlining how they intend to bring it about and what they intend to do once they’ve achieved it. They should explain what the benefits of doing so would be to the American public and our strategic interests.
They should make that case and see if it resonates.
It’s not as though enmity toward Iran has been a historically difficult or politically costly position to take in Washington. Yet the extent to which the White House is keeping Americans in the dark about its intentions toward Tehran is revealing. Perhaps the president and his entourage understand that forcing the collapse of the Iranian regime wouldn’t be a universally popular policy.