On Feb. 28, 2026, President Donald Trump announced the commencement of Operation Epic Fury, a joint U.S.-Israeli military operation against Iran. Among the mission’s goals was the overthrow of the Islamic Republic. “When we are finished,” Trump told the Iranian people, “take over your government. It will be yours to take.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu echoed Trump’s message, saying: “Our joint action will create the conditions for the brave Iranian people to take their destiny into their own hands.” To be sure, Washington and Jerusalem had other objectives — above all, preventing the Islamic Republic from acquiring nuclear weapons — but reporting suggests that regime change was, particularly for Netanyahu, a core goal.
As of this writing, the U.S.-Israeli operation has failed to topple the Islamic Republic. While Israel succeeded on the first day of the war in killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the regime has weathered the attacks. Nor has the campaign resulted in major Iranian concessions on its nuclear program.
Analysts have argued that this outcome is attributable to several errors in decision-making. Some writers assert that neither the United States nor Israel had any plan for how to install a new government in Tehran after the initial decapitation strikes. Given the resilience of the Islamic Republic’s system, other scholars anticipate that undermining the regime will be challenging. Consequently, several authors have concluded that Washington and Jerusalem conflated the achievement of tactical success with the fulfillment of long-term political objectives.
What is one to make of these claims? One way to evaluate such arguments is to examine them in the light of the historical evidence, which, on balance, lends solid support to these critical analyses. Five cases are relevant: the 1956 to 1957 Suez crisis, Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, U.S. efforts to overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the Obama administration’s decision to remove Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, and the 1953 U.S.-sponsored coup in Iran. While other examples exist — for example, Iraq’s disastrous decision to invade Iran in 1980 was motivated in part by regime change ambitions — these five operations are especially useful because they highlight key misjudgments that played a role in shaping the thinking of the principal U.S. and Israeli architects of the war.
To be sure, there are significant differences between these cases and the 2026 U.S.-Israeli operation. Unlike Operation Epic Fury, the Suez crisis, Israel’s intervention in Lebanon, and, ultimately, American efforts to remove Saddam from power all involved full-fledged ground invasions, and the geopolitical context surrounding each of these examples differed meaningfully from February 2026. Likewise, the 2011 U.S. mission in Libya began as a humanitarian intervention and subsequently morphed into a regime change operation against a leader who had been cooperating with the United States on important security matters for the better part of a decade. Finally, the case of what happened in Iran in 1953 differs in significant ways, since it involved covert action — as opposed to a major military operation — and arguably succeeded, insofar as it installed a regime friendly to the United States, at least until it was replaced by a revolutionary government inimical to U.S. interests roughly a quarter of a century later.
Nevertheless, two common misjudgments that contributed to the long-term failure of these five regime change efforts appear to have also been present in the minds of the architects of the 2026 war, and especially Trump and Netanyahu, as critics of the war have pointed out. First, the two men — who both appear to have felt that the mission stood a good chance of succeeding because of their mutual belief that the string of defeats Iran and its proxies had suffered since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack against Israel had left the regime in Tehran highly exposed — conflated American and Israeli material capabilities with the capacity to achieve basic political outcomes, a fundamental strategic error. Indeed, the cases examined here suggest that leaders frequently overestimate their ability to translate military power, coercive diplomacy, and/or covert action into desirable strategic outcomes and political transformation in the Middle East.
Second, and relatedly, U.S. and Israeli policymakers succumbed to the tempting belief that decapitation could serve as a magic bullet, by either leading to the replacement of the regime in Tehran with a more moderate leadership, or triggering some sort of collapse of state capacity that would leave Iran seriously weakened. What the historical evidence suggests, however, is that such operations typically trigger a nationalist backlash, ignore the absence of a viable alternative political force that can form a stable government, and/or underestimate the resilience of the existing political order — all of which can ultimately result in the establishment of an even more adversarial or unstable regime than the one that preceded it. A key lesson that emerges from an examination of these cases, then, is that there are real limits to what even great powers can accomplish when they attempt to use force, coercive diplomacy, and/or covert action to achieve regime change in the Middle East.
With that in mind, Washington should pursue a different policy toward Iran. For the United States — and for Israel — the most important aim is preventing Tehran from acquiring a nuclear capability. Thus, the Trump administration should abandon its goal of overthrowing the Islamic Republic and instead seek to negotiate a new nuclear agreement with Tehran, one that resembles — and, if possible, is more advantageous to the United States than — the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. While accepting another similar arrangement would by no means be an ideal outcome, the alternatives — resuming military operations and doubling down on a policy that has historically failed — would be a mistake.
The Suez Crisis
In October 1956, Britain, France, and Israel launched a coordinated military effort against Egypt. The Suez crisis was motivated partly by their desire to bring about the collapse of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s government. The attack had other objectives — London and Paris wanted to reverse Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal — but all felt that the Egyptian leader’s removal would benefit their respective interests. “The removal of Nasser, and the installation in Egypt of a regime less hostile to the West,” British Prime Minister Anthony Eden wrote to President Dwight Eisenhower, “must … also rank high among our objectives.” London and Paris, he added, “could not possibly acquiesce” to Egypt’s control of the canal, for such a situation would mean “that the whole position in the Middle East would thereby be lost beyond recall.”
The joint British-French-Israeli effort, though militarily successful, failed politically. Although Israel emerged from the conflict in a salvageable position, the consequences for Britain and France were severe. Eisenhower — who was furious not only because the United States had been kept in the dark about the operation, but also because it diverted attention from the Soviet Union’s ongoing crackdown in Hungary and came just prior to the U.S. presidential election — ultimately put massive pressure on London and Paris to abandon their strategic objectives. Consequently, the Suez crisis is still regarded as a moment when Britain and France lost their standing as great powers. As President Richard Nixon, who at the time was serving as Eisenhower’s vice president, later wrote, the war “had a devastating effect on the British and French. From that time on, they ceased to be major powers in the world.” As for Nasser, he emerged in a strengthened political position.
Israel’s 1982 Invasion of Lebanon
In June 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon. Defense Minister Ariel Sharon, who Avi Shlaim claims was “the real driving force behind” the war, had three ambitious and interrelated objectives: the expulsion of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s military forces from Southern Lebanon, the removal of Syria’s military assets from the country, and the installation of Bashir Gemayel — the leader of the Maronite Christians — as president, which would hopefully result in a Lebanese-Israeli peace treaty. With any luck, Shlaim contends, Sharon believed that the destruction of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s position in Lebanon would transform the Middle East by forcing the Palestinians to return to Jordan. There, he hoped, they would overthrow Jordan’s Hashemite monarchy and replace it with a Palestinian state. That result would facilitate Israel’s annexation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and, in turn, the signing of peace treaties with Jordan and Syria.
Despite rapid military advances, Israel’s war in Lebanon failed to achieve its goals. To be sure, the Palestine Liberation Organization — along with its leader, Yasser Arafat — was expelled to Tunis. But the war did nothing to contain Palestinian nationalism, which exploded just five years later with the outbreak of the First Intifada, an uprising that witnessed the emergence of Hamas. For their part, the Syrians did not withdraw from Lebanon until 2005. Nor did Israel’s regime change effort succeed: In September 1982, Gemayel was assassinated by Syrian-aligned operatives. Although Lebanon did sign a peace agreement with Israel, it had no credibility and quickly became a dead letter. Given the nature of Lebanon’s political system and internal divisions, that outcome is unsurprising.
The war, moreover, proved strategically counterproductive. The conflict tarnished Israel’s image internationally, including — for a time — in the United States, particularly after details emerged that the country had been complicit in the massacre of Palestinian civilians at Sabra and Shatila. Additionally, the war witnessed the rise of Hizballah, a Shiite militant group — one that the U.S. government designates a terrorist organization — which Iran helped organize and now represents Tehran’s most powerful proxy in the Middle East. Israeli forces did not withdraw from Lebanon until May 2000 and, when they did, it was considered a significant victory for Hizballah. As of June 2026, Israeli troops were again conducting major military operations in Lebanon, with the goal of weakening the organization. It remains unclear how Israel can eradicate it, particularly since Iran has shown itself more willing than it was in the past to come to Hizballah’s aid.
The United States and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq
Following Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, regime change quickly became U.S. policy. To be sure, President George H.W. Bush opted neither to pursue Iraqi forces back to Baghdad nor to support the uprisings that erupted in the country in March — even though Bush had encouraged “the Iraqi military and the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands and force Saddam Hussein, the dictator, to step aside” — because doing so would have undermined key U.S. interests. But there was no doubt, even if Bush deserves credit for not exacerbating matters by pursuing regime change via military means, that the aim of American policy was to bring about Saddam’s removal. “He’s got to go,” the president wrote on Feb. 28, the day Kuwait was liberated.
President Bill Clinton’s administration pursued the same goal. In October 1998, Clinton signed into law the Iraq Liberation Act, which stipulated that U.S. policy was “to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq.” “We do not agree,” Secretary of State Madeleine Albright declared in March 1997, “with the nations who argue that if Iraq complies with its obligations concerning weapons of mass destruction, sanctions should be lifted.” “Clearly,” she added, “a change in Iraq’s government could lead to a change in U.S. policy.” That basic approach, analysts have noted, gave the Iraqi leader no incentive to cooperate. “We can,” Saddam repeatedly told his advisers, “have sanctions with inspectors or sanctions without inspectors; which do you want?” Washington, F. Gregory Gause III concludes, had been “forced into a transparent hypocrisy” by insisting on regime change.
Perhaps it would have been impossible to work with Saddam in any case, but by taking the line that it did, the United States left itself few good options. And there is evidence to suggest that Baghdad may have been interested in reaching some sort of accommodation, with certain Iraqi officials suggesting that Clinton’s victory over Bush in 1992 could be an opportunity to “turn a new page.” Ultimately, the administration’s policy was a failure: Over time, it steadily lost international support, such that the containment regime had more or less broken down by the time Clinton left office.
The result was that Clinton’s successor, President George W. Bush, decided that Saddam had to be removed via an American invasion in March 2003. That war, almost universally, is regarded as a strategic blunder. Even leaving aside Iraq’s lack of weapons of mass destruction — the principal justification for the war — and the administration’s incompetent conduct of the conflict, the negative effects on U.S. interests were far-reaching. The war lacked international support and was costly in terms of blood and treasure, contributing to the squandering of the “unipolar moment,” and it created the conditions that led to the rise of the Islamic State. The war also enhanced Iran’s strategic position by empowering its natural political allies in Iraq. The United States, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah complained, had presented Iraq to Iran as a “gift on a golden platter.”
Operation Odyssey Dawn
In March 2011, Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi threatened the residents of Benghazi — the city at the heart of the rebellion that had broken out in the country a month earlier — that government forces would “march in order to cleanse Libya inch by inch, house by house, home by home, alley by alley, person by person, until the country is cleansed of dirt and scum.” President Barack Obama decided to intervene militarily to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe, saying that the United States had “a responsibility to act.”
But it soon became clear that the administration felt that a successful long-term outcome would require Gadhafi’s removal. Obama began calling for Gadhafi to step down as early as Feb. 26, and the president reiterated a month later that the Libyan leader’s overthrow was a goal he “embraced.” “By the summer,” David Sanger later wrote, “no matter what the U.N. resolution said, it was pretty clear that the mission was all about regime change.” “We came, we saw, he died!” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton exclaimed when she learned of Gadhafi’s death.
However well-meaning, the results of the mission were decidedly disastrous for Libya, as well as damaging to U.S. interests. Even Samantha Power, an advocate of the intervention, acknowledged that using American military force against Gadhafi “might ultimately hurt the cause of nuclear nonproliferation” because the Libyan leader had abandoned his nuclear program in 2003. By 2016, moreover, Libya had become, in the words of two New York Times reporters, “a failed state and a terrorist haven,” whereas Gadhafi had previously been cooperating with the United States on counterterrorism efforts. Thus, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who opposed the intervention, recalled saying that Gadhafi “was not a threat to us anywhere. He was a threat to his own people, and that was about it.”
And it had been abundantly clear that Operation Odyssey Dawn, the mission’s codename, involved a real risk of sowing chaos. Clinton had pointed out “how difficult it will be in a country like Libya” to manage the post-Gadhafi political transition, given that the Libyan dictator had spent 42 years “destroying all institutions.” Libya ultimately fell into a state of civil war, one in which a variety of foreign powers played an active role, in what became a multisided proxy conflict. To this day, the country remains divided between two rival governments.
The U.S. Coup in Iran
The U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran is not the first time that the United States has sought to overthrow the country’s political leadership. That distinction goes to Operation TPAJAX, the August 1953 CIA-backed mission to remove Muhammad Mosaddegh, Iran’s elected prime minister, and restore Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi to power. In that case, the Eisenhower administration had become increasingly worried that Iran’s economy was at risk of collapsing, an outcome the White House worried might lead to expanded Communist and Soviet influence in Tehran. Even if one accepts revisionist accounts — though there are good reasons one should not — Mosaddegh’s overthrow still casts a shadow over American-Iranian relations. After all, the shah’s reign ended with the 1979 revolution and his replacement by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s virulently anti-American Islamic Republic.
Conclusion
Thus, it is rather unsurprising that the U.S.-Israeli military campaign has failed to achieve its key objectives. To the contrary, the conflict has elevated Iran’s hardliners, particularly conservative leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba, has been chosen to succeed his father — thereby solving the Islamic Republic’s succession dilemma — a significant setback if one accepts the view that the regime was vulnerable prior to the war. Tehran, moreover, has gained new leverage by showcasing its ability to close the Strait of Hormuz. Even if the June ceasefire agreement remains in effect — and there is reason to believe it may not — Iran can always threaten credibly to do so again. In grand strategic terms, China and Russia stand to benefit from the war’s continuation, not least because U.S. operations have depleted weapons stockpiles that are needed in the Indo-Pacific, an increasingly critical theater.
What, then, is the right path forward for Washington? The prospect that Iran will capitulate is unlikely, and, given the results to date, it would be a mistake for the Trump administration to resume military operations, as the president has threatened to do. To limit the damage to American interests, the White House should instead try to stabilize the ceasefire and achieve its key objectives via negotiations. Specifically, the United States should formally abjure regime change as a policy objective and seek to reinstate an enhanced version of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. Such a course would help achieve the Trump administration’s most important goal: preventing Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons. However emboldened Tehran may feel due to the results of the war thus far, the fact that the Iranian economy — which was weak even before the war began — has sustained as much as $270 billion in damage and left many Iranians desperate, might give the country’s new leaders an incentive to deal.
Regrettably, the broader challenge that the United States and Israel confront in Iran over the longer term, even if one leaves the nuclear issue aside, has no easy answer. Given how unpopular the regime had become on the eve of the war, there was at least a possibility that a more moderate and pragmatic group of Iranian leaders might eventually emerge, as happened, for instance, in the case of Egypt. Ultimately, the perceived threat that Nasser posed to Western and Israeli interests resolved itself when he died in September 1970 and was replaced by President Anwar Sadat. The latter was interested in working with the United States and taking political risks to reach a peace agreement with Israel, which he did in March 1979. Such a scenario, however, now appears remote in Iran: By failing to learn the lessons of past failed regime change efforts in the Middle East, U.S. and Israeli policymakers have likely ensured that the Islamic Republic will remain an adversary for the foreseeable future.
Galen Jackson, Ph.D., is an associate professor of political science at Williams College, where he teaches courses on nuclear weapons, American foreign policy, international relations, the Middle East, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and international cybersecurity studies. He is the author of A Lost Peace: Great Power Politics and the Arab-Israeli Dispute, 1967-1979 (Cornell University Press, 2023), and editor of The 1973 Arab-Israeli War (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023).
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