While President Donald Trump has wobbled on his commitment to immediately help Iranian protesters against regime security forces and their proxies, he appeared to settle his administration’s internal debate on January 17, 2026, when he explicitly called for regime change.
“It’s time to look for new leadership in Iran,” Trump told Politico. Calling Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei “a sick man,” Trump declared: “His country is the worst place to live anywhere in the world because of poor leadership.”
Seizing the terminal would effectively drain Khamenei of the ability to pay state salaries.
If Trump wants to change Iran’s regime yet minimize or avoid a quagmire and boots on the ground, rhetoric and airpower alone will not be enough. Instead, he should seize the Kharg Oil Terminal, located fifteen miles off Iran’s coast. Iran exports more than 90 percent of its oil through Kharg, so seizing the terminal would effectively drain Khamenei of the ability to pay state salaries. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is no more capable of defending Kharg than it was almost forty years ago when President Ronald Reagan ordered a similar operation against smaller Iranian oil platforms. Nor can Khamenei afford to divert his most trusted military units away from protest suppression. Should he use ballistic missiles to destroy the terminal, he would figuratively cut his regime’s own throat because regime and Revolutionary Guard salaries would even more permanently disappear.
The question then becomes what the United States should do with any Iranian oil that continues to flow or resumes flowing upon Khamenei’s downfall or flight from the country. Trump approaches the energy markets with realism; he understands in Venezuela and Iran that a free flow of oil is essential to rebuilding the country and restoring investment. The problem is that, under both Nicolás Maduro and Khamenei, dictators diverted oil revenues for their own personal profit. While Iranians now rise up because they cannot put food on their tables, Khamenei need not worry about from where his next meal comes. It is no coincidence that many Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leaders are overweight.
Such a fund might at first help finance a conference and the beginnings of a constitutional convention to determine the country’s future.
Because Iran’s oil belongs to Iranians and a post-Islamic Republic Iran will need billions of dollars to rebuild after nearly a half-century of the ayatollahs’ mismanagement, Trump should set up a sovereign wealth fund. While most sovereign wealth funds solely invest in the future, the Free Iran Sovereign Wealth Fund might do more with set disbursements that could help Iranians even as both the principle and investment income grows. Such a fund might at first help finance a conference and the beginnings of a constitutional convention to determine the country’s future. By controlling the purse-strings, at least initially, the Trump administration could ensure that a new Iranian government includes only those groups that share an outlook that would lead to freedom, liberty, and democracy, rather than renewed autocracy.
Additional disbursements might support an emergency medical fund to address the injuries suffered by Iranian protesters or the losses suffered by their families. Likewise, while oil workers remain reticent to strike for structural reasons, creating an externally-managed strike fund with Iranian oil revenue would help support those truly on the front line of the struggle against Iranian tyranny.
The Iranian regime has yet to fall. As with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and North Korea’s hermit kingdom, zombie regimes can persist years after they should have died, absent an outside push. Still, it is not too late either to plan for the day after or to found a new scaffolding upon which a free Iran can grow.
