In the early morning hours of January 2, 2026, President Donald Trump threw down the gauntlet on Iran. “If Iran shots [sic] and violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue,” he wrote on Truth Social. “We are locked and loaded and ready to go.”
It is the right sentiment, but a more nuanced message would be better. After all, when it occurs, regime change will be based on the courage and initiative of the Iranian people, not on the strength of American weaponry.
Regime change will be based on the courage and initiative of the Iranian people, not on the strength of American weaponry.
A better approach would be for the United States, preferably with the European Union and as many Middle Eastern and South Asian countries that will join, to give an ultimatum to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and current cabinet members: Leave Iran, turn yourself into foreign embassies abroad, and live. You can escape the death penalty, if not win amnesty. As the repression turns violent, however, the international community should put on notice that those who order forces to fire into crowds, or who carry out those orders, will make themselves subject to criminal charges, life imprisonment, or perhaps even execution when Ali Khamenei’s regime collapses.
Here, there are lessons from Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s collapse. Over decades, Saddam’s Baathist regime was brutal, massacring Shi’a and using chemical weapons against Kurds. Regardless of his target, Saddam’s motive was the same: collective punishment of constituencies he deemed disloyal.
Saddam rightly hanged for his role in the July 8, 1982, massacre of Shi’a at Dujail, approximately 40 miles north of Baghdad. While the atrocities he unleashed against the Kurds were arguably greater, he could not stand trial for them because Western nongovernmental organizations like Human Rights Watch refused to provide the forensic evidence they had collected after the chemical weapons attacks on the Kurds unless the new Iraqi government first foreswore the death penalty against those who might be charged. Such a demand was arrogant and arbitrary; Human Rights Watch put Western activists’ political agendas above justice.
Iraqis were right to turn their backs on career human rights activists who remain detached from reality and jet set from one conflict zone to the next, where they act and often behave like colonial governors. No Western activist should stand between Iranians and the justice they may choose to mete out after Khamenei falls. There can be no shielding of senior regime officials who choose repression and violence. They might have their choice before the regime falls, but they can have no do-over and will need to face the consequences if they do not flee Iran to join Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his exile.
Trump may threaten, but to show U.S. seriousness, he should announce the formation of a crack U.S. Department of the Treasury team to help Iranians trace the hundreds of billions of dollars the regime stole. Trump, who does not hesitate to break diplomatic paradigms, should put both London and Dubai on notice that he will not hesitate to sanction British and Emirati officials if they shield, rather than seize, Iranian real estate investments.
Post-war Iraq provides another lesson. While conventional wisdom suggests that Coalition Provisional Authority Administrator L. Paul Bremer’s dissolution of the Iraqi army sparked insurgency, this narrative is incorrect. First, the Iraqi army largely dissolved itself. Senior officials culpable in war crimes went into hiding; these were those featured in the “deck of cards.” The conscripts went home; they never wanted to be in the Iraqi army anyway. Almost immediately, Bremer invited the middle ranks to constitute the core of the new Iraqi army whose establishment he supervised. The real problem was not the army’s dissolution, but rather the failure to pay pensions quickly and easily.
Trump also must prepare the U.S. Department of Justice and the Internal Revenue Service to deal with those Americans who helped and assisted the Islamic Republic.
Contrary to his subsequent contrived narrative of opposition to the Iraq war, Elbridge Colby, currently undersecretary of Defense for Policy, was an enthusiastic functionary who begged his way onto the Coalition Provisional Authority’s governance team. While he seldom left the blast-wall protected palace in which Bremer operated, he should remember the problem and will hopefully ensure it does not replicate. Those Iranian officials and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officers who surrender should be allowed to keep their pensions, but nothing more. Should they refuse to turn over embezzled or diverted funds, they should face legal consequences and spend their retirement in prison.
Trump also must prepare the U.S. Department of Justice and the Internal Revenue Service to deal with those Americans who helped and assisted the Islamic Republic as unregistered foreign agents. When Saddam fell, the U.S. government received reams of documents, many of which showed prominent academics, journalists, and think tankers had received Saddam’s largesse. Questions over privacy and an inability or unwillingness to confirm authenticity of documents let many escape justice. The Iranian gravy train has been greater and impacted the U.S. policy debate more as Iran’s fellow travelers have established think tanks and infiltrated top media outlets. Their free ride should be over.
Securing internal Iranian documents and leveraging informants from the failed regime who can prove the complicity and corruption of American citizens or residents in regime propaganda should be a top priority for the United States internally as Iran simultaneously seeks to rebuild.
Trump’s statement on Truth Social is important, but it is just the tip of the iceberg about what needs to come next.
