The capture of President Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela creates a paradox for the Islamic Republic: Its leaders are now more determined to stay in charge, yet more fearful of exerting the violence necessary to do so. They cannot assume President Donald Trump’s rhetoric is empty. After all, he showed resolve in taking out an adversary. By doing so, however, he made it more difficult for Iranian leaders to go into exile, because Venezuela was one of a diminishing number of potential destinations.
On January 2, 2026, Trump posted on social media that the U.S. military would intervene to protect Iranian protesters if the regime started killing them. Hours later, U.S. Special Forces in Caracas arrested Maduro. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei may be a cipher, but he likely will think twice before ordering widespread lethal force against demonstrators.
On January 2, 2026, Trump posted on social media that the U.S. military would intervene to protect Iranian protesters if the regime started killing them.
Every time that Khamenei bet on Trump’s non-interventionism, he lost. In 2018 and 2019, Iran escalated its regional aggression as it assumed the reticence of U.S. officials to attack Iran would continue. No American president had attacked Iran, including its proxies, since Ronald Reagan in 1988 ordered Operation Praying Mantis in response to Iranian mining of shipping channels. But on January 3, 2020, Trump ordered a drone strike that killed Qods Force chief Qassem Soleimani as he drove down Baghdad’s airport road. Last year, after Khamenei again tested Trump’s patience over nuclear negotiations, Trump ordered U.S. bombers to drop bunker-buster bombs on Iran’s underground enrichment and storage facilities.
Now, Trump has drawn a red line for Khamenei. “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. But Iran has been shooting at the protesters and killing them, albeit at a lower rate than in the past. Khamenei must calculate how far would be too far for Trump—but Trump’s show of resolve in Venezuela should make Khamenei more reticent to push his luck too far.
Iranian officials will not acknowledge contingency plans in case of regime collapse, but after Hezbollah’s neutering, the collapse of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, and Israel’s demonstration that it could strike at the heart of the regime, various officials likely are. considering locations for exile.
Historical context helps. When the shah’s regime fell, many of his senior leadership could flee to the United States or France. The shah himself thought that the United States would provide safe haven. Though President Jimmy Carter subsequently betrayed him and forced him onward to Panama. Still, for those in the shah’s inner circle, living in the United States would have been an upgrade for the wealth, secular, and Americanized elite, if not for being away from their homeland. This perhaps made members of the shah’s regime less invested in fighting to keep his regime.
Should the Iranian regime collapse, the Shi’ite militias that the regime sponsors will likely fracture or dissolve.
It is not the same now in the Islamic Republic. The Iranian regime’s elite do not have a place to go where they can live luxurious lives in a society with similar values. First, they are Shi’ites. There are few Shi’ite-majority countries in the world: Iraq remains dependent on the Islamic Republic, but U.S. forces can readily operate in it. A Sunni royal family rules Bahrain and resents previous Iranian-sponsored attacks on its monarchy and sovereignty. Azerbaijan, too, is largely hostile to the Islamic Republic, despite conducting extensive trade with it. Iranian-backed militias impose themselves on parts of Lebanon and Yemen, but do not control their full territory.
Should the Iranian regime collapse, the Shi’ite militias that the regime sponsors will likely fracture or dissolve. Any safe haven that Iranian leaders might expect could come crashing down and end in their extradition back to face justice in Iran. The only Sunni government that does not hate the regime is Qatar’s, but Doha might be reticent given the relatively large size of the Islamic Republic’s elite and its negative experience with hosting the Hamas leadership. It is one thing for Qatar to position itself as mediator, but another to extend charity to any faction that has fallen from power. This is why Venezuela was such an important alternative.
During the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom protests, opposition outlet Iran International reported that the regime was considering Venezuela as a potential sanctuary. In addition to ousting the Maduro regime, the “Trump corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine also removes Cuba and Nicaragua as options. The regime is left with Russia, perhaps their most likely destination, but it, too, is fragile. China remains another possibility, but Beijing is hostile to Islam within its own borders. Some African countries might also offer asylum.
