The war against Iran came to a halt on its 39th day. However, a subsequent two-week truce and its extension late last week have still not seen any sign of a peace agreement with no new negotiations currently scheduled. According to Donald Trump, Iran has not abandoned its pursuit of nuclear weapons, and the United States’ move to blockade the Strait of Hormuz is a step that risks reigniting the conflict while leaving Iran’s governing structure largely unchanged.
Iran’s reformists and the conflict with the US
Khatami himself acknowledged these limitations, at one point describing himself as “procurement staff.” Reformists have never been a stand-in to the system; they have been a component of it.
The US-Israel strikes and precision operations have targeted the Iranian regime’s political and military leadership. Many senior figures have been killed—elevated to what the state calls a “position of martyrdom” while others have not been granted that distinction. Strikingly, most of those eliminated belong to the hardline camp. Meanwhile, prominent so-called reformists—whether in office or not—have remained untouched. Figures such as Masoud Pezeshkian, the incumbent president, Hassan Rouhani, Mohammad Khatami, Mostafa Tajzadeh, and Mohammad Reza Aref remain alive. At the same time, Donald Trump has referred to “someone from within” and “the most respected and the leader” in Iran when discussing a post–Islamic Republic future. This suggests a preference within the Trump administration for internal alternatives over externally imposed change—actors who could emerge from within the system to stabilize the country without requiring large-scale United States involvement. This raises a consequential question: are “reformists” among those options? To understand the limits of this approach, one must first examine the nature of reformism within the Islamic Republic.
Reformists, led by Mohammad Khatami, rose to prominence in 1997 on a platform of social “moderation” and limited political openness. For many including Western observers, this signalled the possibility of gradual transformation from within. However, that expectation quickly collided with the realities of Iran’s power structure.
Real authority in the Islamic Republic lies with the Supreme Leader and is enforced through unelected institutions such as the security apparatus and clerical oversight bodies. Reformist administrations, including those of Khatami and later Hassan Rouhani, operated within these constraints, unable to control the military, shape regional strategy, or direct foreign policy. Even their so-called domestic reform agendas were routinely blocked or diluted.
Khatami himself acknowledged these limitations, at one point describing himself as “procurement staff.” Reformists have never been a stand-in to the system; they have been a component of it. Their tenure has coincided with periods of relative social openness and diplomatic engagement with the West. But these shifts have always been reversible. On core issues, from the doctrine of Velayat-e Faqih (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist) to strategic hostility toward the West, reformists and hardliners differ more in tone than in substance. Reformism has been less as a pathway to change and more as a mechanism of regime adaptation—a way to show flexibility to external pressure without altering its foundations.
The strategic illusion of the rise of the reformists
Yet, mistaking reformists for a credible substitute invites a different kind of failure: preserving the structure under a softer image.
For US policymakers, this distinction should not be academic; it is strategic. The United States has no appetite for repeating the aftermaths of post-Saddam Iraq or post-occupation Afghanistan. Yet mistaking reformists for a credible substitute invites a different kind of failure: preserving the structure under a softer image.
For Washington, the appeal of reformists is understandable. They may present a seemingly manageable option—figures who speak the language of moderation while continuing to operate within known structures. For policymakers wary of chaos, this can appear to be a pragmatic middle ground between total collapse and continued confrontation. If reformists are treated as the solution to a potential power vacuum, the result would not be regime change—but cosmetic change. It would mean leaving the underlying structure intact.
This is precisely the danger Donald Trump himself has hinted at when warning that Iran’s next leader could be “as bad as the previous one.” If the selection is drawn from within the same ideological and institutional framework, that outcome is likely and US may be misreading political actors in other Middle Eastern contexts. What appears to be a safe and pragmatic choice may, in fact, be a strategic illusion.
The current Trump administration has repeatedly criticized previous long US interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the costly and often ineffective nation-building efforts that have followed. It has also steered clear of democracy promotion campaigns and deep involvement in internal political restructuring. Within this framework, “options inside” Iran which rely on reformists may appear as a low-cost, low-risk alternative—especially if they are assumed to include pro-Western groups opposed to the current regime. The United States does not seek another Iraq or Afghanistan. Yet avoiding one form of failure should not lead to another. Substituting hardliners with reformists—or relying on internal actors who lack real authority—would not constitute meaningful change. It would represent, at best, a recalibration of the same system.
What is at stake is not simply who governs Iran but whether the power architecture that defines its governance remains untouched, risking the loss of a rare opportunity for meaningful systemic change.
Iran is facing a leadership crisis as Mojtaba Khamenei’s fate remains unknown, and Washington is uncertain about whom it can engage in negotiations. The Iranians, however, are exploiting this ambiguity as a tactic to buy time—prolonging the current stalemate in the hope of outlasting Donald Trump. Their calculation is that negotiations could yield more favorable terms under a potential future Democratic administration, similar to the agreement, JCPOA, they signed in 2015.
The United States should not confuse tactical moderation with structural transformation. What is at stake is not simply who governs Iran but whether the power architecture that defines its governance remains untouched, risking the loss of a rare opportunity for meaningful systemic change.
Published originally on May 1, 2026 under the title “Why Trump’s ‘Reformist’ Hope for Iran Is a Mirage.”
