The way Donald Trump talked about the Iranian regime in the run-up to this war, it sounded a lot like the president envisioned a wholesale regime-change operation. But the president might have also wanted to keep a Venezuela-style option in his back pocket — a half measure in which the existing regime sues for peace following its decapitation. It seems, however, that the decapitating was too thorough for that.
“The attack was so successful it knocked out most of the candidates,” Trump told ABC News’ Jonathan Karl over the weekend. By “candidates,” he meant more pliant figures within the Islamic Republic’s firmament who might have taken over for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “It’s not going to be anybody that we were thinking of because they are all dead. Second or third place is dead.”
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