When U.S. President Donald Trump announced that the United States was at war with Iran, he called on the country’s people to rise in revolt. “When we are finished, take over your government,” Trump said on February 28. “This will be probably your only chance for generations.” But in the days after, his administration backed away from calls for regime change. “This is not a so-called regime change war,” U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on March 2. Vice President JD Vance reinforced this message: “Whatever happens with the regime in one form or another, it’s incidental to the president’s primary objective here, which is to make sure the Iranian terrorist regime does not build a nuclear bomb.” Eventually, Trump began suggesting that by killing Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his top deputies, Washington had already done what it needed to make Iran less threatening—and had, in fact, achieved regime change of a sort.…