The United States and Israel began their war against Iran with an extraordinary display of military cooperation, resulting in the assassination of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. But differences began to emerge between Washington and Jerusalem almost immediately, and less than a week into the war, their objectives appear to be colliding.
President Trump has signaled that the outcome he prefers in Tehran is one in which the country is led by a strongman who will cooperate with him on a peace deal and perhaps give the U.S. a slice of Iran’s oil industry. Contrary to the hopes of some inside Iran and elsewhere, he has shown little interest in promoting democracy in Iran or cultivating an exiled opposition figure, such as former Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi. Instead, as Trump said on Tuesday, installing a new leader “from within” the regime “might be more appropriate.” The administration’s intervention in Venezuela earlier this year produced a similar outcome: After President Nicolás Maduro’s ouster, his second in command took over and proved to be a more pliable partner. Indeed, earlier this week, Trump told The New York Times that what he accomplished in Venezuela would be the “perfect scenario” for Iran.
[Read: Trump has lost the plot in Iran]
Israel is seeking a far more sweeping transformation. The country’s aim is not merely to remove Iran’s supreme leader but to dismantle the regime entirely. Amos Hochstein, who served as President Biden’s senior adviser for energy security and was deeply involved in Middle Eastern diplomacy, told me that if the regime survives in any form, Israeli officials fear that it will simply rebuild Iran’s missile, drone, and nuclear programs once international attention moves on.
Both the U.S. and Israel had agreed that Iran’s weakness gave them an opportunity to destroy its offensive military capabilities and prevent the regime from projecting power in the Middle East. But the contrast between the two sides’ goals came into relief soon after last weekend’s strikes, which killed dozens of Iranian officials along with Khamenei. For Israel, the strikes were an unqualified triumph. But for Trump they posed a certain difficulty. “The attack was so successful, it knocked out most of the candidates” to replace Khamenei, Trump told ABC’s Jonathan Karl on Sunday. “It’s not going to be anybody that we were thinking of because they are all dead. Second or third place is dead.” The Israelis are continuing to kill as many senior regime officials as they can.
While Washington and Jerusalem work at cross-purposes, Tehran’s strategy for survival is becoming clearer. Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, has said that Iran is prepared for a long war if necessary—what some analysts have described as a “contest of endurance.” Iran cannot defeat the United States and Israel militarily. Its goal instead seems to be expanding the conflict and inflicting maximum economic chaos, such that the United States decides to cut its losses and end the war before Iran’s endurance runs out.
To that end, the regime has launched missiles and drones at nations across the Gulf, targeting airports, energy facilities, data centers, and commercial hubs. Iran may also hope that the damage it imposes on Gulf states will cause them to pressure Washington to halt the war. That could explain why Iran has most aggressively targeted the UAE, which has staked its future on the idea that it can be a haven for AI investment.
Escalation on both sides seems likely in the coming days. Trump may well increase pressure on the regime to buckle and sue for peace on his terms, such as by targeting Iran’s energy and economic infrastructure. Iran, meanwhile, will probably try to further unsettle the markets. One possibility is that the regime decides to mine the Strait of Hormuz, which would threaten the global energy supply.
If the war does escalate and bring the regime to the brink of collapse, the odds will grow that the Iranian state fragments. Such an outcome could unleash a civil conflict that might well flood the Middle East with refugees, amplify the threat of terrorism, further destabilize the region, and draw in outside powers. These consequences would only further lay bare the tension between American and Israeli goals.
Danny Citrinowicz, a senior researcher at Tel Aviv’s Institute for National Security Studies, told the Financial Times that Israel could live with chaos in Iran if that is the price of destroying the regime. He summed up the government’s position: “If we can have a coup, great. If we can have people on the streets, great. If we can have a civil war, great. Israel couldn’t care less about the future” or “the stability of Iran.” From America’s perspective, however, the splintering of Iran would have a disastrous impact on the Gulf and likely bog the U.S. down in the Middle East indefinitely, a commitment Trump promised to avoid.
In the meantime, the Trump administration is reportedly planning to arm Kurdish fighters and encourage them to attack the Iranian regime. The president no doubt sees this as a way to pressure Tehran without involving U.S. troops on the ground. But to many Iranians, such a gambit will look like an American and Israeli effort to dismantle the country.
[Read: The coming invasion of Iran]
Such a plan would also likely alarm Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Ankara is currently engaged in a peace process with the PKK, a Kurdish militant group that has fought a decades-long insurgency against Turkey. The PKK is affiliated with the fighters Trump may now supply. If the United States moves forward with the plan, Turkey might find itself faced with another American-sponsored Kurdish enclave along its border, not unlike the one the U.S. recently supported in Syria. This is a possibility that Erdoğan seems determined to prevent.
My Brookings Institution colleague Aslı Aydıntaşbaş told me that the Trump administration initially reassured Ankara that the war would last only four days. If the war continues, and the U.S. helps the Kurds gain a foothold in Iran, Aydıntaşbaş added, Erdoğan might attack Kurdish forces inside Iran or quietly coordinate with Tehran to contain them. Either course of action could disrupt the fragile peace process between Turkey and the PKK, adding even more turmoil to the region. This is just one example of the many geopolitical tensions that could emerge in the coming days.
Trump may want to bring the war to an end soon. The longer it goes on, the more it will drain U.S. stockpiles of air defenses and precision munitions that Washington might need in other theaters. A protracted war would also hurt the administration politically, given the conflict’s unpopularity and Trump’s failure to communicate a clear rationale for it.
Hochstein, the former Biden adviser, suggested to me that Trump may opt to end the war after only a week or two by simply declaring victory—pointing to Iran’s degraded nuclear and missile capability, compromised navy and air force, and depleted civilian and military leadership. He could claim that Iran is no longer a regional menace and threaten to intervene again if the regime acts up. Israel would surely disagree with such a decision, but Trump may strong-arm the country into accepting a cease-fire, as he did last June.
The greater danger, though, is that neither side is able to control how the war ends. Israel is prepared to risk chaos as long as it means destroying the regime. Trump, meanwhile, appears to believe he can engineer an outcome from within it even though he has no evident plan. History suggests that wars aimed at reshaping political systems hardly ever unfold as their initiators intend. Once regimes crack, the forces they unleash are rarely easy to contain.
