In Donald Trump’s world, with himself as the protagonist, the conflict in Iran has unfolded in three stages over a chaotic 48-hour period.
On Saturday, it began with the US president ordering B-2 bombers to drop bunker-busting bombs on Iran’s nuclear facilities, sending the US into Israel’s war with the Islamic republic.
On Sunday, Trump was floating the prospect of “regime change” in Tehran, delighting traditional Republican foreign policy hawks but alarming his isolationist rightwing allies.
Then, on Monday, just when the 79-year-old president appeared to be careening the US back towards the interventionist neoconservative Middle East strategy of the George W Bush era, he declared that the hatchets would be buried.
“CONGRATULATIONS TO EVERYONE!” Trump declared on Truth Social, announcing that Israel and Iran had agreed to a “Complete and total Ceasefire” that would begin within hours. An end to the conflict, which he dubbed “THE 12 DAY WAR”, would be saluted by the world.
The trigger for Trump’s abrupt and even surreal shift towards reconciliation was the limited nature of the Iranian response to America’s weekend bombing raid.
While Tehran fired missiles at the large US military base in Qatar on Monday, it did so after giving Washington “early notice”, Trump said. Unlike the US strikes, which he said had “totally destroyed” Iran’s nuclear sites, Tehran’s barrage left the US base — and its personnel — unscathed.
The head-spinning course changes on Iran revealed once again how the US president alternates between blustery threats, efforts to cut deals, extreme measures and sudden victory laps — even when momentous issues are at stake.
The world’s trade negotiators and investors are familiar with Trump’s policy see-saws, as he slapped high tariffs on many US trading partners before rolling some back. But on national security, the president’s split personality has brought him from publicly yearning for the Nobel Peace Prize to launching a direct assault on Iran.
The latest shift towards peace merits caution. Evidence that the US bombing raid had destroyed Iran’s nuclear facilities had not been established by Monday, and Iran’s and Israel’s response to the ceasefire — or its durability — were also unknown.
But by planting the seeds of regime change, foreign policy experts in Washington said Trump had increased the pressure on supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to make more concessions at the negotiating table and not pursue further retaliation — or face a possible US effort to end his rule.
“[Trump] is saying: ‘There’s so much more we could do to attack the sinews of power of this regime and its key institutions. And if you retaliate in a way that gives us a reason to do more, you need to be mindful that that’s where this is heading,’” said Dennis Ross, the former US Middle East envoy and peace negotiator.
Zineb Riboua of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Peace and Security in the Middle East, said Israel’s air strikes on Iran this month had also shown Trump how “vulnerable” the country was.
“I think [Trump] realises that a collapse is a possible scenario, and he might as well take the credit. I think this is where his head is,” she said.
Signals from the administration on its intentions have been mixed since the US strikes. On Sunday morning, top US officials including vice-president JD Vance and defence secretary Pete Hegseth, went out of their way to say the US was not seeking regime change in Tehran. Their statements were undermined by Trump floating the possibility of new Iranian leadership later in the day.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the president’s comments on Monday,
“If the Iranian regime refuses to come to a peaceful, diplomatic solution — which the president is still interested in engaging in — why shouldn’t the Iranian people take away the power of this incredibly violent regime?” Leavitt said on Fox.
Maga loyalists were angry at the shift towards regime change, but relieved at the apparent result after Trump announced the ceasefire.
“Thank you, president Trump, for pursuing peace!” wrote Georgia’s firebrand congressman Marjorie Taylor Greene on X.
Trump’s strike and his comments about the Iranian leadership had drawn praise from more neoconservative Republicans such as Nikki Haley, his 2024 presidential rival, and his former national security adviser John Bolton.
Some of his supporters were trying to square their faith in the president with his flip-flopping.
Charlie Kirk, the prominent conservative media host and Maga activist, had insisted that Trump was looking for a “bottom-up” revolution in Iran, rather than a US-imposed change of government. “President Trump is talking about an organic uprising. America cannot get involved in a forceful decapitation effort in Persia,” he wrote on X.
Robert Satloff, executive director of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said Trump would still prefer “a negotiated end to this conflict, and a diplomatic solution that could include substantial sanction relief if Iran plays its cards right”.
Comparisons with Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003 were faulty, he said, even as Israel — the US ally — began attacking some of pillars of Iran’s regime, such as its notorious Evin prison.
“Even if he decides to target certain regime-sensitive assets like the Israelis began doing today, we’re still a far cry from executing regime change and being responsible for the successor government as we were in Iraq in 2003,” Satloff said.
Meanwhile, Trump’s call for “no further hate” in the Middle East may yet give way to another twist — and more escalation.
Rajan Menon, emeritus professor of political science at The City College of New York, said Trump may believe a weakened Iran would now sign a nuclear deal — but this was not guaranteed.
“To stave off regime change they must show that the regime is in control and is not kowtowing to a foreign power.”