A few weeks prior to the outbreak of the current war with Iran, I was in Vienna for the first face-to-face meeting of the Iranian-Israeli Peace Forum, a dialogue group established in the wake of the Iranian missile strikes launched in April 2024.  In the shadow of war in June 2025, this group collaborated on the release of a joint statement rejecting military confrontation as the way to resolve the conflict between the two countries. In Vienna, we appeared at a public panel sponsored by the Bruno Kreisky Forum, where our Iranian partners made it clear that while they yearn for regime change, they would not welcome the dispatch of US or Israeli bombers to do the work for them. Their rejection of the “peace through strength” policies of the Trump administration and the Netanyahu government was unequivocal.

The views held by the Iranians were closely aligned with those of the Israeli speakers. We expressed our hope that diplomacy would prevail over preemptive strikes against supposed Iranian threats whose dimensions and immediacy are being inflated in accordance with political expediency. How else can one explain that the Iranian nuclear facilities that were “obliterated” in June 2025 have to be “re-obliterated” in March 2026? How else can one explain that the promise of regime change given to the Iranian protestors in January morphed into negotiations on nuclear capabilities in February and into a war with muddled objectives in March?

Prospects for Regime Change

There is no question that the Iranian people deserve regime change, and with the death of Ayatollah Ali KhameneI, change is certain. What kind of change, however, remains to be seen.

On January 3, we saw President Trump use the war on drugs as a cover for a hostile takeover of the Venezuelan oil industry. Announcing the capture of President Nicolas Maduro, Trump promised the people of Venezuela a “judicious” transition to a life of “peace, liberty, and........

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