Peloni: Trump must prevent the Iranian regime from outlasting his administration. This is the unenviable outcome which will come from pursuing the Venezuela model in Iran. All the risks and all the costs which have been incurred upto this point will have come to naught if the IRGC is allowed to wait out Trump’s term, following which they will clearly move back towards their prior trajectory under a far less interested presidency, be it under someone like Vance or G_d forbid under a Democrat. They are responsible for the butchering of American citizens, the weaponizing of the drug trade, electoral tampering, and attempted assassinations of American leadership including President Trump himself. This regime must be ripped from its perch of power, root, stem and leaf, leaving no vestige behind to rekindle the flame of radicalism which will otherwise return to the state of blaze which will once again threaten the American people. This war must make an end of the Ayatollahs and the IRGC both. It is the only way to secure the safety of the region, the world and the American people.
by Majid Rafizadeh • Gatestone Institute • April 5, 2026
For decades, the Iranian regime has played a calculated game. When pressure intensifies — whether economic, political or military — it introduces a figure portrayed as “moderate” or “pragmatic.” Today a similar narrative is emerging around Parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. A closer examination of his record, however, exposes that he is not an outsider, reformer or transformative figure. He is a quintessential insider — a product of the system from its earliest days. Pictured: Tehran Mayor, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf at Tasnim News Agency headquarters. By Tasnim News Agency, CC BY 4.0, Wikipedia
- For decades, the Iranian regime has played a calculated game. Every few years, when pressure intensifies — whether economic, political or military — it introduces a figure portrayed as “moderate” or “pragmatic.” This narrative was once built around figures like Presidents Mohammad Khatami and Hassan Rouhani, both marketed to the West as agents of change.
- Today, a similar narrative is emerging around Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. A closer examination of Ghalibaf’s record, however, exposes the disaster in this recurring assumption. He is not an outsider, reformer or transformative figure. He is a quintessential insider — a product of the system from its earliest days.
- What the Trump Administration seems to find irresistible about Ghalibaf is that he is reported to be a “yes man.” The Administration is likely hoping that he will be its “yes man,” not the IRGC’s. The sticking point that has surfaced, however, is that “[e]ven if he wants to do something, he has to get approval from the IRGC and the supreme leadership.”
- Even when figures such as Ghalibaf are floated as potential candidates for Iran’s presidency, they remain deeply embedded in a system where ultimate authority lies in layers of leadership. Whoever thinks that such individuals can independently reshape policy or fundamentally alter the regime’s trajectory misunderstands how power operates in Tehran.
- The goal is not cooperatively to transform the system, but to help it survive.
- For Iran’s rulers, reform is not just undesirable — it is unacceptable, the equivalent of expecting a rabbi to eat bacon on the Jewish fasting day of Yom Kippur.
- At present, there is a strong incentive for Iran to simply wait out Trump. Future US presidents, it is assumed, will be more accommodating; they always have been.
- The United States and its allies, including Israel, should not again fall for the dusted-off illusion that a new Iranian official will now, suddenly, out of a top hat, represent meaningful change…. Whether it was Khatami, Rouhani, or now Ghalibaf, in reality, within Iran’s regime, there are no true moderates. As long as the current structure of the Islamic Republic remains intact, the system — not the individuals — is the defining force.
The United States should not fall for the wish that any official of the current Iranian regime will somehow be different from the others. This illusion has surfaced repeatedly, repackaged with new faces and new rhetoric, but always serving the same underlying system. Washington and its allies really need to recognize that individuals within the Islamic Republic of Iran do not operate independently of the regime’s ideological core — they are products of it.
For decades, the Iranian regime has played a calculated game. Every few years, when pressure intensifies — whether economic, political or military — it introduces a figure portrayed as “moderate” or “pragmatic.” This narrative was once built around figures like Presidents Mohammad Khatami and Hassan Rouhani, both marketed to the West as agents of change.
There must be no one left from the original regime – all dead – not arrested – dead.