After launching a massive military operation against Iran last night, Operation Epic Fury, President Trump delivered a message to Americans that wasn’t merely a regime change speech.

I’ve spent years arguing that the only durable solution to the threat from the Islamic Republic isn’t another nuclear deal, isn’t just another round of sanctions, and isn’t only another limited military strike that sets the program back by months or years. 

It’s the end of the regime that has been waging war on America, Israel, and its own people for 46 years. 

But that’s not exactly what Trump prioritized late Friday evening, and we need to be honest about what he did — and didn’t — say.

What he did do was set two clear and critical priorities.

First, the elimination of Iran’s reconstituting nuclear and missile programs. He won’t accept a freeze or a cap or a negotiated pause that Tehran will cheat on the moment the pressure lifts. 

He will only accept full dismantlement, zero enrichment and zero reprocessing. That’s the right standard.

After launching a massive military operation against Iran last night, Operation Epic Fury, President Trump delivered a message to Americans that wasn't merely a regime change speech

After launching a massive military operation against Iran last night, Operation Epic Fury, President Trump delivered a message to Americans that wasn’t merely a regime change speech

Because here’s what we know: Iran is sealing tunnels at its nuclear facility at Esfahan and moving centrifuges deep underground. 

It’s accelerating work at its nuclear operation at Pickaxe Mountain — buried even deeper than Fordow, with its own cache of thousands of centrifuges — to build a new enrichment facility that conventional bombs can’t reach. 

Additional weaponization sites at SPND and Taleghan 2 inside Parchin that were struck by Israel in June are also being actively rebuilt right now.

And China is shipping thousands of tons of solid–fuel missile propellant to Iran in open defiance of UN sanctions, while Tehran is close to finalizing a deal for supersonic anti–ship missiles designed to kill American sailors in the Persian Gulf. 

Iran is rebuilding its ballistic missile program and also has an active ICBM program designed to target the American homeland.

The nuclear program didn’t end in June 2025 following the first attack by Israel and America during their 12–day war last year. It was severely set back but it’s coming back. 

Elimination — not degradation — is the only acceptable outcome.

Iran and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is rebuilding its ballistic missile program and also has an active ICBM program designed to target the American homeland

Iran and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is rebuilding its ballistic missile program and also has an active ICBM program designed to target the American homeland

An explosion rocks teh Bahrain capital of Manama, which is home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet

An explosion rocks teh Bahrain capital of Manama, which is home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet 

U.S. air defense missile systems at the Erbil International Airport neutralize Iran rockets

U.S. air defense missile systems at the Erbil International Airport neutralize Iran rockets 

Second — and this is where I think Trump may have done something historically significant — by enabling Israel to target elements of the regime’s repression apparatus, he handed the Iranian people a window. 

Maybe the last window in a generation, as he noted.

The Islamic Republic has survived every crisis by deploying its security forces against its own population. 

Notorious arms of regime repression such as Evin Prison, the Basij, the Ministry of Intelligence, and the IRGC units that gunned down more than 30,000 protesters in the streets in January. These are not just human rights atrocities; they are the guarantors of the regime’s survival. 

When you degrade them, you change the internal calculus. You give the Iranian people — who have risen up in 2009, 2019, 2022, and again in January 2026 — a fighting chance to finish what they started. Trump was right to give them a choice: defect or die.

I’ve always believed that maximum pressure on the regime and maximum support for the Iranian people are two sides of the same coin. Last night’s speech moved the needle on the pressure side. 

Whether the Iranian people can seize this moment, whether the regime will be degraded enough, whether the will is there, whether the world will back them — I don’t know. History rarely announces itself in advance. 

But this is the best chance we’ve had in 46 years.

Mark Dubowitz is the chief executive of the Foundation for Defense of DemocraciesÂ