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The escalating conflict in the Middle East is fueling fears that Washington’s pursuit of regime change in Iran, and Tehran’s retaliation, could destabilize regions from the Gulf to Europe, leaving global leaders scrambling to assess the fallout.
The U.S. and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran over the weekend, killing the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, prompting waves of attacks by Tehran across the region.
President Donald Trump made it clear in a video message Saturday following the initial wave of U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran that his objective was “eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime, a vicious group of very hard, terrible people.”
Geopolitical analysts warned that Saturday’s strikes could be the opening salvo of a sustained military campaign aimed at dismantling the Iranian regime, with the U.S. seeking to assert dominance over the world’s most critical oil-producing region.
