Puerto Morelos, Mexico, March 17, 2026 --  

Toppling the government of a large country requires allies on the ground. This was as true five centuries ago as it is today.

When the Spanish conquistadors first arrived on the Mexican coast 500 years ago, it was on the tip of the Yucatan peninsula. The Mayan lords they encountered fought hard and had few of the riches from their heyday centuries earlier, so the Spanish let them be. Mayan warlords would remain as a powerful impediment to Spanish domination for the next 300 years.

Things played out very differently when Hernán Cortés and his mercenaries rounded the peninsula and reached the Gulf coast in 1519. Natives disgruntled with their rulers welcomed Cortéz into an alliance to overthrow the fantastically wealthy but much hated Aztec empire over the mountains in today's Mexico City. Cortéz and his local marched on the capital and by the end of the next year had conquered the empire, seized its vast gold riches and ruled all of central Mexico. Spain became the dominant power for the next three centuries.

The lesson of Cortés' success is the importance of local alliances when toppling a regime. And this lesson is totally lost on today's dominant power as it wages war on Iran.

Let's be clear: the key goal of Iranian regime change has made no progress. The killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khameini by an Israeli strike on the first day of the war yielded only a dynastic succession to his son. Likewise, the Spanish killed emperor Moctezuma II only for him to be replaced by his brother Cuitlahuac who continued the fight.

Unfortunately, America's war on Iran has nothing similar to the armed local allies that Cortés had at his side. Most of Iran's organized opposition is in exile in the United States or elsewhere. The son of the late Shah lives in a leafy suburb northwest of Washington DC, has no army, and has little following inside Iran. A small armed Iranian Kurdish group is based in northern Iraq, but it represents an ethnic minority seeking autonomy or secession from Iran, not regime change.

In terms of public support, America can hardly be seen as a savior. Iranians did rise up against the regime in January, but America stood by and did nothing as the regime slaughtered protesters -- as many as 30,000 may have been killed.¹. Those opponents who survived the massacres know to stay quiet and keep their heads down.

The Trump administration's decapitation of the regime in Venezuela -- via the capture of President Maduro by commandos -- similarly did not change the regime. Trump dismissed the opposition movement as lacking respect and welcomed it when Maduro's vice president took power in the hope that she would be more pliable.

Yet even a feeble victory like in Venezuela eludes America in Iran. Its new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei is continuing the war against America.

While it is possible that Trump could declare victory and end the war with Iran's fundamentalist regime still in power, this would be foolish. The regime is weakened but angry and is more incentivized than ever to build an atom bomb as the only way to stop future American and Israeli attacks. No matter what new damage has been done to the nuclear program,.scientific knowledge once gained is nearly impossible to destroy.

If the regime does not fall, it is only a matter of time until it gets the bomb. Best case scenario when It does is that Iran becomes an untouchable pariah like North Korea. Worst case scenario is that it uses the bomb on Tel Aviv or New York.

At this point, America and Israel have few good options. They can send in ground forces to finish the job, but that will be horribly expensive in terms of blood and treasure. Or they can keep bombing, depleting their arsenals even as they struggle to find good targets. And every bomb and missile America fires is one that cannot be sold to Ukraine to keep the Russians at bay and one that cannot be used to defend Taiwan should Xi Jinping decide it is time to invade.

So what's the plan? Stay the course and just pray for an internal revolution or coup? Maybe the world will get lucky and this will happen. Sadly this s less likely with each day that passes.

Related Web Columns:

Regime Change or Bust, June 24, 2025

No Turning Back, December 24, 2024

Great Satan No More, June 3, 2014

Fire the Memory Sticks, September 28, 2010

Deal With It, The Inevitibility of a Nuclear Iran, July 20, 2010

Unstoppable Disaster, The Coming Conflict with Iran, December 11, 2007

Notes:

1. Guardian, Disappeared bodies, mass burials and '30,000 dead': what is the truth of Iran's death toll? January 27, 2026