What is President Trump's endgame for Iran?

What the administration says and what it implies

President Trump has framed the U.S. effort as one aimed at a fundamental change in Tehran’s ruling structure. He publicly demanded “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER” from Iran and said the campaign will continue until Iran’s government is fundamentally altered. He also signaled that the United States wants a say in who succeeds the late supreme leader, saying the U.S. should be "involved" in picking a new Iranian leader and that the country should end up with a "good leader." Officials have described strikes and operations designed to degrade Iran’s military, leadership and internal security apparatus.

Those public statements point to several concrete policy aims and risks:

• Decapitation and degradation: targeting senior figures, command-and-control nodes and military assets to weaken Tehran’s ability to project force.
• Regime change or replacement: rhetoric indicating the campaign will not stop until Iran’s ruling structure is altered, which raises questions about the end state the U.S. seeks.
• Political engineering: an expressed desire to influence who leads Iran after the current regime is removed.

The chosen course departs from more limited or narrowly defined military objectives presidents have used in the past. That difference helps explain why lawmakers, diplomats and allies are pressing for clearer legal and political justification, an exit strategy and contingency planning for governance in a post-regime Iran.

What remains unclear is the administration’s plan for the aftermath: there is no fully articulated, public blueprint for replacing Tehran’s institutions, for stabilizing the country, or for handling the political vacuum that could follow. Those gaps are central to debates in Congress and among allies about how long the campaign should continue and what constraints, if any, should be imposed on U.S. action.