Trump likely to attack Iran soon–and may even target Khamenei

The US and Iran are going to sit down this Friday in Oman, but diplomatic talks aren't going to avoid a military strike, says Eurasia Group's US Practice Head Clayton Allen. Iran's not willing to give up what the US is asking for, and the US is going to continue to demand way more than Iran's willing to give.

The US has also been focused on Iran for a long time, Trump specifically. He ended the JCPOA in his first term, and he spent the last several weeks building up a naval flotilla that's absolutely massive. Carrier groups, destroyers, submarines, air assets, they're all in the region. Right now, the US has brought the entire force of its military to bear, both to attack Iran and to defend Israel.

Trump cares about Iran personally. Again, it was a focus of his first term. It's a focus of his second term. He's publicly noted that Iran has tried to assassinate him. This is a public leader. This is a leader in Trump who's survived two assassination attempts at home, and is very focused on the threat that Iran poses to him individually. All of these things make it personal. Trump is also very confident. Unseating Nicolás Maduro, seizing him, bringing him into federal custody, that tells Trump he can do what he wants. He has the capabilities to do anything that he sets his mind to. It's not clear though that he can contain the fallout from an attack on Iran. He's got two pair, but he's playing it like a flush. The US thinks that it can defend any strike that Iran launches against its own bases or against Israel, and it thinks that it can maintain stability in oil markets as well. Neither of those are clear guarantees. The risks around this are much higher than they were around Venezuela than they were around earlier attacks on Iran's nuclear program.

So what happens now? A strike is likely. And we think that within this, a decapitation strike against the supreme leader is probably the most likely outcome. Trump wants to repeat what he did in Venezuela. Remove the leader, bring in a new set of people that are more pliant, easier to negotiate with. It's not clear that that works. Even if they don't strike the supreme leader, striking Iran's missile program and military assets are very much on the table. If the supreme leader is toppled, it doesn't necessarily mean regime change. You're going to end up with a lot of people who have spent their entire lives very much serving the guy you just killed. Yes, they might be a little bit more willing to negotiate, but cutting the head off of the snake in this case doesn't end the life of the regime. It's still going to be the same government.

It's also important for what this means for Trump. In his first term, he was a populist, the man of the people focused on the homeland. This time around, Trump's a global leader. He has ambitions that exceed the boundaries of the United States, and he's living up to that. Look at his actions against the Houthis, his ambitions in Greenland, his actions in Venezuela, and now the military buildup around Iran. Far from being an isolationist, this second term is very much the term of Trump's interaction with the world around us. He's a global leader, he has a global stage, and he's filling all of it.