US intelligence assessment says Iran strikes unlikely to trigger regime change

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A U.S. intelligence assessment completed shortly before the United States and Israel launched a war in Iran concluded that American military intervention was unlikely to lead to regime change in the Islamic Republic, according to two people familiar with the classified finding. The assessment, prepared by the National Intelligence Council in February, was described to the people as addressing both limited airstrikes and a wider, prolonged campaign, including scenarios in which Iran’s top leader was killed. The determination, reported by the people on condition of anonymity, also described how the Iranian establishment would respond to a potential loss of leadership.

The February assessment concluded that neither a limited operation nor a larger military effort would likely result in a new government taking over in Iran, even if Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei died. The people familiar with the finding said the assessment therefore undercut an expectation that leadership change could be achieved quickly. The people also said the assessment identified no single powerful opposition coalition poised to take control if Khamenei was killed.

The intelligence finding further described continuity planning inside Iran. The people familiar with the report said it determined that Iran’s establishment would attempt to preserve continuity of power in the event of Khamenei’s death. The assessment’s emphasis on continuity, rather than a rapid collapse into an alternative government, provided the basis for the judgment that U.S. strikes were unlikely to achieve a regime-removal end state.

The war began Feb. 28, and the strikes took out many figures in Iran’s leadership, according to the description of the reporting. The administration has said the strikes were not aimed at regime change, even as President Donald Trump has publicly said he wanted to see what he described as an outcome in Iran’s leadership. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, among other top officials, said the war was not aimed at regime change, while Trump’s statements differed.

The cluster’s account also tied the assessment to how Iran’s government transitioned during the war. It said that in line with the assessment’s findings, Iran’s leading clerics on Sunday chose Mojtaba Khamenei to succeed his father, Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the war’s opening salvo. The account said Mojtaba Khamenei is believed to hold views that are more hardline than his father’s and that the selection signaled resistance from Iran’s leadership, as well as an indication the government would not step aside quickly.

The people familiar with the intelligence assessment said it was reported earlier by The Washington Post and The New York Times. In the days that followed, the assessment’s characterization became a focal point for questions about whether the administration’s stated objectives matched the intelligence picture. A spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment on the assessment on Monday and referred questions to the White House, according to the report.

The report also described the broader context of distrust between President Donald Trump and the intelligence community. It said Trump has long been skeptical of U.S. intelligence agencies and has dismissed their findings as politically motivated or part of a “deep state” effort to undermine him. The account said Richard Goldberg, director for countering Iranian weapons of mass destruction at the National Security Council during Trump’s first term and now a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, noted that skepticism also exists because of recent intelligence misses, including assessments that failed to predict the rapid 2021 collapse of Afghanistan’s government and earlier estimates that Kyiv would fall quickly to Russia in 2022.

Goldberg said an intelligence assessment is “almost like an op-ed from the intelligence community.” The report said he made the remark amid continuing scrutiny of how classified judgments may have diverged from the administration’s publicly asserted expectations for how quickly the conflict could reshape Iran’s leadership.