The Trump administration went to war with Iran believing the regime could be quickly decapitated and that the system would collapse under the weight of mismanagement, corruption, and public discontent. Six weeks later, a temporary ceasefire has left the Islamic Republic battered but intact - and in some ways stronger than before.
Suzanne Maloney, vice president of the Brookings Institution and director of its Foreign Policy program, told Foreign Affairs that the president "presumed that the regime could be easily decapitated and that with its decapitation, the system itself would collapse." Maloney, who has helped craft U.S. Middle East policy across multiple administrations, said that presumption was "fundamentally untrue," "Hvylya" reports.
The miscalculation was not a failure of intelligence, Maloney said. Available assessments warned the administration beforehand that "a decapitation strike would not quickly supplant the regime." Most Iran watchers would have told the president as much. But the White House pushed ahead with what Maloney called a "presumption of weakness" that "led us into what very quickly became a situation that was very difficult for Washington to extricate itself from."
Iran, by contrast, had spent months preparing. "They have a very good assessment of the strengths of the United States, particularly the military and economic power of Washington, which has been wielded against them on multiple occasions, as recently as June of 2025," Maloney said. Tehran calculated that its strength lay "in their endurance and in their resilience" - and that bet paid off.
Despite losing key leaders including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and suffering what Maloney described as "significant degradation" of military capabilities and economic infrastructure, the regime maintained command and control throughout the conflict. "This is not a regime that was going to be quickly taken down by the elimination of its top leadership," she said. The system, she added, functioned "incredibly smoothly" even as targeted strikes continued against senior figures.
The time pressure created by Iran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz ultimately forced Washington's hand. Trump's escalation to threats of annihilating "Iranian civilization" and striking civilian infrastructure only increased the pressure on himself, Maloney argued. "It was what I think forced some kind of an off-ramp," she said. "We'll see how long it lasts in the aftermath."
Earlier, "Hvylya" reported on why the case for American air power supremacy over Iran fell apart under scrutiny.