By Jeremy Kinsman

March 1, 2026

Iran’s regime has been, as Mark Carney noted, the “principal source of terror” in the region, with the “worst record” on human rights almost anywhere, cemented by the horrible repression of protesters in January.

There is no reason to grieve for the Ayatollah Khamenei whose leadership has been emblematic of those dark distinctions.

But the U.S. launching of such an attack raises very serious concerns about the way the Trump administration addresses its differences with others in the world.

It’s clear that the attack was in part shock-and-awe performative, to show what the U.S. in its post-multilateral, post-rules-based-order, Trumpian iteration can do — whatever, whenever, wherever.

But there seems to be no coherent plan for “what now?” A new regime…how? U.S. performance in forcing regime change — Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya — has produced only debacles. We now see the Venezuela operation was not regime change but only the decapitation of an obnoxious leader, leaving a beholden substitute.

The Iran operation is exceptional, at some performative levels. It is extremely rare to decapitate a regime from afar, but AI guided un-manned precision missiles did it, catching Khamenei in his office, lulled by reports that nuclear negotiations in Geneva were the “most productive ever”.

This operation is less comparable to previous American military interventions than to the “massacre of the heads of the five families” scene in the Godfather…the luring of parties to a bloodbath by a new don to consolidate power under the guise of a “bygones” dinner. And, arguably, a whole new kind of “Don-roe” doctrine for a whole other hemisphere.

It’s even rarer that a revolution within a state is catalyzed and managed from outside, no matter how many operatives might be circulating amid the population.

Having gone into the streets in January at Trump’s behest, protesters were slaughtered, and Trump did little though the removal of the Ayatollah may be what he meant by “help is on the way!” Now, he’s urging them to again take to the streets.

It’s clear that the attack was in part shock-and-awe performative, to show what the U.S. in its post-multilateral, post-rules-based-order, Trumpian iteration can do — whatever, whenever, wherever.

The regime is undoubtedly weakened by the air attacks and the killing of Ayatollah Khameinei, but the succession plan has kicked in, and there are still 125,000 Revolutionary Guards whose game plan, as far as we now, hasn’t changed. So, what’s been achieved?

1. Presumably, the Iranian nuclear program (that Trump falsely declared ‘obliterated’ after the June attacks) has now been more seriously disrupted. There is word that Israeli special forces are going to go “in” to decommission existing uranium stockpiles, though how that would be done is not apparent.

2. Trump gets a ‘win’ from the death of Khamenei, legacy stuff, and if it brings the Iranians back to the table to offer more concessions on the nuclear enrichment side, Trump gets a “win” by being able to boast he got a better deal than Obama’s 2015 JCPOA multilateral agreement, which he tore up.

3. Israel, or Netanyahu, gets a “win,” apt to be very popular in Israel.

But the world takes a loss, not of the odious Khamenei, but of norms that apply to the use of violence. A tacit concession is emerging that Trump will do what he wants, irrespective of international law. “Might makes right” gets validated again, among the worst outcomes imaginable.

Meanwhile, the new leaders of the Iranian theocracy and military are concerned mostly with the regime’s survival. They may cut Iranian human rights advocates and protestors a bit of slack but Iranians won’t get the democracy they seek, that Trump doesn’t seem to care about.

That sort of transformation will take a generation, and it will be a hard slog, especially with the world’s democratic superpower undergoing its own transformation in the opposite direction.

Some Canadians will share my disappointment in Mark Carney’s decision to extend all-out support to the US/Israel bilateral attack, the only democratic leader apart from Australian PM Albanese to have done so.

Europeans — Macron, Merz, and Starmer — urged Iran to seek negotiations and an end to using violence in the region and against the Iranian people. EU Commission President Von der Leyen at least found the attacks “concerning.”

Many Canadians do as well.

Policy Columnist Jeremy Kinsman served as Canada’s ambassador to Russia, high commissioner to the UK, ambassador to Italy and ambassador to the European Union. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the Canadian International Council.