Trump says Iran's "new regime" is more moderate; experts say the Iranian regime has not changed and is more hardline

Golden Finance News reports that on April 4, U.S. President Trump said this week that Iran’s new leadership is “more moderate and more rational.” Trump and the Pentagon have repeatedly claimed that a regime change has taken place. But most political scientists and analysts believe that what is called “regime change” should refer to external forces changing a country’s system of governance, rather than simply replacing the leaders of that system. Instead, this war actually strengthened the power of Iran’s hardline military faction and intensified anti-American sentiment. Mona Yacoubian, Director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said: “This regime is more hawkish, less inclined to compromise, and, frankly, its ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are more direct. We saw that Iran’s top leadership at the time was ‘decapitated’ and removed, but that did not translate into who held power or into any major shift in its stance toward the United States.”