In recent months, President Trump’s statements about Iran have varied, swinging from hopeful overtures for negotiations to clear threats aimed at toppling the mullahs.
This week, he seemed to revert to a more aggressive approach, taking pride in a recent airstrike that followed a U.S. drone attack on an Apache helicopter and warning that “We’re going to strike hard again.”
However, there’s a notable risk: as long as Trump views negotiations as a viable option, he might try to handle Iran similar to how he approached the Venezuelan government after the military’s capture of Nicolás Maduro.
Essentially, he might think that intense military and political pressure could drive Tehran towards incentive-based negotiations, where they would act like a regular state, similar to Caracas.
The premise is that the right deal, along with some eased sanctions, could coax the mullahs into participating in diplomacy, trading revolution for a seat at the negotiating table.
The issue is that Iran’s regime, grappling with ongoing wars, economic turmoil, and serious internal problems, likely can’t make that trade.
Legitimacy can’t be obtained through success, so they derive it instead from conflict.
This explains why, for many years, they’ve prioritized building military deterrents not just at home, but in neighboring countries as well.
Yemen is a prime example of Iran’s strategic thinking. While Western negotiators spent a decade on a flawed nuclear agreement in 2015, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps was subtly empowering Houthi militias with substantial military support.
After confrontations with the U.S. and Israel in February, Iran responded by shutting down the Strait of Hormuz and leveraging the Houthis to control another critical maritime route, Bab al-Mandab.
This strategy of using proxies in the Middle East has also found its way to Venezuela, a significant ally of Iran.
In late 2025, the U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions on a Venezuelan firm assembling Iranian combat drones for Maduro’s government, stating that this collaboration could threaten U.S. interests.
Shortly thereafter, the U.S. removed Maduro and appointed Delcy Rodriguez in his place.
While Rodriguez has been noted for skillfully managing U.S. relations and attracting investment into Venezuela’s oil sector, her foreign policy closely mirrors that of Iran, along with other adversaries of the U.S.
In the coming months and years, Washington may come to understand that while replacing a dictator is treacherous, fundamentally altering the regime’s workings isn’t.
Thus, it’s crucial to learn from past errors with Iran, especially by positioning capabilities against targets that conventional forces can’t reach, as Iran has replicated its Yemen tactics in the Caribbean, backed by Venezuela.
Consequently, any ongoing ceasefire or new agreement with Iran is unlikely to provide real solutions.
The Houthis, after a year of conflict, have only grown stronger and more sophisticated.
If they perceive that the U.S. has chosen a familiar path—relief from sanctions paired with agreements that leave the terror infrastructure intact—they’ll take this as evidence that inflicting pain is beneficial, a lesson Tehran has instilled.
A U.S. administration that has shown readiness to exert pressure would squander its influence if it opts for a façade of calm in exchange for diminished pressure.
The critical distinction is that the Islamic Republic is not Venezuela.
Rodriguez and her associates are merely self-serving dictators, their choices contingent on pressure.
In contrast, Iran’s leaders, though corrupt, are deeply invested in a religious mission, seeing themselves as part of a jihad that obligates them to obliterate Israel and combat America, or perish trying.
This mindset renders them particularly perilous adversaries.
Therefore, breaking this cycle necessitates continued U.S. pressure on Iran’s oil, drone, and missile supply chains, avoiding the temptation to exchange sanctions relief for assurances that are unlikely to hold.
It also entails treating Iran’s proxy network as a unified target, spanning from the Houthis to Venezuelan operations that manufacture Iranian drones, rather than chasing each incident.
Additionally, it will be essential to extend support to the millions of Iranians eager to overturn the regime, who have been combating oppressive Islamist forces alone for years.
All of this rests on the regime’s refusal to permit any avenue for its external aggression and internal repression to persist.
