Suzanne Maloney

The regime was not taken down, even though Ali Khamenei, the individual who had been the supreme leader for 37 years, was killed on the first day of the war.

and a number of other senior figures have been eliminated.

And we see this happening on an ongoing basis.

But if regime change was one of the goals of the war from the Trump administration, and of course, this was something that President Trump's first messages around this war really highlighted.

Iranians now believe that they have been able to survive and that the regime itself, despite having been grievously wounded, will remain intact.

That is something that is also quite a threat for their neighbors.

And so we do see this, I think, debate happening both in public and certainly in private between the United States and some of its regional partners, the United Arab Emirates, the Saudis, the Qataris and others, who are very concerned about being left with a wounded Iranian.

embittered and emboldened Iran on their doorstep.

An Iran that still has managed to preserve its missiles and its drones and its capability to fire on its neighbors.

And also, by the way, has some stockpile of highly enriched uranium, perhaps buried under the ground in Isfahan, perhaps dispersed at other sites.

And whatever restraint they had around their nuclear program,

is likely to be eliminated as well in the aftermath of this crisis.

We may see a regime that would be looking to move very quickly to nuclear weapons capability.

Well, the Iranians would like compensation for the suffering and the economic losses that they've experienced during the war.

They would like to retain some control over the Strait of Hormuz and effectively continue to monetize their ability to determine who and what might pass through this particularly strategic waterway.

And so they're looking to come out of this war, I think, in a stronger position.

And that's not entirely inconceivable.

It's going to be a regime which has taken enormous hits.

The country has suffered tremendous losses in terms of its productive capabilities, in terms of its own economy.

And as we know, that was in pretty dire straits.