Iran is Not Venezuela: Experts Warn Trump’s ‘Regime Takeover’ Strategy Faces Grim Reality in Tehran

As President Donald Trump signals a desire to handpick Iran’s next leader following the death of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, political analysts are issuing a stark warning: the "Venezuela model" will not work in the Middle East.

Following the recent overthrow of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela—a move facilitated by U.S. special forces and the subsequent installation of the pro-Washington Delcy Rodríguez—Trump has expressed confidence in repeating the feat. In interviews with Axios and The New York Times, the President described the Venezuelan operation as the "perfect scenario" and insisted he must be involved in appointing Khamenei’s successor.

However, experts argue that the geopolitical landscape of Iran is fundamentally different from South America. Alex Vatanka, Director of the Iran Program at the Middle East Institute, dismissed Trump’s ambitions as "delusional," questioning the existence of a practical plan to mirror the Caracas outcome in a nation defined by decades of deep-seated hostility toward Western intervention.

The State Department has reportedly dubbed this strategy "Decapitate and Delegate"—a remote management of regime behavior without a massive ground invasion. In Venezuela, this involved neutralizing Maduro and empowering a compliant successor. But unlike Venezuela, Iran possesses a complex, multi-layered security apparatus and a revolutionary ideology that remains resistant to external "appointments."

While Delcy Rodríguez recently took to social media to thank Trump for his "government’s willingness to cooperate," analysts suggest that finding a similarly compliant figure in Tehran, especially after a devastating U.S.-Israeli operation that claimed the lives of the clerical leadership, is a strategic impossibility.