U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) returned to the notion of “regime change” as a goal in the Iran war, even as the Trump administration has toned down its regime change chatter and emphasized instead the dual objectives of opening the Strait of Hormuz and preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
Speaking at length on Fox News, Graham suggested that the U.S. initiate a plan to arm Iranian citizens so they can rise up against an oppressive theocratic government and fight back against the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Graham’s suggestion earlier statements from President Trump aimed at inspiring the Iranian people, made when the U.S. launched its February 28 attacks to “take over your government. It will be yours to take. America is backing you with overwhelming strength. Now is the time to seize control of your destiny and unleash the prosperous and glorious future.”
PRESIDENT TRUMP’s message to the great people of Iran:
When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. America is backing you with overwhelming strength. Now is the time to seize control of your destiny and unleash the prosperous and glorious future… pic.twitter.com/BgxDMgzhmv
— Department of State (@StateDept) February 28, 2026
Saying, as Trump has, that “we don’t need American boots on the ground [in Iran],” Graham said, “a Second Amendment solution, I think, would go a long way to ending this war.”
In lieu of American military occupying Iran, Graham suggested, “We’ve got millions of boots on the ground in Iran — they just don’t have any weapons.” He added: “Give them the weapons so they can rise up like we did to destroy this regime.”
Arming a dissident group inside another country and encouraging it to execute a coup, as Graham suggests, is not a new idea, as the CIA’s long history in Latin America and elsewhere attests. But most historians agree the strategy has had mixed results.
Former Director of National Counterterrorism Center Joe Kent, a Republican combat veteran and Trump supporter who resigned in protest over the President’s actions in Iran, derided Graham’s plan to arm Iranian rebels as “the gambler’s fallacy in action.”
Sarcastically describing Graham’s idea — “Let’s just arm one more group of moderate rebels… It’ll work this time; I can feel it!” — Kent cautioned against the gamble, writing: “Our efforts to ‘arm the people’ of governments we don’t like led to the rise of the Taliban, Al-Qaeda, ISIS, every Shia militia in Iraq as well as the destabilization of Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen, just to name a few.”
Those in the comments siding with Graham characterized the choices as between two evils, but chose the one that kept American soldiers on the sidelines. One wrote: “I don’t agree with Graham on much but he is being forward looking with his realpolitik solution. It’s realistic and low cost compared to your get out and hope ideology.”
Commenters backing Kent’s view credit him with being “right on the history.”
One “America First” devotee who referenced Trump’s campaign promise of no new foreign wars — and what “the people voted for” — wrote of the Graham/Kent exchange: “Insane statement packed with reality checks for the American people from Joe Kent. We have in fact funded and caused nearly all conflicts that led to loss of US soldier life in the Middle East. Bring our boys home and focus on what we the people voted for. AMERICA FIRST”