Elements of the Trump administration are again debating whether the United States should support the downfall of Iran’s government as the war intensifies again, according to a recent analysis. 

The analysis, published Monday by Financial Times columnist Gideon Rachman, says the discussion reportedly includes efforts to encourage an internal uprising and the possible revival of proposals to support armed Iranian opposition groups, including Kurdish factions that have fought Iran for decades.

The question has gained urgency as the United States resumes strikes against Iranian military targets and officials debate whether continued pressure should remain narrowly focused on maritime security or evolve into a broader effort to weaken the Islamic Republic from within.

Such a shift would present President Donald Trump with a consequential choice: continue using military and economic pressure to force Iranian concessions, or adopt the far more ambitious objective of helping Iranians remove the Islamic Republic from power.

IRAN REQUESTS TALKS WITH US AS WHITE HOUSE WARNS ‘VIOLENCE WILL BE MET WITH VIOLENCE’

Trump, however, signaled Tuesday that he has not closed the door on diplomacy, saying Iran is seeking talks behind the scenes.

«They want to meet desperately to try and end it because they’re getting decimated,» Trump told reporters during a Tuesday press conference.

Asked what talks were possible, Trump said: «They want to desperately meet. And until they’re ready to meet in a meaningful way, we have no interest…» 

«Honestly, they haven’t seen anything yet. We’ve been nice,» the president added.

US OFFICIAL SAYS JD VANCE MADE ‘GREAT PROGRESS’ IN IRAN TALKS, CALLS SNUB REPORTS ‘FOREIGN PROPAGANDA’

Based on the latest targets, Iran has been signaling that it is prepared to damage water, energy and transport infrastructure elsewhere in the region, a senior UN official explained. (European Union/Copernicus Sentinel-2/Handout via REUTERS)

Trump’s comments suggest that military pressure and diplomacy remain intertwined, even as questions grow over whether some administration officials favor a broader strategy aimed at weakening or ultimately replacing Iran’s leadership.

U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), the military command responsible for American operations across the Middle East, said Monday that it struck Iranian military command centers, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites and air-defense systems as part of an effort to reduce Iran’s ability to threaten shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.

The current military mission remains focused on protecting global shipping, Secretary of State Marco Rubio similarly said Sunday. 

«The only reason why the U.S. is conducting strikes is against assets of Iran that are being used to attack global commercial shipping,» Rubio told reporters Sunday at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. «That’s what the objective of this mission is. That’s what it continues to be.»

Experts say the distinction between weakening the regime and making its collapse a formal military objective is critical.

«Collapsing the regime remains a long-term goal using all forms of national power, but it doesn’t appear to be a military objective right now,» Richard Goldberg, a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, told Fox News Digital. «This is Project Freedom — it’s focused on securing the Strait of Hormuz, and any escalation is likely tied to that mission.»

Goldberg said some high-value targets, including nuclear facilities such as Pickaxe Mountain, could be treated as exceptions because of their strategic importance. Pickaxe Mountain is a deeply buried and largely uninspected complex near Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility that U.S. and Israeli officials suspect could be connected to Iran’s nuclear program. 

But he argued that most current U.S. operations are designed to advance maritime security rather than trigger a broader campaign to topple the government. 

STEVE FORBES URGES TRUMP TO KEEP THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ OPEN AT ALL COSTS

People stand on a bridge destroyed after a strike in Hormozgan province, southern Iran, Saturday, July 18, 2026. (Amirhosein Khorgooi/Iranian Students’ News Agency via AP)

«Where this gets confusing is when Central Command targets assets that are necessary for the Hormuz mission but could still provoke wider escalation, like dual-use infrastructure or certain leadership figures,» Goldberg said. «That doesn’t mean the U.S. wouldn’t welcome the regime’s collapse, but that outcome is more likely to come through economic pressure, covert action and targeted decapitations over time.»

Any move toward regime change would immediately raise questions about who could replace Iran’s rulers and whether Washington could support a political transition without becoming responsible for another prolonged Middle Eastern conflict.

One proposal reportedly discussed earlier in the war involved assisting Iranian Kurdish groups operating near the Iraqi border. Trump was open to supporting armed factions willing to fight Iran’s government, U.S. officials told The Wall Street Journal in March. 

The administration had contacted Kurdish leaders about possible assistance, The Washington Post separately reported. 

Such groups could provide Washington with partners on the ground without the deployment of U.S. forces. But they remain divided, militarily constrained and vulnerable to retaliation against their bases and supporters in neighboring Iraq.

The central question is whether those groups are now positioned to exploit perceived weakness inside Iran or whether increased fighting amounts to another round of limited clashes.

Majeed Gly, president of the American Kurdish Committee, said recent clashes involving Kurdish groups indicate a change in how some opposition forces perceive the regime’s strength. He cautioned that the violence should not be mistaken for a full-scale uprising, but said it should not be dismissed as routine border fighting.

«What I’m hearing is, this is not business as usual,» Gly told Fox News Digital earlier in July. «This is not like periodic clashes on the border. This is operations, and it seems to be deep inside.»

«What has changed is the perception of weakness of Iran,» Gly added. «They are less afraid of the regime.»

The broader Iranian opposition remains fragmented among monarchists, ethnic movements, secular activists, left-wing organizations and other groups that disagree over leadership and the structure of a future government.

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A man walks past a huge mourning banner depicting Iran’s current supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei and his late father Ali Khamenei, who was killed in a strike on the first day of the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran on February 28, set up along a road in Tehran on June 30, 2026, ahead of Ali Khamenei’s funeral.  (AFP )

That leaves the administration confronting the same problem that has complicated previous attempts to encourage political change in Iran: widespread opposition to the Islamic Republic does not necessarily translate into a unified movement capable of replacing it.

The first Fox News Power Rankings of the 2026 midterm elections and a new poll both indicate an extremely close contest between longtime Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Troy Jackson, the candidate set to replace ex-nominee Graham Platner as the Democratic challenger, in what’s expected to be a premiere Senate battleground.

The Fox News Power Rankings, which gauge the competitiveness of elections using data, reporting, and analysis, ranks the showdown in Maine as a toss-up. The midterm ballot box battle is one of roughly a dozen Senate contests that will determine if the Democrats win back the chamber or if Republicans hold onto their slim majority.

Meanwhile, a Pine Tree Poll conducted over the past seven days by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center indicates Jackson with a slight three-point edge over Collins among likely general election voters in Maine.

WHO’S UP AND WHO’S DOWN: CHECK OUT THE FOX NEWS POWER RANKINGS ON THE MIDTERM ELECTIONS

Jackson, a former Maine Senate president, is on a glide path to replace Platner at Saturday’s Maine Democratic Party nominating convention in Bangor, after winning the vast majority of the 500 voting delegates chosen this past weekend by Democrats in the state’s 16 counties. And most of Jackson’s top rivals for the nomination backed him after dropping out of the race on Sunday.

While the delegates on Jackson’s slate are not required to support him at the convention in Bangor, Maine, he is now considered all but certain to secure the nomination.

A fifth-generation logger and a one-time conservative Republican who became a Democrat over two decades ago, Jackson came in third place last month in Maine’s Democratic gubernatorial primary.

Platner dropped out earlier this month, amid calls from top Democrats in Maine and across the country to immediately exit the race following an explosive report containing an allegation of rape from a woman he previously dated. Platner denied the report but stepped aside.

FIVE THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT TROY JACKSON, WHO’S ABOUT TO REPLACE GRAHAM PLATNER AS THE DEMOCRATS’ SENATE NOMINEE

Then-Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner and Troy Jackson stand together during a «Fighting Oligarchy» tour stop at the Collins Center for the Arts on the University of Maine campus in Orono, Maine, on May 24, 2026. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Jackson, who had campaigned alongside Platner during the primary, quickly made the case that he was the best equipped candidate to grab the mantle of the progressive and populist movement that had backed Platner.

Along with Platner, Jackson had the support of progressive champion Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont as he ran for governor, and he is currently backed by Our Revolution, the group born in 2016 out of Sanders’ first presidential campaign.

Jackson, similar to Platner, is running on a platform aimed at working-class voters. He backs raising taxes on billionaires, the universal healthcare system known as «Medicare-for-all,» abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and he opposes military aid to Israel at a time that Democrats are increasingly divided on support for America’s longtime Middle East ally.

Collins, as she runs for a sixth six-year term in the Senate, is facing a rough political climate for Republicans, amid GOP President Donald Trump’s underwater approval ratings, persistent inflation and what polls indicate is an unpopular war with Iran.

DEMOCRACY ’26: STAY UP TO DATE WITH THE FOX NEWS ELECTION HUB

Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine stands for an interview with Fox News Digital, on Feb. 10, 2026 in Washington D.C. (Paul Steinhauser/Fox News)

The senator, known as a moderate Republican who at times has voted against Trump, last month received bipartisan praise after reaching a milestone by casting her 10,000th consecutive Senate vote.

But Democrats are taking aim at Collins over her comments that she didn’t regret her 2018 vote to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, despite his crucial vote four years later to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion ruling.

And following the fatal shooting in Maine earlier this month involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, Democrats heavily criticized the Senate Appropriations Committee chair for her support for ICE funding.

But Collins has a history of defeating the Democrats’ efforts to oust her from the Senate.

Six years ago, she trailed Democratic challenger Sara Gideon, the then-Maine House speaker, but the senator ended up winning re-election by nearly 9 points.

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Fox News released its first Power Rankings of the 2026 midterm elections on July 21, 2026. (Fox News)

Republicans currently hold a 53-47 majority in the U.S. Senate. That means Democrats would need a net gain of four seats in the midterms to retake the majority, which they lost in the 2024 elections.

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The Senate race in Maine, along with battles for Republican-controlled Senate seats in Alaska, Iowa, and Ohio, are ranked as toss-ups in the Fox News Power Rankings.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused Iran on Wednesday of flying members of its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps into Yemen, saying Tehran’s actions helped ignite a renewed confrontation between Saudi Arabia and the Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

«They decided to send direct flights from Tehran into Yemen, carrying IRGC elements and others into the country,» Rubio told reporters. «And the Saudis responded to it.»

Rubio did not identify the flights, specify how many IRGC personnel were allegedly transported or provide evidence supporting the allegation.

RUBIO SAYS US REMAINS OPEN TO IRAN TALKS BUT WARNS THERE ‘WILL BE CONSEQUENCES’

He made the remarks while attending an annual gathering of Association of Southeast Asian Nations foreign ministers in Manila, Philippines, where the U.S.-Iran conflict and threats to international shipping were among the central security concerns.

The Houthis have declared a blockade targeting Saudi-linked vessels in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, threatening to widen the conflict and disrupt another critical global trade route.

The rebels say they are targeting ships connected to Saudi Arabia or traveling to and from the kingdom’s Red Sea ports in retaliation for Saudi restrictions on Yemen and a recent attack on the airport in the Houthi-controlled capital of Sanaa.

IRAN-BACKED TERROR PROXY HOUTHIS THREATEN FRESH ATTACKS AFTER YEMEN AIRPORT STRIKE

Oil tankers and cargo ships line up in the Strait of Hormuz as seen from Khor Fakkan, United Arab Emirates, Wednesday, March 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)

The Houthis blamed Saudi Arabia for the airport attack, which they said was intended to stop a flight carrying Houthi leaders home from Iran. Rubio disputed that account and alleged that Tehran was using direct flights to transport IRGC personnel and others into Yemen.

The Houthis later launched missiles and drones at Saudi Arabia’s Abha International Airport, marking one of the most serious confrontations between the two sides in years.

Rubio said U.S. officials had spoken repeatedly with Saudi officials during the past week about the Houthi threat.

IRAN CALLS ON HOUTHIS TO PREPARE TO CUT OFF RED SEA GATEWAY — CAN THE TERROR GROUP DO IT?

«Anything that restricts shipping through the Red Sea would be problematic for the same reasons that the Strait of Hormuz is problematic,» Rubio said. «So we’re watching that closely.»

Saudi Arabia’s military has vowed to keep Bab el-Mandeb open and respond firmly to Houthi threats against commercial vessels using the waterway.

The narrow strait connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and serves as a major shipping corridor linking Europe and Asia through the Suez Canal. Around 12% of global trade and roughly one-quarter of worldwide container traffic normally pass through the route.

Its importance has grown as the U.S.-Iran conflict has sharply curtailed shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. Saudi Arabia has increasingly relied on Red Sea export routes to transport oil to international markets.

A Houthi follower looks on, during a pro-Iran demonstration, as the U.S.-Israel conflict with Iran continues, in Sanaa, Yemen April 6, 2026. (Khaled Abdullah/Reuters)

The Houthi-run SABA news agency claimed six vessels had altered course after receiving warnings from the group, a claim that could not be independently verified.

The Houthis say the blockade is limited to Saudi-linked shipping. During their earlier campaign connected to the war in Gaza, however, the rebels attacked more than 100 vessels, including ships with little or no apparent connection to Israel.

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that the latest Houthi threat had not materialized.

«So far, it hasn’t happened,» Trump told reporters. «I think that if there is something like that, we’ll just have to take care of business.»

Rubio’s accusation came as the U.S. military carried out an 11th consecutive night of strikes against targets in Iran. U.S. Central Command said the latest targets included aircraft hangars and drone storage sites.

Speaking to Southeast Asian leaders, Rubio also warned that allowing Iran to control the Strait of Hormuz, collect tolls and attack ships that refused to comply would set a dangerous precedent for international waterways around the world.

«If we create a precedent in the Middle East where a nation state can decide that they are going to control an international waterway, charge a toll and, if you don’t pay them, blow up your ships, we have created a very dangerous precedent which will repeat itself in other parts of the world, including in this region,» Rubio said.

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Rubio said Iran’s support for the Houthis reflects a broader pattern of backing armed groups across the Middle East.

«The Houthis, Hezbollah, the militias in Iraq, Hamas — this is what Iran spends its money on,» Rubio said. «It’s not on its people. It’s on supporting terrorist organizations and destabilizing actors in the region.»