President Donald Trump has stated that the United States and Israel achieved de facto regime change in Iran through military strikes under Operation Epic Fury. In an April 1 address to the nation, he said, “We never said regime change. But regime change has occurred because all of their original leaders are dead.” He described Iran’s current leadership as “less radical” and “much more reasonable” than the previous one, claiming the U.S. is negotiating with “a whole different group of people.”

Leaving aside the president’s earlier comments indicating that actual regime change was one of the goals of the operation, the greater issue is the creation of the dangerous illusion that killing certain top leaders has changed the nature of Iran’s radical, terroristic Islamist government.

Yes, powerful strikes on key leaders can and have toppled regimes. But has that happened to the mullahs with Operation Epic Fury? Could it?

Radical Islamic ideology is the fundamental mode and purpose of the current Iranian regime. Ever since it seized power 47 years ago, it has considered the Islamic Revolution to be ongoing. Its constitution states that it exists to “prepare the way for the formation of a single world community,” to fulfill “the ideological mission of jihad in God’s way; that is, extending the sovereignty of God’s law throughout the world” to frame “the foreign policy of the country on the basis of Islamic criteria,” and to provide “the necessary basis for ensuring the continuation of the revolution at home and abroad,” citing Koranic verses throughout.

Besides its regular military, the regime has an extra terrorist military (the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, irgc) for the express purpose of enforcing that revolution within its borders and exporting it far beyond. Along with other Iranian security apparatus, it has supported terrorism abroad and terroristic tyranny at home, helping to kill tens of thousands of Iranian protesters as recently as January by firing machine guns into crowds, raiding homes, and torturing and murdering wounded patients in hospitals.

In the initial strikes of Operation Epic Fury on February 28, U.S. and Israeli forces killed nearly 50 senior Iranian officials and military commanders. Among those killed were Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, senior adviser Ali Shamkhani, irgc Commander in Chief Mohammed Pakpour, Supreme National Security Council head Ali Larijani, Armed Forces Chief of Staff Abdolrahim Mousavi and dozens of others. More military and security officers have been killed in the weeks since, in addition to the destruction of the regime’s military assets.

These figures were at the core of the regime’s theocratic and military structure. They’re gone, but the core remains, and, under attack by the “great Satan” and the “little Satan,” that core is getting harder.

It appears that the irgc has asserted itself more forcefully in wartime, forcing the selection of Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba, as the next supreme leader. Many view him as potentially even more ideological and repressive than his father. Regardless, his close ties to the ideological and repressive irgc guarantee the same result.

The new irgc commander in chief, Ahmad Vahidi, is a veteran hard-liner and has assumed greater operational control. The surviving leadership demonstrates strong continuity with the revolution’s anti-Western and anti-Israel ideology.

If Congress does not extend authorization for U.S. military operations in Iran beyond 60 days, President Trump will likely portray any withdrawal as a major victory. His rhetoric already indicates he will portray bold but relatively limited air strikes on key figures and military assets as an overwhelming victory.

Such brutal, repressive, evil regimes as Iran’s have fallen before, but rhetoric does not replace facts—and the facts are that the Islamic “Republic” remains rabidly Islamic and has not moderated. Its core ideology and foreign policy remain intact, hard-line successors are at the ready, and although much of its hardware has indeed been blasted into fragments, its ideological motivation for internal repression and regional aggression has intensified.

Regimes with other motivations and characteristics might moderate, transform or collapse under similar pressure, but as my father warned in “World War III Will Start With Iran”:

Iran is not a normal power. The Iranian ideology is evil through and through. No other nation matches its fanatical thinking and extreme religious beliefs. These leaders believe they have a religious duty to bring upon the world a nuclear cataclysm so their messiah can return! No words will stop this king of terror. Their actions have proved for decades that they use negotiation only as a ploy. Iran believes the harder it fights, the sooner its messiah will return! This toxic ideology is deeply entrenched.

This perspective aligns with the apocalyptic strain of Twelver Shia Islam, which holds influence among hard-line factions in Iran’s clerical establishment and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. It teaches that believers should actively hasten the reappearance of the Mahdi by creating chaos, including widespread war, bloodshed and the weakening of “oppressive” powers—often interpreted as the U.S., Israel and the West. Operation Epic Fury has, so far, helped empower these factions by generating the very conditions of upheaval that “hasteners” seek, while sidelining any reformist voices.

The moderates, in fact, are in retreat.

True clarity requires facing this reality: The problem in Iran is not a handful of individuals at the top. It is a much more extensive system. As long as that foundation remains unchallenged, any expectation of “moderate mullahs” will remain what it has always been: a myth.

Since the early 1990s, my father has taught that the radical Islamist world, led by Iran, is “the king of the south” prophesied of in Daniel 11:40-43. Although Iran’s effort to export the Islamic Revolution and form a “Shia Crescent” has sustained losses, along with its nuclear program, military and security forces under the current U.S. and Israeli bombardment, the Trumpet continues to assert that Iran is indeed the leader of the king of the south; will expand its influence into Egypt, Ethiopia and Libya; and will soon be led by even more radical, aggressive and destructive leaders.