U.S. military action against the Iranian regime is necessary but may cause problems for President Donald Trump at home, according to Paul Rahe, a professor of history who also teaches in the Van Andel Graduate School of Statesmanship. 

“If we do not succeed in regime change, this will mean trouble for Trump domestically. He’s a very bold man,” Rahe said. “The second Trump administration has been very impressive in the sense that they are determined to do certain things, and they do them, and they’re not risk averse, so things could go splendidly or they could blow up in his face.”

Professors, a student, and an alumna gave varying reactions, with many saying they are unsure if instituting a new Iranian regime will better the people. All respondents, however, condemned  Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s actions in Iran and violence against the Iranian people. 

The nation awoke Saturday morning to a video from the White House, in which Trump announced attacks on the Iranian government, and stated that he is aiming for regime change in Iran. Within a few hours of the United State’s missile strikes, Khamenei, who has ruled Iran as supreme leader since 1989, was killed by American forces. Israel joined in the attacks, according to Politico. 

Rahe lived in Turkey from 1984-1986 as a fellow at the Institute of Current World Affairs, serving as a beat reporter for Turkey, Greece, and Cyprus. 

“To understand the situation now, you’ve got to understand that Iran is not like Venezuela,” Rahe said. “The regime in Venezuela is a kleptocracy, meant to enrich people like Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro. Iran is a little different — it is the product of a real revolution.”

Rahe pointed to the multi-factional divide in Iran, stating that this will make regime change difficult. He also said that these military actions might help encourage the younger generation to learn from the older generations and establish a new government. 

“This is a matter of prudence, and to bring partisanship into it is idiotic,” Rahe said. “Would this be a good thing if it works? Without a doubt. Is this worth trying, even if it doesn’t work? I think yes, because it will have an impact. They’ll be very wary of crossing us again.”

The grandfather of Isabella Redjai ’21 worked for the Central Bank of Iran in the 1960s and 1970s, and moved to California a few years before the Iranian Revolution, she said. A lot of her family was still in Tehran when Khamenei came to power, and fled, all eventually making their way to the U.S. 

“I definitely think that this is an amazing opportunity for the U.S. to insert itself in global affairs, but in a way that is beneficial to everyone as well as the U.S.,” Redjai said. “Iran has a lot of amazing natural resources, and I think Trump and this administration is really trying to tap into optimizing those natural resources around the world and in the U.S. in particular.”

Redjai, who is a senior multimedia producer at the Manhattan Institute, said she immediately sent Trump’s video to her family group chat, and said that they were all supportive of the news. Khamenei repeatedly, and publicly, claimed “death to America” throughout his time as the head of Iran’s government, according to the Washington Post. 

“I think everyone was very excited, because they’ve been waiting for this for a very long time and looking for hope that their country can be redeemed in a lot of ways from the oppressive government that exists over there, so there was a lot of joy,” Redjai said. “It wasn’t until it was confirmed that Khamenei had actually been killed that there was a sense of hope for change over there. When I saw it, I was surprised.”

Senior Joseph Grohs spent 12 years with the Army’s 2nd Ranger Battalion, serving eight deployments to Afghanistan. Though he was surprised that someone in the government acted against Iran, he said he supports the president’s actions. 

“This is a needed response to Iran’s continued threat to global security,” Grohs said in an email. “This has been a long time coming. If Trump can pull off a coup without introducing ground troops for an extended period of time, he’ll have secured the midterms. I think Trump is doing exactly what every president has threatened to do for 30 years.”

Associate Dean of Men Jeffery “Chief” Rogers served in the United States Navy for more than 20 years as a hospital corpsman, and spent a considerable amount of his time enlisted in Iraq. He said that these military actions are close to him, as one of his sons is currently serving as a Black Hawk helicopter pilot. 

“I kind of figured at some point this was going to happen,” Rogers said. “I’m not a fan of having an extremist ideology in that there is a reward for death also having nuclear capability or trying to get nuclear capability, because to them, death is a reward to see more people die and take more lives.”

Rogers said he supports keeping the war overseas and addressing the problem before it reaches American soil. He urged Americans to turn to prayer. 

“I’m in support insofar as it protects us and our allies,” Rogers said. “We tried the nation-building stuff. We tried it in Afghanistan. How do you defeat an ideology with a better ideology? You don’t do it with bombs, but this is a temporary fix.”

Mark Moyar, the William P. Harris chair of military history, said that the necessity of these attacks are justified by the legitimate threat of the Iranian government to the U.S., but that threats such as this are difficult for even experts to assess and understand. 

“The biggest concern in my mind is the future of the Iranian government,” Moyar said in an email. “No one knows who will be leading Iran in one week or one year from now. Perhaps the United States can steer the Iranians in the proper direction, but our record in influencing and coercing foreign leaders is not especially good.”

Brad Birzer, professor of history and the Russell Amos Kirk chair in American studies, said he has opposed U.S. interventionism since 1989, even leading a protest during graduate school against an intervention during the Clinton administration. 

“The government of Iran is truly evil and truly a threat to world peace,” Birzer said in an email. “Additionally, Trump has not taken out much of China’s oil supply (from Iran and from Venezuela), so I’m assuming this is a part of Trump’s chess game to remake the world and its superpowers. I’ve been heartened by the videos coming out of Iranian communities, here and abroad, celebrating the death of their leader.”

Birzer said he believes Trump had a clearer reason to give the public for military action in Iran. 

“I very much wish Trump had taken his case for an attack to Congress,” Birzer said. “He didn’t have to give specifics, just general outlines why we should attack Iran. What Trump is doing is clearly an act of war, and I still take the Constitution rather literally on this — that is, that Congress alone has the power to declare war. Congress, though, is impotent and helplessly divided.”

Miles Smith IV, assistant professor of history, said he was not surprised that the U.S. was planning a military attack because he noticed the Pentagon has been ordering more pizzas. The website he uses to track this information, titled the Pentagon Pizza Watch, tracks pizza orders from the Pentagon and then uses metrics to establish a baseline of orders, to alert its users of increases, spikes, or decreases.  

“Every time pizza deliveries spike, we go to war,” Smith said. “It’s not foolproof, but it’s actually pretty good. So, I wasn’t surprised we had moved like 70% of the U.S. military in and around there.”

Smith said he was a freshman in college when the second Iraq war began, and that, because of this, he is more hesitant to endorse the actions in Iran. He is skeptical of the effectiveness of the military actions. 

“I love the idea that there could be regime change in Iran,” Smith said. “I’m probably not the type of person who thinks that regime change needs to have American-style freedoms. But if there’s a return to constitutional monarchy or something like that, I think that’s great.”

Like Birzer, Smith also noted concerns that Congress has not approved Trump’s actions. 

“Obviously, Congress didn’t vote on it,” Smith said. “So, if they’re never going to vote on these things, it’s hard for us to even have opinions that matter. So, we kind of vote for the president for our foreign policy instead of Congress these days. If it works out, awesome. If it doesn’t, I won’t be surprised.”

Not all Hillsdale professors, however, are ready to say if these military actions are good or bad, instead choosing to trust the president’s actions for the time being. 

“It’s too soon to assess,” Professor of Politics Thomas West said in an email. “It’s the ‘fog of war’ problem. Let’s give Trump the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise.”