House Democrat: ‘Bottom line’ is Iran regime ‘still in place’

Democratic Rep. John Garamendi on Tuesday said the Iranian regime is ‘still in place’ amid repeated strikes from the Trump administration signaling little change for the conditions in the Middle East.
‘Well, it’s certainly been successful in taking out the leadership. However, we should by now realize that there is depth in the leadership. There’s somebody to take the place of the individual that has been killed. So, they take the top out, the next guy moves up,’ Garamendi said during a Tuesday appearance on CNN’s ‘News Central.’
‘The bottom line of this is that the regime is still in place. The tools that — and mechanisms that the regime has used for the last 40-some years is still in place. What has changed? Well, the leader has changed, but the underlying situation is not at all changed,’ he added.
Former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed on Feb. 28 and his son, Mojtaba Khamenei, has been named as his successor.
On Tuesday, Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, was also pronounced dead after a series of strikes.
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Wednesday said the regime is ‘intact, but degraded’ amid the U.S.-Israel war against Tehran.
She said its leaders are attempting to ‘recover from the severe damage to its nuclear infrastructure, sustained during the 12-day war and continued to refuse to comply with its nuclear obligations,’ during a Wednesday hearing on Capitol Hill.
Last week, President Trump told reporters there was practically ‘nothing left’ to bomb in Iran and said the offensive attack dubbed Operation Epic Fury was ahead of schedule.
The Iranian regime has refused to back down and said it does not trust future negotiations with the Trump administration leading to uncertainty about the war’s timeline.
‘I don’t see any room for diplomacy anymore. Because Donald Trump had been deceiving others and not keeping with his promises, and we experienced this in two times of negotiations — that while we were engaged in negotiation, they struck us,’ Kamal Kharazi, a foreign policy adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader, told CNN last week.
Iran’s other leaders have said U.S.-Israeli joint strikes are unjust and accused them both of violating international law in regard to their targets.
A strike on a school for girls in Minab left more than 100 children dead, while attacks on desalination plants in Iran threaten civilians access to clean water.
In the midst of the conflict, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has pledged ‘no quarter, no mercy for our enemies,’ which has been received with controversy by legal experts and past U.S. officials.
‘When the U.S. Secretary of War declares ‘no quarter,’ he doesn’t project strength. He conveys moral bankruptcy and ignorance about law of armed conflict. We advise him to review the Hague Convention and Rome Statute of the ICC, unless he aspires to join Netanyahu as war criminal,’ Iran’s Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi wrote in a post on the social platform X in response to Hegseth’s claims.
The Defense secretary has been in hot water before over a double pass strike on a boat in the Caribbean Sea after reports alleged he told servicemembers to make sure everyone on board was killed.
Despite concerns, the Trump administration has maintained that they are acting within the president’s legal authority and scope.
Filip Timotija contributed to this article.