Prominent right-wing media figures have embraced regime collapse as a desirable, or at least acceptable, outcome of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. Although most of these commentators are light on specifics, in many cases they acknowledge that what they’re calling for is something that looks more like a failed state than a transitional government.

Where the phrase “regime change” implies, falsely, that external powers can replace a perceived hostile government at will with few repercussions or challenges to the state’s legitimacy, “regime collapse” dispenses with even that thin pretext. All that’s left is destruction for its own sake.

Several high-profile figures at Fox News have called for regime collapse, including retired Army Gen. Jack Keane, a Fox contributor who has arguably become the face of the war at the network. The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro has cheered on “regime destruction” as well.

As the U.S.-Israeli campaign drags on and the Trump administration increasingly finds itself in a grinding war with no clear exit strategy or condition for victory, the voices calling for maximalist annihilation of Iran’s government become even more dangerous.

Fox’s Jack Keane: What happens after regime collapse “is not particularly clear. And I think that's OK."

Keane has become one of the most prominent figures at Fox promoting the war on Iran. Occasionally, he speaks about the campaign with a humanistic grandiosity reminiscent of the neocons during the invasion of Iraq. “This is going to open the door to stability and peace in the region,” Keane said on February 28, the first day of the bombing.

More often though, Keane adopts a cold, realpolitik analysis that highlights the broad ambitions of the war — primarily dismantling the Iranian government without an answer for what happens next. “This is not about days, this is about weeks. This is a major campaign designed to assess the conditions for regime collapse,” Keane said, also on February 28.

He reiterated the point twice that afternoon and claimed the United States and Israel were targeting civilian leadership to achieve their ends. “By establishing a condition-based operations, which we're conducting, this could last two to three weeks based on the conditions. And what are those conditions?” Keane asked. “Those conditions — we want to set the conditions for a regime collapse. So we’re starting with leaders, both civilian and military, and national parliamentarians and military leaders.”

During the same program, Keane repeated that “this is a condition-based campaign to set this region on a path — the regime on a path to collapse.”

After claiming on March 2 that U.S. and Israeli jets flying over Iran represented the “sound of freedom,” Keane said that if the Iranian government “starts to collapse and they start waving a white flag a little bit, maybe we'll negotiate with them.”

Later that day, Keane acknowledged the inherent unpredictability of toppling the Iranian government. “These things are ambiguous, and we can’t control all of that,” Keane said, adding that you can’t put a “bow on this and wrap it up and make it nice and neat.”

“When you put — you're going to take that regime and put it on a pathway for its eventual collapse, and what follows after that is not particularly clear. And I think that's OK,” he concluded.

Then on March 9, Keane acknowledged that the campaign was “not at the point where we’re at a point of collapse, but the operation that the Israelis are conducting is fundamentally designed to set the conditions for a regime collapse — and that's a measured approach to achieve that end.”

Fox News talent pushes for regime collapse

Keane is far from the only voice at Fox News calling for regime collapse.

On March 4, Wall Street Journal editor-at-large and Fox contributor Gerry Baker argued that the war’s aims were “justified” and “achievable," and that “if it results in the collapse of the regime, so much the better … but that is the case for optimism."

Also on March 4, prime-time host Jesse Watters praised the goal of regime collapse twice while cheerleading for the war in general.

“Operation Epic Fury has entered a new phase — a shock and awe campaign to trigger regime collapse,” Watters said. “Anything can happen, but this war is off to the best start in American military history.” He later added: “Regime collapse. It’s a very accurate phrase, and I think we’ll know it when we see it.”

The next day, he said the Trump administration was “pushing for regime collapse” and dismissed concerns about global oil supply.

Then on March 6, Watters returned to both topics, saying that Trump is “confident once the regime collapses, the strait opens, full production resumes.”

“President's on a roll,” Watters added. “He's setting the foundation for peaceful coexistence among all nations.”

On March 10, Watters engaged in what may end up looking like a bit of wishcasting. “The regime — are you seeing early signs of collapse?” he asked his guest. “I'm starting to pick up some signs.” (That rosy analysis is not shared by either U.S. intelligence agencies or Iran’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei.)

On March 11, Fox contributor and former George W. Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen argued that it “is important the Islamic Republic not survive.” He later added: “That's very important why they can't survive the attack,” referring to a younger generation of Iranian leaders.

Ben Shapiro: “The worst thing here is not chaos”

Daily Wire host Ben Shapiro has vocally supported the war from the outset. He dismissed what a preliminary Pentagon analysis has concluded was a U.S. strike on an elementary school that killed at least 175 people, mostly children, as “collateral damage.” He has also called for regime collapse and has a high tolerance for destruction when it comes to Iran.

On March 5, Shapiro told his audience that the U.S. and Israel weren’t doing regime change in Iran, they were doing “regime destruction or replacement, where we knock over a regime and let it fall, and then we don’t actually participate in long-term nation-building.”

In the same episode, he argued that “the worst thing here is not chaos. … The worst thing here is a re-enshrinement of the ayatollahs.”

Even prior to the outbreak of this round of fighting, Shapiro entertained the idea of destroying Iran’s government as a laudable goal in and of itself.

Last June, as Israel and the United States attacked Iran in what has become known as the 12-day war, Shapiro asked: “What if the regime were to collapse?” He then listed senior Iranian officials Israel had killed, saying, “It is amazing what Israel has been able to accomplish here,” and argued that where the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan went wrong was the so-called nation-building stage.

“Now, I know there are a lot of people who are concerned about what happens next,” Shapiro said. “I don't think that's our business.”

He later signaled his comfort with chaos in the aftermath of toppling Iran’s government.

“There is this bizarre idea that is set in in the aftermath of Iraq and Afghanistan that all regime change is inherently bad,” Shapiro said, adding: “If the idea is that whatever chaos follows in the wake of a regime change is always worse than a regime change, you're now making a case for the status quo for every evil dictatorship on the planet.”

No cause for optimism

The stakes of this war, which experts say the United States and Israel launched illegally and without provocation, could not be higher. Already, at least 1,348 civilians in Iran have been killed, according to an Iranian official. The United Nations estimates that up to 3.2 million Iranians have been displaced internally. As Israel has moved further into neighboring Lebanon, its military has killed at least 680 people, displaced roughly 800,000, and risks further destabilizing the country’s already weak government. The world’s economy looks fragile as energy markets yo-yo wildly and investors and analysts try to gauge whether President Donald Trump will once again “chicken out.”

Further complicating the issue is the matter of Iran’s enriched uranium. The New York Times reported that “American intelligence agencies have determined that Iran or potentially another group could retrieve Iran’s primary store of highly enriched uranium even though it was entombed under the country’s nuclear site at Isfahan by U.S. strikes last year.” Trump administration officials are reportedly considering sending special operations forces to Iran to steal the material, which could be far more complicated than they are letting on. The collapse of the Iranian state could also drive nuclear proliferation, as the country’s nuclear material could go unaccounted for and its scientists forced to flee.

If right-wing pundits get their way and the U.S.-Israeli campaign collapses the government in Iran, the consequences would likely be disastrous for Iranians, the region, and the wider world. Already, some in conservative media are demanding the United States flood the country with small arms to incite a regime change or collapse, raising the risks of civil war in a country of more than 90 million people. If there is any country in the world that could benefit from plunging Iran into chaos, it’s Israel, which aims to remove Iran as a regional force that can resist its influence.

The conservative voices calling for regime collapse have largely abandoned any humanitarian pretexts for this war. They may yet get their wish for chaos and destruction, but, to paraphrase Gerry Baker, that is hardly a cause for optimism.