A Washington Post report citing unnamed sources said U.S. intelligence officials have assessed that Iran’s regime remains stable despite ongoing U.S.-Israeli strikes.
But the Trump administration pushed back, pointing to significant disruption within Iran's leadership.
The report, published Monday, attributed the finding to “two people familiar with the intelligence,” but did not identify the sources as current administration officials or provide details about their roles or access to the assessments.
According to the Post, the intelligence community said Iran's governing structure remains intact, with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps consolidating political and economic control even as elements of the country's military capability have been degraded.
The report added that officials see little prospect for near-term regime change or significant internal dissent.
The claims come amid a series of high-level strikes targeting Iran's leadership in recent weeks, developments that have raised questions about the regime's internal stability and command structure.
On Tuesday, Israel said it killed Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council and a key figure in the regime's leadership, along with Gholamreza Soleimani, commander of the IRGC's Basij paramilitary forces.
White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly pushed back on the characterization, telling Newsmax the administration said Iran's leadership structure has been significantly disrupted.
"As President Trump said, the United States doesn’t know who we are dealing with in Iran because so many of the terrorist regime's top officials are dead," Kelly said. "Meanwhile, our military continues to meet or surpass all of its benchmarks as Iranian drone attacks are down 95%, ballistic missile attacks are down 90%, and proxies are hardly putting up a fight."
The comments underscore a contrast between the administration's public assessment and the intelligence characterization in the Post report.
The Post report did not indicate whether the assessment reflects a consensus across the intelligence community or a more limited or preliminary analysis. It also did not specify whether the sources were relaying current intelligence or a snapshot taken before the most recent round of strikes.
Publicly available information has pointed to significant disruption within Iran's leadership ranks, including repeated targeting of senior figures and infrastructure tied to the regime's security apparatus.
Analysts have said such operations can weaken centralized authority and, in some cases, accelerate consolidation of power among hardline factions such as the IRGC.
The report's characterization of a stable regime led by an increasingly dominant IRGC underscores a potential tension between battlefield developments and longer-term intelligence assessments about the durability of Iran's governing system.
Absent official confirmation, however, key questions remain about how U.S. intelligence agencies are weighing recent events and whether those conclusions are influencing policy decisions in Washington.
The ODNI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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