Former U.S. President Donald Trump argued on Sunday that the U.S. has already forced regime change in Iran, pointing to the death of multiple Iranian leaders following joint attacks with Israel. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump suggested that the current situation represents a significant change in Iranian leadership. Trump mentioned that the previous regime had been "decimated, destroyed," while the next one was also "mostly dead," indicating a transformation in the Iranian political leadership.

Although the Islamic regime that has ruled Iran since the 1979 revolution still controls the country, the joint attacks have eliminated many of its top leaders.

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in the first wave of strikes on February 28. Following his death, his son, Mojtaba, was appointed to replace him. Mojtaba Khamenei, seen as more hardline than his father, is also believed to have been injured and has not appeared in public since the start of the war. The country's president, Masoud Pezeshkian, remains in his position. Pezeshkian was among three members of a transitional council that led the country after Khamenei's death. The other two members of that council, Chief Justice Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje'i and Ayatollah Alireza Arafi, are still alive and in positions of power.

However, dozens of Iranian officials have been taken out in strikes.

Ali Larijani, who served as secretary of the powerful Supreme National Security Council, was killed two weeks ago. The U.S. and Israel have also killed the head of the Iranian Defence Council, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the chief of staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, and the head of the paramilitary Basij forces.

Trump said Sunday that he is negotiating with Iran's parliamentary speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, to discuss the possibility of a ceasefire. Ghalibaf has been a powerful figure in the Iranian regime for decades and was a close ally of Khamenei.

Ghalibaf has publicly denied U.S. claims of negotiations, although Pakistani intermediaries confirmed last week that a 15-point U.S. ceasefire proposal was delivered to the Iranians. Trump stated that they had emissaries, but were also dealing directly with the Iranians.

Iran's leaders publicly countered the U.S. proposal with a list of five conditions for an end to the war, one of which was maintaining control of the Strait of Hormuz.

In his first public remarks on the war, Trump called on Iranians to rise up against the Islamic regime, although he has more recently conceded that it is unlikely due to the repressive nature of the government. This suggests that he might be willing to work with remnants of the regime, as he has done in Venezuela. Trump told the Financial Times on Sunday that his "favorite thing" in Iran would be taking the country's oil.

The political situation in Iran remains highly unstable.