In an impromptu speech during a Mediterranean cruise that hosted scores of conservative donors and activists, the Georgia Republican expressed unexpected skepticism about prospects of military intervention to halt Iran’s nuclear program…. “I am opposed to a military strike on Iran because I don’t think it accomplishes very much in the long run,” said Mr. Gingrich, who supported the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and has been a strong defender of Israel. “I think if this regime [in Iran] is so dangerous that we can’t afford to let them have nuclear weapons, we need a strategy to replace the regime,” Mr. Gingrich said. “And the first place you start is where Ronald Reagan did in Eastern Europe with a comprehensive strategy that relied on economic, political, diplomatic, information and intelligence” means. The statement represented a significant modification of one of his most hawkish foreign-policy views. Earlier this year, he said, “A nonviolent solution that allows the terrorists to become better trained, better organized, more numerous and better armed is a defeat. A nonviolent solution that leads to North Korean and Iranian nuclear weapons threatening us across the planet is a defeat.” …After saying he opposed military action against Iran, he said that “in North Korea and Iran, we should have a conscious strategy that starts from a simple premise” that many residents of both countries hate their leaders and political system. “I think our position should be that we don’t expect Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to be around for very long,” he said. “But we think the Iranians are going to get rid of him. We’re not. But then I would do everything I could to make that possible.”