During a recent appearance on Joe Rogan’s podcast, Vice President JD Vance laid out a familiar fear about Iran: that a U.S. push for regime change could turn into another Libya, with state collapse, terrorist infrastructure, mass migration, and pressure for America to manage the aftermath.

That concern should not be dismissed. Americans have lived through Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and the long hangover from promises that the fall of a bad regime would quickly produce a better order. No serious person should want American soldiers occupying Tehran. No one should imagine that Iran’s future can be arranged by Washington as if a country of more than 90 million people were a conference-room exercise.