I’ve spent the last several days checking with foreign policy experts, analysts and specialists in the Middle East for their understanding of Donald Trump’s real goal in Iran, and how anyone (including him) will know he’s achieved it.

Several told me that Trump is seeking the kind of “war” that the US executed in Venezuela – an abduction of a leader by special forces or, as in June, surgical airstrikes on locations where Iran appeared to be building nuclear bombs.

With the killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, they said, Trump can now claim that his goal of “regime change” has been achieved.

Hence, as soon as possible – before US casualties mount and before higher oil prices show up at the pump – he’ll declare the attack on Iran a success and say the action now moves back to the bargaining table.

They assume he’ll now expect Iran to cave to his demands for an end to the production of weapons grade plutonium and to its nuclear program, a destruction of all its ballistic missiles, and agreements to disarm its proxies: Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas, various militias in Iraq (PMF, Kata’ib Hizballah), the Houthis in Yemen, and forces in Syria.

Other experts I spoke with told me Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a much bigger player in this conflict than the American press is reporting, and Netanyahu is committed to destroying all of Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities, which will require far more extensive bombardment, perhaps continuing for months.

Trump doesn’t want to be upstaged by Netanyahu and doesn’t want Netanyahu telling the world that more needs to be done to eliminate the Iranian threat. Hence, they believe, Trump will keep attacking Iran until Netanyahu agrees to end the bombing.

A few of the people I spoke with told me that Trump still clings to the goal that he believes he achieved in Venezuela: gaining a subservient regime. He wants to be remembered as the American president who ended the threat of Iran once and for all, and he believes he can pull off a total victory.

So far, no American troops have set foot on Iranian soil. But if Trump seeks permanent “regime change”, it will almost surely require ground troops. Iran has nearly a million men under arms.

The experts and specialists fear that Trump and his advisers have minimized the size and determination of Iran’s military and Revolutionary Guard. Trump and the people around him also believe they can engineer a coup in Iran, for which US troops will be needed only as advisers and counselors. This is delusional (does anyone remember Vietnam?).

There is also the very real possibility of civil war in Iran.

Most of the people I spoke with think Trump has no strategy. They say Pete Hegseth and Marco Rubio are way over their heads and that the Pentagon and state department and national security staff are in chaos. No one is in charge.

Trump believes he can somehow pull this off because he thinks he’s smarter than everyone else, but he’s getting conflicting advice about ongoing strategy and maneuvers and making conflicting and inconsistent decisions.

By this view, the only people with any sense of what’s happening are the generals and top Pentagon brass who are getting real-time reports from Iran, but they don’t have an exit strategy because they don’t think it’s their responsibility to decide when the United States has been successful or what “success” even means. The generals are worried, however, that the conflict could deplete resources necessary to deal with other potential conflicts around the world.

I was told repeatedly that this is a war without a plan, without a strategy, and without any clear understanding of where it leads or how it ends.

• Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley. He is a Guardian US columnist and his newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com. His new book, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America, is out now in the US and on 15 March in the UK