“Regime change” meant deposing the mullahs and the sixty thousand or so who control the oil industry, the bazaars, the banks, the IRGC, the food supply, the diplomats and the military. These are the brutal people that have killed, maimed and imprisoned tens of thousands to maintain power. After two weeks of directed bombing, this barbaric regime was tottering. The Iranian Kurds were willing and able, with direct Israeli support to spearhead a definitive assault. The repressed protestors would have cooperated. The Kurds were restrained when Turkey feared they would create a Kurdistan out a Western Iran.
If you ever speak with educated Iranian ex pats in the US, most supported the “revolution”. They viewed the revolution as a way to rid themselves of the shah who they viewed as the illegitimate and corrupt ruler who was empowered by the American intervention in Iranian politics at the peak of the cold war. The expected a secular, somewhat leftist regime. None ever imagined that Iran would become a repressive theocracy. The ex pats never admit it but they know however imperfect was the shah, Iran would have been far better off had the “revolution” had not occurred and if things had evolved peacefully.
IMHO the week following the intensive bombing and the killing of the murderous Ayatollah was a lost historic opportunity to bring an end to the mullah nightmare.
The hipsters believed they were working to overthrow a dictator. Now that they are old, they realize they had a free country, and the shah was fighting to keep the communists and islamists at bay. If and when they regain control of their country, they will need a strong man at the top and an effective Savak to keep the monsters at bay.