Israel’s Wish for “Regime Change” in Iran: Is It Fantasy—or Policy?
If escalation was
the word of the year in 2024 and obliterate is the word of the month for June
2025, now be prepared to mumble “regime change” for the remainder of 2025 and
going into 2026.
As far as Israel is concerned, the idea of igniting regime
change in Iran did not end with the 12-day war that just (we think) ended. In
fact, if there is no new nuclear agreement, if Iran retains adequate quantities of highly enriched uranium—which apparently
it does—and if it has residual capabilities to produce a military nuclear
device, Israel’s
fixation with regime change in Tehran may
possibly shift from fantasy to policy.
For Benjamin Netanyahu, it is not a fantasy but rather the
providential fulfillment of his political raison d’être, ordaining himself as
the savior of Western civilization. In more earthly and concrete terms, he
views this as an opportunity to turn the calamitous debacle of the October 7,
2023, Hamas terror attack into a strategic triumph in 2025. “We are changing the
landscape of the Middle East,” he has ceremoniously declared on several
occasions recently, hinting that he envisions Israel as an omnipotent hegemonic
power in the region.
The Iranian regime is a vile, violent, oppressive,
terror-sponsoring theocratic entity. But none of that means that regime change, however attractive an idea it is to entertain, is a feasible option through
external means. “Regime change” usually refers to an internal transition from
one type of government to another through revolution or a coup. History is
replete with such processes.
External regime change is something completely different.
It means the deposing of a leader or an entire government through foreign
military intervention or a comprehensive political destabilization and
undermining campaign. There are four examples of success in modern history:
Germany and Japan in 1945, following a devastating world war, two atom bombs, and a protracted American occupation to install the change; the U.S. invasion
of Panama in 1989, deposing Manuel Noriega; and the U.S.-instigated coup d’état
in Iran in 1953 that led to the fall of
Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh and triggered a series of events
culminating in the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Readers of The New Republic
surely also recall the U.S. Marines overthrowing Queen Lili’okalani of Hawaii
in 1893. But other than that, attempts at regime change were extravagant
debacles and lasting quagmires: Vietnam, Cambodia, Afghanistan, and most
recently Iraq in and since 2003. And this was the United States, the world’s
greatest and most powerful superpower, not Israel.
At the outset of the war, Israel’s declared prime war
objective was “to eliminate Iran’s military nuclear infrastructure” and target
its arsenal of ballistic missiles and launchers. Israel denied any grandiose ideas
of regime change in Iran and said only that if that happens, it would be a
welcome bonus.
But gradually, with military and intelligence successes,
euphoria settled in, the appetite grew, and “regime change” chatter began to
accumulate. “The Ayatollah’s regime must come down,” “[Supreme leader Ali]
Khamenei is a modern-day Hitler who must not exist,” “We are targeting the
regime in order to destabilize it,” and “The Iranian people should rise and rid
themselves of the regime” were all statements made by Netanyahu and especially
Defense Minister Israel Katz, who produced a daily “regime change” fortune-cookie
gem.
The rhetoric was accompanied and reinforced by a series of
quality assassinations of top Iranian military and Iranian Revolutionary Guards
Corps, or IRGC, officers, including two chiefs of staff and the Air Force commander.
Soon, as Israel’s overwhelming military successes were visible, the erratic
Donald Trump joined the party and offered contradictory blurts on regime
change.
First, he giddily said, “It’s not politically correct to use
the term ‘regime change,’ but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to Make
Iran Great Again, MIGA!!!, why wouldn’t there be a regime change???” Two days
later, on board Air Force One en route to a NATO summit in the Netherlands, he
changed tone entirely, saying that he does not want to see “regime change” in
Iran because “it will create chaos.”
Trump may have floated the idea of regime change to
pressure Iran to end the war and subsequently engage in negotiations on a new nuclear
deal. But for Israel, it is a different matter altogether and a policy option
that feeds off its own logic and sense of triumphalism. Netanyahu’s regime
change fantasy basically means that a country of 10 million thinks it can
somehow topple a regime in a country of 90 million 1,000 miles away without
being responsible for the consequences. In fact, Netanyahu, at the time not in
power, preached exactly that in a September 2002 hearing at the U.S. House of
Representatives, in which he advocated a U.S. invasion of Iraq, claiming it
will “reverberate into Iran.” That, of course, never happened; indeed, the U.S.
quagmire in Iraq only strengthened Iran in the region.
Now consider that Israel has failed for 21 months to force regime
change in Gaza, a territory with 2.3 million inhabitants that’s one mile away.
This fact seems to have escaped Netanyahu’s delusions of grandeur. But however
unviable it may seem, Netanyahu sees both a historical imperative and strategic
logic in the idea of “regime change” in Iran.
There are several basic assumptions underlying this logic:
First, Iran’s nuclear program was heavily damaged but not “obliterated,” as
Trump boasted, nor set back years, as Israel declared. Second, Iran possibly
retained the 400 kilograms of 60 percent enriched uranium it stockpiled and may
have the capacity to manufacture more centrifuges to enrich further to the
required 90 percent military-grade level. Third, there is currently no ironclad nuclear agreement that places Iran under stringent supervision and a
verification regime. Fourth, there is the notion that Israel accomplished three
formidable things throughout 2024 and particularly during the 12-day war in
June 2025: a further critical geopolitical weakening of Iran, which was
deprived of its network of proxies and the hospitable Assad regime in Syria,
deep intelligence penetration of Iran, and dominant and enduring air
superiority.
Taken together, these premises present Israel with two
fundamental policy options. First, employ aerial superiority and maneuvering
room and be ready to engage in a cyclical war every time there is actionable
intelligence indicating that Iran is making progress in its nuclear efforts.
That risks an Iranian decision to accelerate nuclear efforts and break out from
its diminished but still existent “nuclear threshold” status. Alternatively,
design a regime destabilization campaign through discord, chaos, assassinations, and subterfuge. But guess what? Alexander Hamilton, Thomas
Paine, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln are not hanging around in a bar in
Tehran waiting to take over from the mullahs.
Through a process of elimination, and assuming there is no
enforceable nuclear deal in the foreseeable future, Israel may elect to attempt
to instigate regime change. It is patently impractical through external
intervention, and it is doubtful the U.S. will join, but Israel may be betting
on pressure that would generate an internal uprising in the near future.
The problem is, who will carry the burden of the
repercussions? The dismantling of the Iraqi state, a regime change heralded
at the time as a great triumph, led to the creation of ISIS. What if the mullahs
are replaced by a military dictatorship intent on acquiring nuclear weapons?
Will Israel then talk about a second “regime change”?
