Iranians in exile are wishing and hoping, and hoping and wishing, that Israel will succeed in its demolition derby, taking apart bit by bit every aspect of the Islamic Republic’s military machine, so weakening it that the rulers can only with great difficulty suppress their domestic enemies should those enemies begin to demonstrate against them, and so humiliated in the eyes of the world that the number of those domestic enemies grows, as people have taken to saying, “exponentially.”
One of those Iranian exiles, hoping that the end is nigh for the Iranian regime, is Saeed Ghasseminejad, whose appeal to Israel to keep on fighting, and to include regime change as one of its war aims, can be found here: “Israel cannot settle for a temporary military win, it must topple the Islamic regime – opinion,” by Saeed Ghasseminejad, Jerusalem Post, June 16, 2025:
The calls for restraint will come, as they always do. As Israeli military successes against the Islamic Republic of Iran mount, a chorus of international voices will urge Jerusalem to “take the win” and seek a diplomatic off-ramp. They will argue from a well-worn script, advising Israel to consolidate its victory from a position of strength. It is a tempting and logical-sounding argument that would be a catastrophic mistake.
For Israel, this is not a conventional conflict that can be concluded with a ceasefire and a treaty. It is a confrontation with an ideologically driven regime whose very identity is predicated on Israel’s destruction. To settle for anything less than the removal of the Islamist regime in Tehran is to merely pause a clock that is ticking towards a more dangerous future: a defeat in disguise.
A remarkable consensus is forming across the Israeli political spectrum on this critical point. When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks directly to the Iranian people, urging them that “your light will defeat their darkness,” he is doing more than scoring rhetorical points.
His words, echoed by key opposition figures like former prime minister Naftali Bennett, who has long expressed a desire to see the Iranian people freed from their oppressors, signal a fundamental shift. The debate in Israel is no longer about whether to confront Iran, but how to ensure the confrontation yields a permanent solution. The answer is clear: the regime must go.
Israel has degraded critical threats, it must do more
Israel’s immediate military actions have, by all accounts, been successful in degrading Tehran’s most critical threats. The three pillars of the regime’s threat – its nuclear program, its ballistic missile arsenal, and its global terror network – have been shaken. But to believe these setbacks are permanent is to ignore decades of history….
Israel has accomplished a great deal militarily since October 7, 2023. It has systematically weakened every one of Iran’s proxies in the region. It has destroyed Hamas in Gaza, and brought Hezbollah to its knees in southern Lebanon. Neither terror group now poses much of a threat to Israel. Israeli strikes have destroyed 80-90% of the arsenals of both groups — missiles, rockets, and drones. Half of the fighters Hamas had on October 7 have been killed, and many more wounded. Hezbollah has lost thousands of its combatants, including 3,800 who were so seriously wounded by those “exploding pagers” prepared and distributed by Mossad, that they are no longer able to fight. By having destroyed Assad’s main ally, Hezbollah, Israel facilitated the victory of the Sunni Arab rebels over Assad’s Alawite-dominated regime, turning Syria from a firm ally of Iran into an enemy of the Islamic state. Syria is now run by Sunni Arabs who will never forget or forgive Iran’s support for the Assad regime. The IDF hasn’t forgotten the Houthis, either, and has managed to destroy in Yemen most of the airbase at Sanaa and the ports of Hodeidah and as-Salif.
In Iran, the Israelis have struck a dozen sites housing various components of the country’s nuclear program. These include two of the three main sites for uranium enrichment, at Natanz and Isfahan; the third, Fordow, has so far been spared as the IDF waits to see what assistance, if any, Washington will provide so that the facility built 300 feet deep inside a mountain can be destroyed. In addition, the IDF has severely damaged military airbases at Tabriz and Hamadan, destroyed a nuclear reactor at Arak, killed 13 of the most senior generals in both the IRGC and the Iranian army, and assassinated the nine most important nuclear scientists, all of whom — sleeping in apartments all over Tehran — were killed at the exact same moment by Israeli missiles. Israel has destroyed Iran’s state television. It has destroyed the last F-14 Tomcats in Iran’s arsenal. It has destroyed both ballistic missile factories and ballistic missiles, as well as missile launchers. Hundreds of ballistic missiles have been fired at Israel in the first week of the war but fewer the 10% have avoided interception, and even those that did have mostly fallen in open areas. Instead of its former barrages of 100 ballistic missiles in a single night, the Iranians are down to a few dozen. Every day brings fresh news of Israeli successes: more nuclear sites hit, more ballistic missiles and more missile launchers destroyed, more generals killed, more government offices, from internal security to the broadcasting authority, destroyed.
Saeed Ghasseminejad is grateful for Israel’s destruction of the Islamic Republic’s airbases, ballistic missiles, nuclear facilities, and its assassination of generals and nuclear scientists. But he insists that the war would have been in vain unless there is regime change.
The regime that has ruled Iran for 46 years will not change its spots. If it is not overturned, it will still have the power to suppress dissent and oppress its people. It will try to resurrect its nuclear program and to rebuild its ballistic missile factories. It may call on its ally Russia — so eager to re-establish a major presence in the Middle East, or perhaps its other ally, China — for help with both the nuclear program and the production of ballistic missiles. Of course the IDF will be watching, but may not want to risk hitting Russian or Chinese soldiers and defense technologists. The only way to finally put paid, permanently, to the Iranian threat is to overturn the present regime and hope that its replacement, ideally a government of technocrats uninterested in continuing a jihad against Israel, will see the folly of wasting more tens of billions of dollars on waging war against the Jewish state, which has no quarrel with the people of Iran and, furthermore, has been the most significant force in overturning the despotism that has been oppressing them for almost half a century.
Rob Porter says
Excellent summation by Hugh Fitzgerald and an excellent military campaign by brave little Israel, but now the job must be completed with regime change – that seems an anathema to many visionless Westerners like the utterly foolish Immanuel Macron. Today I read the account of an Iranian man who through hard search for meaning to his Islamic religious beliefs became a convert to Christianity, moved to Israel and married an Israeli. He said that thousands of Iranians had similarly converted and with that had come a love for the Jews of Israel and for Christians.
Pursuit of regime change is essential, but in the meantime Donald Trump could help Israel’s mission in Iran by with bunker buster bombs helping it destroy Iran’s subterranean nuclear facilities. Right now I am amazed by Trump’s vacillation and lack of audacity.
Eleanor Cummings says
I think every nation should belong to the people, not to money hungry, power greedy ”regimes” who want to control every nuance of a persons life, using their people as the means to keep themselves in luxury and the people under their complete control.. I believe in Trump, and for the first time in my life, I have faith in my POTUS! I love and respect him, but above all, I TRUST HIM. He loves ALL people and wants them to be free and prosperous. I’ve seen many presidents come and go, from FDR’s 3rd term to now. Some good, some bad, some so-so, and definitely some were evil. We now finally have the best man for the job. I do believe NCSWIC – NOTHING!
Walter Sieruk says
Yes, that is right after that hostile vicious and death inflecting oppressive current Islam regime is defeated, there should be a genuine Iranian government needs to be installed which ensures and respects the basic humans rights of the Iranian people. This is both necessary and important.
An authentic and rightfully just Iranian government would be a safeguard to the security and freedom of the Iranian people.
To elaborate on all this a bit more the intellect and philosopher John Locke, ideas of precepts which do apply to this subject. For Mr. Locke taught that any good government has the duty to ensure the security and safety of its citizens. Yet when a tyranny is the people in the tyrannical government do have every natural and ethical right to overthrow that terrible and oppressive tyrannical government.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Happy that the US has blown up the reactors in Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan. That said, my main attention now is on Iran itself, and whether the people rise up. I hope that Mossad doesn’t leave immediately, but stays until an uprising against the regime gains critical mass and overthrows the regime
I’ve not heard or read Saeed Ghasseminejad, but over the last few days, I’ve been watching videos of Elica Le Bon and Sana Ebrahimi, 2 Iranian activists campaigning for an end to this regime. They’ve pointed out that just weakening the regime and doing things like getting rid of its nukes only infuriates the regime & makes it lash out at the Iranian people, escalating the tortures & executions. The main thing Elica Le Bon dinged the West for was making deals w/ the regime that put billions of dollars in their hands, giving them a fresh lease on life
I know that in the US, there are enough cretins who recoil at the term “regime change”, so I’m fine w/ US staying right out of it. However, as Netanyahu told the Iranians, Cyrus the Great liberated the Jews, and it’s now time for Israel to return the favor and liberate the Persians. Israeli secret agents should remain in Iran and help sabotage the regime, be it Basij, IRGC or anyone else, until the Iranian people gain the confidence to openly revolt and overthrow the Ayatollahs.
Then let them themselves determine what system of government they want – whether it’s something akin to what the Medians or the Sassanids had, or whether they want a modern representative republic like the US
gravenimage says
An Iranian in Exile: Military Defeat Not Enough, Regime Change Must Follow
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I’m not sure–we have heard that the Iranians are poised to oust the Mullahs for over forty-five years now. I *hope* it’s the case–but am no longer counting on it…
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Dunno. Three years ago, there was an uprising throughout Iran after the death of Masah Amini, which was put down by the regime b’cos Hizbullah was still strong there. According to Sana Ebrahimi, the people close to the regime don’t speak Farsi: they speak Arabic. In other words, they are recruits from Hizbullah in Lebanon and Kataeb Hizbullah in Iraq who are helping prop up the regime, in return for the backing
However, according to one report that I saw, maybe on Fox, Hizbullah still has some militias & rockets in Southern Lebanon, but unlike in the past, they are not doing anything against Israel now. Reason: they believe that the islamic regime’s days are numbered. As it is, they lost Syria, and the HTS regime, whether one considers them al Qaeda or ISIS, has openly given Israel overflight rights over their air space, which they have not given Iran. One could argue that like Iran, they’re in no position to stop Israel, which would be true, but point remains that the shi’a crescent that once ran from Iran to Lebanon has been disrupted
There is also that GAMAAN survey taken in 2020 which showed that 60% of Iranians are no longer muslim. Now, it’s 5 years since that survey was taken: I can only imagine that the number of people who haven’t apostatized has fallen even lower. From what the Iranian activists who I watched on Fox & NewsNation said, the Iranians have had a lot of false hopes before, and every time the regime was humiliated in the world stage (by either the US or Israel), they took it out on the people. As a result, there is a high level of fear among the populace, and they’re waiting for sure signs that the regime is collapsing – such as the death of the Khamenei clan
Which is why, somehow I believe that now will be different. In spite of all the pooh-baahs and doubting Thomases like Dave Smith who mock the idea of a return to Iran of a monarchy, and who think that a replacement regime will be worse than before. Only if it is communist, but the MEK doesn’t have much traction in the current situation
gravenimage says
Infidel, I would *love* to be wrong here.
terry says
Absolutely must the mullahs fall! Be rounded up if left alive, tried and sentenced! Further, it is time to take back all the land falsely given to the Arabs posing as palestinians, keeping the buffer zone in Syria as well. Enough of the nonsense pushed by those who hate Jews, and enough with terrorist, be they Globalist, Marxist, or Islam! Let double standards of lawlessness for cronies, bayonets, and the struggle for inner peace called violent jihad be stilled in our world; the nations and peoples of our world have suffered enough from these violent, perverted, death loving criminal organizations hiding behind these ideologies! Enough! If those who rule these dark powers and forces cannot play fair, live and let live, then let them perish! Enough is enough.
Alex Lund says
May I ask the big question, the so called Elephant in the room question?
Till 1979 Iran was a country very close to the western world and then the people of Iran decided to get rid of the western world and asked Ayatollah Khomeni to take control.
Yes, the secret police of the Shah SAVAK was not clean, but considered who they were fighting against (communism, Islam) – I do not support torture – but how can you beat fanatics?
So, why did they choose Khomeni and not communism? Or why didnt they go another way?
gravenimage says
Some of the Iranians really did want what the Ayatollahs represented–and many others–bizarrely, but there is a lot of documentation that this was so–didn’t take them seriously that this was an Islamic revolution. They just thought they’d bet rid of the Shah, and then…what, exactly? Many did not think that far ahead, it seems.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Nobody thinks far ahead – be it Americans, Europeans, Arabs, Iranians, Indians, Russians
Only people I’ve noticed thinking far ahead are the Chicoms: they have a long term plan to take over the world
Winston 101 says
Infidel,
The good news seems to be the Chicoms didn’t think ahead when they instituted the “one child policy”. They didn’t even do the basic math. Their demographics don’t work in their favor. That, on top of the always unworkable communist system. Then added to that they must import energy and food, on shipping lanes guaranteed by hostile powers. My hope is that all of this doesn’t bode well for China.