The IDF has now said that Israel’s goal was never to change the regime in Tehran itself, but to so weaken the regime’s power to repress its citizens as to create the conditions for the Iranians themselves to change the regime. There is a difference. More on Israel’s goal can be found here: “Senior Israeli defense sources: Iran regime change not military goal, creating conditions for it is,” by Yonah Jeremy Bob, Jerusalem Post, March 11, 2026:
As doubts about the prospect of imminent regime change in Iran spike, senior defense sources have told The Jerusalem Post this is not and never was a military goal.
Rather, the IDF always hoped to enhance the conditions that might make regime change in Iran possible if the domestic opposition to the government would be ready to take to the streets again in sufficient numbers to topple the regime, the sources said.
The military would look positively at regime change and wanted to try to help the process, but it never had illusions that military action by itself would guarantee such an outcome, they said.
The primary purpose of the current war for Israel was to destroy the immediate threat posed by the roughly 4,000 ballistic missiles that Iran was thought to possess, consisting of both those that survived the attacks last June, and of the roughly 200-300 missiles produced by Iran in each of the eight months since then. A second goal was to continue, along with the Americans, to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, by re-attacking those enrichment sites at Fordow, Natanz, and in Isfahan, that had been greatly damaged but, as we now know, not “obliterated,” in the Twelve-Day War, as well as a secret underground nuclear compound outside Tehran, recently discovered by the Israelis, where scientists were working on key components for nuclear weapons. The compound, known as Minzadehei, was targeted after Israeli intelligence tracked activities at the site linked to covert weapons.
The IDF attacks on weapons arsenals, the command-and-control centers, and the senior leadership of the IRGC and the Basij militia, and attacks on nuclear sites, are meant to remove imminent threats to the Jewish state. But another result of these attacks will be to weaken the power of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and the Basij to cow the Iranian people, 85% of whom are against the regime. Israel does not believe that it needs to keep fighting until regime change is achieved; that’s a tall order, and no more than the Americans do the Israelis want to be stuck for many months to a Tar Baby in Iran. They instead hope to “create the conditions” for the Iranians themselves, emboldened by the weaken ing of the forces of oppression, to return to the streets by the millions to demand an end to the regime. And the battering of Iran’s military will also, so it is hoped, cause members of the IRGC and Basij to begin to quit or even to defect to the side of the protesters.
The IDF has been destroying so many of Iran’s ballistic missiles, missile launchers — about 80% of those Iran had at the beginning of Operation Roaring Lion have been destroyed — and plants where the missiles are produced, that within a few weeks that threat from ballistic missiles will have been effectively eliminated. The IDF has also struck IRGC leaders and killed most of its senior leaders, and has destroyed their weapons storehouses.
The IDF has killed the supreme leader, and wounded his son who was chosen by the Assembly of Experts to be his successor. It has also killed about 50 members of he senior leadership, both civilian and military. But regime change was never the objective for the IDF, even if Prime Minister Netanyahu has suggested otherwise. Creating the conditions for regime change — meaning so weakening the regime militarily that it will no longer be able to frighten would-be protesters from going back on the streets by the millions — is quite enough for the IDF. And that is what the IDF is hoping to achieve before well-appareled April takes its bow.
Horatio says
This doesn’t make sense. It”s like fighting the Nazis in WWII and leaving Hitler and Himmler in power. How can the populace have any effect? They’re not armed. They’re helpless.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
I think the IDF is saying that they want to weaken the regime enough that they collapse on their own. It’s different from WWII in one important aspect: after WWII, the Americans, Brits, French and the Soviets all carved out Germany into 4 parts, and occupied it for a while, completely re-architecting their government. Israel is doing none of that: it’s just weakening the regime enough so that the Iranian people can take it on its own. There won’t be an occupation of Iran by Israeli troops (and there aren’t enough Israeli troops to occupy all of Iran in the first place), nor a re-architecting of Iran’s political establishment by the Israelis
Reza Pahlavi has a good blueprint, but other Iranian parties not fond of a monarchy are welcome to participate in the transition plan. It’s just that MEK has not responded to any offer to join that
End PC says
Right. Stupid not to go for definite regime change from moronic, evil, Islamic mullahs ruling to some sort of secular democracy most Iranians surly must want.
Josh says
I agree with @Horatio.
Indeed, the US & Israel may have greatly exacerbated the situation with their actions. The new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khomeini, is even more hardline, hardcore and extremist than his father. Without taking out Mojtaba, leaving him in power, as all his power derives from the IRGC, leaves the prospects for Iranians worse than ever before. Iran will become even more of totalitarian state than it ever was under the previous two Grand Ayatollahs.
It’s even worse than leaving Mojtaba in power. Look at how little these joint US-Israel strikes have actually done. Quote:
“The Jerusalem Post’s Yonah Jeremy Bob reported on Tuesday that the 1,900 to tens of thousands of Iranian soldiers and officials killed since the joint operations began are “a drop in a bucket” compared to the complete forces that the regime has at hand.
In comparison, in his 2021 book Empire of Terror, former senior US Defense Department intelligence official Mark Silinsky estimated that Iran’s military had around 400,000 fighters, that the IRGC had around 125,000, and that the Basij had between 1 and 2 million, of whom 200,000 were hardcore members.”
Trump is crazy for claiming there’s nothing left to target and the operation is ahead of schedule. He’s dead wrong and the Iranian people will suffer more.
Regime change absolutely should’ve been the goal here. Now Iran will continue funding and operating the ‘Axis of Resistance’ (Hezbollah, Houthis, Hamas, etc. really an Axis of Terror) from here to eternity.
As of now, this is a great tragedy that imperils the whole world.
Josh says
As further evidence of what I’m saying here and why I’m saying it, see this article:
‘The repression machine is still deployed’: Exclusive testimony from a Tehran resident
https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20260311-the-repression-machine-is-still-deployed-exclusive-testimony-from-a-tehran-resident
Josh says
The bad news and the bleeding just won’t stop. Even worse, these operations have cost the US over $11 Billion thus far. All to replace Ali Khomeini with the infinitely worse Mojtaba Khomeini. Make Iran Totalitarian Again, evidently that was the objective. Somehow, Hamas is still intact, Hezbollah is still intact, the Houthis are still intact and Islam (a totalitarian ideology) is surpassing Christianity as the world’s largest religion. Actually, it’s already surpassed Christianity when you fact in that half the baptismal headcount of the reportedly 1.41 Billion Catholics are “lapsed Catholics”, that is non-practicing, non-creedal.
US intelligence says Iran government is not at risk of collapse, say sources
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-889654
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Josh
It’s still an open question about whether Mojtaba Khamenei is still alive. At his supposed swearing in ceremony 2 days ago, he was not to be seen, and what did make the appearance was a garlanded portrait of him. One rumor has it that he’s lost a leg; another has it that he’s currently in a coma
My favorite theory that I heard from Armin Navabi yesterday is that he is dead, and the IRGC installed a dead leader b’cos it’s impossible for the Israelis or US to target or find a dead person, and that way, his “reign” would be eternal. A better strategy now would be to take out the leading talking heads of the regime – Pezeshkian, Larijani, Aragchi,…. so that the collapse of the regime will become more obvious to Iranians, and get to the critical point where the IRGC & Basij will be hopelessly outnumbered and forced to surrender (those who haven’t already switched sides)
Josh says
@Infidel and every JW reader,
Just wanted to share this article with you.
‘Apocalypse-Obsessed’: Experts Call Iran’s New Leader ‘Uniquely Dangerous,’ More Radical Than His Father
https://harbingersdaily.com/apocalypse-obsessed-experts-call-irans-new-leader-uniquely-dangerous-more-radical-than-his-father/
Grand Ayatollah Mojtaba Khomeini is so evil and anti-Semitic, so apocalyptic, the embodiment of a “immanentize the eschaton” fanatic, he would make Adolf Hitler and Martin Bormann deeply uncomfortable and unsettled.
The best hope for Iran is what you mentioned about Mojtaba being dead. Maybe the IRGC using a dead puppet to seize total control of Iran.
For all our sakes, may Mojtaba rot in hell.
BubbleBurster says
Could not agree more!
More than one threat says
To create the conditions for the Iranians themselves to change the regime, the US should put millions of weapons and related logistic, communications and enabling support, into the hands of the anti-regime resistance.
Every IRGC or Basij member should be fearfully asking themselves “Is today the day an anti-regime resistance member kills me?”
The anti-regime resistance in Iran can use snipers, close range assassins, improvised explosive devices, mail bombs, poisons or whatever it takes, in the same manner groups funded by Iran used against Coalition Forces in Iraq or against the IDF.
The IRGC will not handover power willingly. The anti-regime resistance will need to kill the IRGC one-by-one if they are to be finally liberated.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Actually, Reza Pahlavi has offered the IRGC and Basij rank & file the opportunity to defect, since he’s interested in avoiding the debacle of Iraq’s de-Baathification that occurred after the fall of Saddam. So that there isn’t a civil war that ensues as a result of them feeling cornered once the regime collapses
But yeah, the leadership of those groups will have to be eliminated before the regime change can happen
More than one threat says
No doubt some IRGC and Basij rank & file have defected. But the committed, indoctrinated members of the IRGC and Basij rank & file are unlikely to defect, or respond to deindoctrination. They will need to be dealt with.
Give the resistance the tools to deal with them.
Jon Drucker says
When is ANYONE going to talk about ARMING the Iranian people? Without their possession of lethal weapons, there is ZERO hope of any uprising succeeding. This is not Mohatma Ghandi and Britain we’re dealing with.
At the end of WWII (after Hitler’s suicide and caretaker officials surrendering), remnants of the Gestapo and Brown Shirts were still fighting for the cause. Imagine if the Allied troops were not armed. And THIS situation will not enjoy the benefit of a massive victorious occupying army to help them. If even a tiny percentage of IRGC and Basij remain loyal the end, it will spell doom for any uprising.
The effort to arm the Iranian people could be called, “Operation Second Amendment” for Iran.”
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Something like 68% of Iranians have said that they believe in protesting peacefully, and do not believe in using violence to achieve their aims. Not that it’s completely true: members of the IRGC & Basij have been doxxed, and their homes have been targeted.. But there isn’t a mainstream militant resistance to the regime like, say, the MEK (which is loathed by most Iranians)
Once a transition authority takes over, Iranians can then vote on referendums on not only whether to be a monarchy or a republic, but also whether or not to have a Second Amendment. While many podcast hosts are correct that Iranians are not Arabs, Afghans, Turks or Pakis, it should be noted that they are not Americans either! Yeah, they had their own great pioneering work in terms of the Cyrus Cylinder of human rights, but their culture is still very different from ours. So they have to figure out for themselves whether arming everybody is the right way forward
The real problem they have, as far as I can see, is that the transitional authority, be it Reza Pahlavi or anyone else, will have to come from defections from the Artesh and the IRGC/Basij. Which has to happen in order to avoid a repeat of the de-Baathification debacle in Iraq, but it also brings w/ it the added issues of screening/filtering such personnel for any residual islamic loyalties. But at least for starters, the security apparatus will have to be built w/ that, before it can be populated w/ patriotic, secular Iranians
࿗Infidel࿘ says
I admire the IDF, but this is an exercise in verbal gymnastics. The very choice of targets of the IDF – as opposed to the US forces – makes the difference in war objectives pretty clear. Whereas the US has been exclusively targeting Iranian military bases and aircraft, the IDF has been targeting all sorts of instruments of the regime – Khamenei himself, the Assembly of Experts meeting, IRGC & Basij commanders, bases and police stations, their media broadcasting facilities, and a whole host of targets that have little military significance, but major political ones. If regime change was not their goal, they have an interesting way of not doing it. Whereas as far as their stated goal of destroying the threat posed by the ballistic missiles, that is something that the US bombing has been doing
Yeah, ultimately, it’s the Iranian people who’ll have to work w/ the transition team(s) to pick up the pieces after the war and come up w/ a new template w/ which to build all the institutions that they’re interested in building. But everybody knows that they couldn’t have overthrown this regime, had it not been for the IDF: even the US attacks wouldn’t have enabled the Iranians to do it, given what we are targeting
James Lincoln says
There absolutely has to be regime change in Iran, otherwise the US and Israel will be doing the same thing again in the years ahead.
The resistance to the regime needs to be armed – and there are ways for the US and Israel to do that.
And
The best transitional authority would be Reza Pahlavi.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Very true. A lot of people are conflating a transitional authority w/ a long term replacement government. But the latter would only be the result of a referendum and ensuring elections. If Iranians vote for a monarchy, Reza Pahlavi will be the Shah, but unlike his father, there will be an elected prime minister who picks the cabinet, and parliamentarians. If they vote for a republic, then there will be an elected president who picks the cabinet, and parliamentarians, and in such a scenario, Reza Pahlavi will just be an ordinary citizen of Iran
At this point, I’m not in favor of an armed resistance, b’cos the only party that can do that is the MEK. Unfortunately, they are both a Marxist and jihadist cult, and are hated by most Iranians: they haven’t even joined Pahlavi’s transition team. So I’d favor all leading regime figures getting liquidated, and then US & Israel calling on the Iranians to come out and take over everytihng, providing backup only in case of armed Basij resistance. Once Reza Pahlavi returns, let him lead the transition until a referendum and elections ensue
James Lincoln says
Thanks for your very informative reply, Infidel.
I guess we’ll all have to see how this all plays out…
tgusa says
And the circle jerk goes on, and on, and on.
Walter Sieruk says
First, a “regime change” might not have been the goal of the Israel Defense Force , but a good one would be to aid the Iranians throw off the oppressive brutal cruel murderous Islamic tyranny and then establish a legitimate government in Iran which ensures and respects the basic human rights of its citizens.
Second, many Iranians had been dancing the ” Trump Dance ” out of joy at the downfall of that awful tyranny of Iran ,but they should dance because ayatollah and mullahs who had so much power in that Islamic regime do hate dancing with a strong passion. Therefore, those Iranians by their dancing are “getting the goat” of those Muslim clerics. So dancing then is a very good thing do.
Furthermore,, that oppressive and misery inflection tyrannical Islamic regime of Iran, which has as its official title “The Islamic Republic of Iran” has fundamentalist Islam as its foundation..
Fundamentalist Islam hates music and dancing so it forbids to such activities for Muslims Likewise to that is that there is no room for festive activities , music, dancing, happiness fun or humor or genuine in happiness.
As , the now dead, Ayatollah Khomeini had declared “The aim of creation was for mankind to be put to the test through hardship and prayer. An Islamic regime must be serious in every field. There are no jokes in Islam. There is no humor in Islam. There can be no…joy in whatever is serious.” [1]
[1] THE ISLAM IN ISLAMIC TERRORISM by Ibn Warraq page 348.