Israel speaks openly in changing regime in Iran, even with uncertain postkhamenei

Although the Israeli government states that the regime’s overthrow in Iran does not integrate the goals of the military offensive launched last week, their leaders – including Premier, Benjamin Netanyahu – they are more and more openly talk about the country’s falling the country since 1979. The idea may sound attractive to many in Israel (and in the US), but there is no guarantee that the successors there are there Khamenei will be friendly to Netanyahu or Donald Trump. On the contrary.

For decades, the Israeli government, especially Netanyahu, points out the Ayatollah regime as an existential threat, citing statements defending Israel’s “annihilation”, as Khamenei did, as well as the creation of a regional alliance network known as the “axis of resistance”, formed by other Israeli torrents.

With the war, an old Premier’s desire, crucial blows to the regime were dismissed, including the elimination of part of the military command, attacks against the Army and Revolutionary Guard facilities, and against locations linked to the nuclear program, accused of building an atomic bomb, which Tehran denies. More than 220 people died, hundreds were injured and thousands are leaving the Iranian capital, which Israel Katz’s Minister of Defense said that “would burn.” In the Truth Social network, Trump said that “everyone should evacuate” the megalopolis where 14 million people live in the metropolitan region.

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Khamenei was considered a “legitimate target.” In an interview with ABC Network, Netanyahu said the death of the 86-year-old Supreme leader would “not climb the conflict, he would close the conflict,” and Trump, on his social network, said he knows where Khamenei is, adding that “we won’t kill him, not for now” and demanding Tehran’s “unconditional surrender”. According to the Axios portal, the US president rejected an Israeli plan to murder Ayatollah.

On Tuesday, Katz stated in a statement that Khamenei did not stop launching missiles against Israeli cities, he could have the same destination as Saddam Hussein, a US-deposed dictator in 2003 and executed in 2006.

Iran surpasses the iron dome?

Saddam led a brutal regime, which massacred the people themselves and which launched one of the most violent wars of the late twentieth century against the Iranians, leaving about one million dead. But his most sensitive legacy was the chaos that succeeded the fall, throwing the country into a civil war, paving the way for the emergence of terrorist groups, such as the Islamic State, and for the strengthening of pro-theher militias.

Unlike Saddam’s personalistic regime, the system created by Ruhollah Khomeini is complex and multifaceted. As pointed out Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at the Chatham House Study Center, in an interview with the Guardian newspaper, Khamenei’s death “would be a hard blow,” but “the regime would quickly meet and decide what to do.” At closed doors, leaders have been discussing the transition process for years, and theoretically there is already a plan for when Ayatollae dies, either by natural causes or an Israeli attack.

A risk to Israel is the arrival of even more hostile leadership. Andrew Thomas, professor of Middle Eastern studies at the Deakin University, believes that revolutionary guard can strengthen himself if Ayatollah is murdered, making room for voices that bet on state militarization. According to the Iran International network, linked to the opposition, Khamenei has already delegated part of his powers to the guard.

Perhaps for this reason, Netanyahu’s biggest public bet is on a popular uprising against a regime that, like German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said on Tuesday, “it was debilitated considerably, and it is unlikely to recover its prior strength.” In recent years, the Israeli Premier has publicly supported protests against the government, such as acts centered on fuel prices in the past decade, and the movement against the policy of repression against women in 2022 and 2023.

“The decision to act, to get up this time, is the decision of the Iranian people,” he said on Sunday in an interview with Fox News.

‘Don’t destroy my city’

The Ayatollah regime is rejected by much of the population (as well as Israel alignment), as they point out independent polls, which complains about the economy in pieces, international isolation and the suppression of rights, with persecution, arrests, torture and executions of those who deviate “from the magnet line.” But bombs are a more immediate threat.

“Most Iranians, even those who oppose the government, have now realized that freedom and human rights do not come from Israeli bombs falling over cities where defenseless civilians live,” he told the network BBC A resident of Tehran who went to protests against the regime, but called the war released by Israel “undescrelable.”

The winner of the Peace Nobel, Narges Mohammadi, imprisoned by the regime and tortured in prison, recalled in Instagram publication of the millions of people living in Tehran, with “street vendors, women who are the only people of their families, journalists, cafes, parks and fun centers”, and asked:

“Which one should we carry on our shoulders to save death and devastation? They do not destroy my city. They end this war.”

Opposition abroad, although it has money and influence between politicians and western press vehicles, seems to have little power to overthrow the Islamic Republic.

The son of Iran’s last namesake, Reza Pahlevi, lives in the US and defended the bombing against what he called “corrupt and incompetent leadership,” as well as asking military leaders, now worried about war, which “breaks ties with Aiatolahs”, but his alignment with Israel is criticized internally. The Mujahedin do Povo Group, based on France and Albania, which has some known names on their payments, such as former New York mayor and Trump ally Rudolph Giuliani, bets on chaos to return to the country. However, his alliance with the Saddam Hussein regime in the 1980s war made the organization unpalatable to many.

An alternative for Israelis to cause damage to the regime is to use ethnic movements as a form of destabilization. Kurds, about 10% of the population, have a long history of coordination with the US and Israel, and at least one of the groups in Iran, the Kurdish Freedom Party (PAK) proposed “a national revolt to end the regime or reduce it in Tehran” after the start of bombings. For experts, other minorities do not have the same interest in overthrowing the regime, such as Azeris and Armenians, or have no firepower for such, such as resistance in Baluquistan, near the Pakistani border.

But as history shows, times of war do not necessarily lead to internal revolts. When Iraq invaded Iran in the 1980s, Saddam Hussein expected the Arabian minority in Khuzistan to receive his arms open, but the attack accelerated local support to the Islamic Republic – Khomeini made a similar mistake in Basra shortly thereafter. With the bombs and hundreds of civilian deaths, a lift finds little appeal to the population, either of the Persian, ethnic minorities. At least at this time.

“The Iranian people have an important feature: they come together when there is foreign aggression against their homeland. Even serious opponents of the Islamic Government are now alongside this government to repel Israel’s aggression against their land,” NewsWeek Alidity Taghavinia, Tehran -based political analyst. “Iranians have a strong sense of nationalism.”