Did Israel launch airstrikes on Iran without a realistic plan for regime change?

Israel lacked plan for Iranian regime change

Israel did not have a concrete plan for regime change when it launched airstrikes against Iran, senior Israeli security officials told the Guardian, with hopes for a popular uprising based more on “wishful thinking” than solid intelligence.

Nearly two weeks of bombing have severely damaged Iran’s military-industrial infrastructure and killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, yet the government remains intact. With President Donald Trump now publicly considering ending the increasingly costly war, Israeli defence and intelligence experts said the conflict’s long-term outcome may depend on the 440 kilograms of enriched uranium targeted by US strikes last June.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump began the campaign with explicit calls for regime change, framing the war as existential for Iran’s leadership. An intelligence source told the Guardian, “It’s wishful thinking. We used to have a plan how to take out the ballistic missiles, how to deal with the nuclear sites, how to take care of the military industry in Iran. But I never heard that we knew how to do a campaign of regime change from the air. We never knew how to get into the heads of 90 million people. So how would we know how to assess whether they would go to the streets or not? We are hoping they will go.”

Sima Shine, an Iran specialist and former head of research at Mossad, told the Guardian, “I belong to those who don’t think that regime change can happen from bombing from the outside.”

Since the campaign began, there have been no major street protests or notable defections from Iranian security forces. Mass anti-regime demonstrations in January were brutally suppressed, with tens of thousands reportedly killed. Netanyahu has repeatedly urged Iranians to rise up since the war started.