Is Israel’s Endgame With Iran Regime Change?

I’m not sure if this Politico article is meant to slam Israel, since liberals usually take that line, or just information

What’s Israel’s Endgame?

Israel’s attack on Iran will no doubt set back Tehran’s nuclear ambitions. But among many Middle East obsessives, there’s a growing sense that the Israeli operation has the potential to lead to something much bigger: toppling Iran’s Islamist government.

Yeah, I’ll say it. Regime change.

It’s a phrase that normally sends shudders through a Washington and a Middle East chastened by the U.S. experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s a concept that has long left President Donald Trump extremely wary; his administration has already put out word it played no role in the attack. And the Israeli government hasn’t declared that regime change is its official objective.

Still, as I’ve listened to Israeli comments on the strikes and learned about their scope, including assassinations of top Iranian military officials, I’ve been struck by how they’re not dismissing the possibility of regime change, either. When you put the moves in the context of Israeli military actions since fall 2023 — strikes that have ousted, helped oust or decimated multiple Iran-allied “regimes” in Gaza, Lebanon and Syria — it doesn’t seem that far-fetched.

Ousting, or at the very least severely weakening, Iran’s regime also is something Israel can arguably do on its own; it doesn’t necessarily need American help on the offensive end.

Would it be such a bad things to get the hardcores out of control of Iran? It would end quite a bit of funding for terrorism in the Middle East. Most of the other nations in the ME would have no problem with calming Iran down. It’s something that should have been done decades ago, and the West had a chance with the Green Uprising, but, the Obama admin blew that off.

In his many-layered initial remarks about the early Friday strikes, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the operation against Iran “will continue for as many days as it takes to remove this threat.” He never limited the definition of that threat to Iran’s nuclear program.

That’s because the Israeli government sees Iran’s regime itself, not merely its nuclear and military infrastructure, as the real danger. Given that Iranian leaders, many of them fervent believers in extreme Shia Islamist ideology, have long threatened to annihilate Israel, that’s an unsurprising conclusion.

Well, there it is. A little underwhelming of an explanation. Iran wants Israel destroyed, so, what is the problem with Israel going after Iran? The question is, where does Israel stop? Destroying Iran’s nuclear ambitions is the clear target. Anything after that is a bonus.

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