At a precise moment, the two-pronged campaign to defeat the Iranian regime of evil and restore Iran to its former days, making it possible to incorporate it into the Abraham Accords, has begun. The elimination of Ayatollah Khamenei in the opening strike brings closer the prospect of regime change after more than 37 years of systematic murder and abuse of his people. However, to achieve these objectives, Israel and the United States must act wisely.
Neutralizing the air defense system, eliminating Khamenei as a central symbol of power in Iran, and an American-Israeli takeover of the country’s internet network are certainly a start in the right direction. They must be followed by strikes against the regime’s remaining symbols and institutions. The next stage should be the revival of popular protest, the incitement of regime opponents in separatist provinces, tying down Basij forces with protest suppression and targeted killings, eliminating the religious leadership echelon of the Revolutionary Guards, and parachuting in popular figures from the diaspora who would form the basis of a future government, in partnership with the leaders of the protesters.
Delivering a crushing blow to the symbols of power and its institutions will leave regime loyalists stunned and confused. To this end, the head of the judiciary, the commander of the Revolutionary Guards, the defense minister, and other senior security figures have been neutralized. According to President Donald Trump’s statement, following the elimination of Khamenei, a shift in alignment within the Revolutionary Guards appears to have already begun, though not yet in significant numbers.
The Regime’s Drones Will Bring It Down
It is important to understand the magnitude of the successful opening of the war: Khamenei is regarded by regime loyalists as the voice of God and His messenger, infallible and endowed with divine inspiration. This comes alongside the attempted assassination of former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is perceived as a fervent believer in the revolutionary Shiite doctrine, as well as Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba, who is as radical as his father, if not more so, and other key malevolent figures of the regime.
The significance of eliminating the spiritual heads of the religious establishment, the Guardian Council, which appoints the Shura Council, the parliament, is immense, because they represent the religious revolution and through it exert control over the masses.
The Supreme Leader controls the appointment of the twelve members of the Guardian Council, which wields considerable power in determining the identity of the president, members of parliament, and the Assembly of Experts, and supervises the activity of the Iranian parliament. Neutralizing the religious elite will leave the parliament without the octopus-like arms that dominate it and strengthen its state authority.
Eliminating members of the religious leadership will enable the defection of many Revolutionary Guards commanders and operatives, as well as many members of the security and religious elite. The latter witnessed the regime’s corruption before their eyes and understood that this was not the leadership worthy of the religious revolution they had hoped for, even though they identify with its goals. This step will in the future prevent the conservative religious establishment from seizing the fruits of a secular popular revolution, should it succeed, in the manner that Ayatollah Khomeini and his associates took over the popular revolution of 1979.
The next essential move in the war, also highly significant, is to achieve complete dominance over Iran’s skies through fighter squadrons, as well as through drones and swarms of loitering munitions. The depth of intelligence penetration into the regime’s ranks and the activity of Israeli and American agents in its streets will assist the air forces in hunting Basij personnel.
The drones in the hands of Iranian forces hostile to the regime and the loitering munitions, a game-changing weapon announced by the United States just two days ago, are the highlight at this stage. According to the Bloomberg news agency, the United States developed the UAVs through reverse engineering based on the Iranian Shahed-136 drone, capable of exploding on targets located 1,000 kilometers from the launch site. In my view, the unit known as “Scorpion Task Force” will play a significant role in dealing with and tying down Basij forces, enabling revolutionary activists to revive the revolution and bring down the regime. It would be ironic to overthrow the regime in a manner similar to the days of the revolution that toppled the Shah Pahlavi’s rule in 1979. In those days, Ayatollah Khomeini rode on the shoulders of free revolutionaries, and the path to the ayatollahs’ takeover of the Iranian social revolution was short.
“But karma is karma, and the true irony is that the Iranians were the ones who supplied the Shahed-136 drones to Russia for its war against Ukraine. From these captured drones, handed over by Ukraine, the U.S. developed the prototype that would come to haunt the very regime that invented them – a 2026 version of ‘how the tables have turned.”
When Will We See Mass Defections from the Revolutionary Guards?
The third step, following the elimination of senior officials and symbols of power and the takeover of Iran’s skies, is a joint Israeli-American takeover of all media channels through cyberattacks and the amplification of the emerging coalition’s messaging. This will make it possible to call on regime loyalists to defect and on the masses to take to the streets and seize control of the country, in a manner similar to how an Israeli hacker group took over the “Call to Prayer” application.
Control of Iranian airspace includes dominance over the major urban centers, foremost among them Tehran, Isfahan, Qom, and Mashhad, the cities where the million-strong protests took place. It also includes control over the airspace in the population centers of the separatist provinces located on the periphery of the Islamic Republic.
In this way, Israel and the United States will be able to tie down Basij and police forces in dealing with protesters across various provinces and in the major cities of central Iran, and eliminate them from the air.
But not only that. By taking control of the separatist provinces, the military coalition led by Israel and the United States will undermine the effectiveness of Iranian security forces in forcefully confronting the protesters. Security forces will be compelled to deal with massive demonstrations across major cities such as Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz, Qom, and others, as well as provinces like Fars, Ilam, and Lorestan. At the same time, unrest will also erupt in the separatist regions, foremost among them Iranian Kurdistan, whose residents have protested en masse against the regime, and where the late Amina Mahsa—if you will, the martyred Kurdish Joan of Arc who served as the catalyst for the hijab revolution—has become a symbol, and whose people aspire to achieve elements of national independence; the Arab provinces of Khuzestan and Bandar Abbas, which suffer from deep discrimination compared to Persian citizens and have repeatedly rebelled against both the rule of the ayatollahs and the Shah before them; Baluchistan and Sistan in the east of the country, whose mujahideen carry out attacks against both Iranians and Pakistanis; and also in Azerbaijan province, following the Second Karabakh War in 2023.
The fourth and most significant step is the fall of the regime. Indeed, it is right to allow the Iranian people to bring down the oppressive institutions of power and to choose their leaders who will restore Iran to its peak, rather than launching a ground invasion and doing it for them.
As the authentic protest intensifies, we may witness a gradual defection of regime loyalists and members of the Revolutionary Guards, alongside soldiers standing with the demonstrators and police forces refraining from intervention. This trend will intensify as the chaos in Iran’s streets deepens, a development for which the Israeli and American air and space forces are responsible.
Many challenges lie ahead. Chief among them is the ability to withstand Iran’s formidable attacks and its missile corps, which wreaks havoc on civilian areas in Middle Eastern countries hosting U.S. bases. These countries are perceived as part of the forces of the “Great Satan,” the United States, and as protectors of the “Little Satan,” the Zionist entity, Israel. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz would be a Samson option that would severely damage the global economy and drive up energy prices, while significantly harming Qatar, which relies almost entirely on gas and oil exports through the strait. There is no doubt that the Qatari lobby in the United States would make its voice heard loudly, calling for a cessation of hostilities and respect for the Iranian regime.
Another threat to the emerging order is the transformation of Iran into a sectarian, confessional canton-style state akin to Lebanon, which would alarm powerful actors such as Erdogan’s Turkey. Ankara would not wish to see its nightmare scenario materialize in the form of a regional Kurdish unification composed of Iranian, Syrian, Iraqi, and Turkish territories.
The response to these scenarios lies in the establishment of a democratic Iranian government that would grant national rights to minorities and expanded autonomy in matters of society, identity, and religion. This could be the formula for Iran’s territorial cohesion, and thus the model is present-day Iraq. The Iraqi federation, which is under Shiite control yet allows religious freedom to the large Sunni Arab minority, alongside granting Iraqi Kurds the ability to run an autonomous government, is the appropriate model for an Iran in which Persians, Baluchis, Arabs, Kurds, Azeris, Turkmen, and other citizens can live under a single sovereignty.
A central challenge lies in Israel’s concern over the strengthening of the Sunni axis inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood, which is hostile to Israel and led by Turkey, Qatar, and Syria, and its ability to draw Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Egypt to its side. The more decisive and swift the performance of Israel and the United States, the stronger Israel’s regional position will become.
On January 2, 2025, just weeks before President Trump entered the White House, I published an article titled “Far-Reaching Change in the Middle East – Winds of Change from the White House.” Among other things, I wrote: “The axis that Iran has built over recent decades has been significantly damaged by Israel. This severe blow creates an opportunity to bring about the collapse of the ayatollah regime, which is currently at one of its most difficult moments: it suffers from a deeply negative economic balance, massive debts, social unrest, and threats from within and without. This is precisely the opportunity for the Trump administration. It can bring into the Abraham Accords countries such as Iraq, which understands what confrontation with Israel would bring upon it, a post-Hezbollah Lebanon, and perhaps even a post-Houthi Yemen.”
A Strategy of Threats
This is now unfolding. It is the result of impressive efforts by the Israeli government and its leadership vis-à-vis the American administration. It stems from a shared vision of the roles of the United States and Israel in contributing to the betterment of the world. It is a direct outcome of the strength of belief among Israel’s citizens in the ability to defeat evil through a persistent and Sisyphean war, for which the country’s citizens have paid dearly, foremost among them the fighters in the security forces who have dedicated hundreds of consecutive days to fulfilling this sacred mission.
Alongside this, I pointed in the article to the emerging challenges, foremost among them: “Turkey’s dominance and Erdogan’s ambitions, Qatar’s economic and narrative interference in favor of the Palestinians, and the Houthis who create a persistent headache not only for Israel, all these and more await the incoming president, Trump, who has already declared his aspiration to bring order to the Middle East. Israel must seize this opportunity, while at the same time working toward decisive outcomes through a proper allocation of its military resources.”
The war of the Shiite Islamists, like that of the Sunnis in Israel, is a religious war among those who see Islam as an eternal enemy of Judaism, the Jews, Zionism, and Israel. Equal partners in it include: revolutionary Iran, Qatar, Turkey and the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, the Islamic Movement in Israel and protection rackets in the Negev and the Galilee, Fatah, al-Julani, ISIS, and the Houthis, as well as the religious establishment in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Malaysia. The religious point of departure is rooted in many verses of the Quran that call for war against Jews, their subjugation, and their humiliation by any means. Among them is verse 29 of Surah At-Tawbah: “Fight those who do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day and who do not consider unlawful what Allah and His Messenger have made unlawful, and who do not adopt the religion of truth, from among those who were given the Scripture, until they give the jizya with willing submission while they are humbled.”
The early fighters of Islam defeated the Jewish strongholds of Khaybar, who were perceived as invincible, inflicted devastation upon them, plundered their women and property, seized their vast and fertile lands, humiliated them, imposed heavy taxes upon them, and ultimately expelled them from the Arabian Peninsula.
“Khaybar, Khaybar, O Jews, the army of Muhammad will return,” chant crowds in the streets of Lod, Umm al-Fahm, Acre, Damascus, Aleppo, Sana’a, Gaza, and Tehran, as well as in Paris, London, New York, and other places around the world where those Muslims live.
Israel and the United States did not fear Hezbollah’s threats, the Houthis in Yemen, or proxy forces in Iraq that the elimination of Khamenei would unleash hellfire upon them, and they eliminated him in the opening move of the chess game, a move akin to checkmate, the king eliminated. This step will lead to a reshuffling of the Middle East and a new arrangement of the forces shaping the arena. This move aligns with the strengthening alliance among India and Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Somaliland, and Ethiopia. Will we soon see a Pahlavi Iran or another democratic government joining it? It seems we are on the right path.
Whether in those days or in this time, the modern Haman alongside Haman the Agagite threaten Israel’s ability to integrate into the Middle Eastern space as an integral part of it. Their neutralization removes a significant obstacle, adding to the neutralization of Hamas, the severe blow to Hezbollah’s power, the fall of the Assad regime, and more, in a process that proves that the spider’s web (Nasrallah’s metaphor for Israel) is stronger than ever.
