Israeli PM Netanyahu declared Regime change an explicit war aim on Saturday evening, stating Israel has "an organised plan with many surprises to destabilise the regime, to enable change." He addressed Iranians directly: "The moment of Truth is drawing near. We are not trying to divide Iran. We are trying to free Iran. Ultimately, it depends on you." This is the first time Netanyahu has stated a specific Israeli political objective beyond destroying military capability.
The statement opens a public divergence from Washington. Defence Secretary Hegseth explicitly said dismantling Iran's security apparatus was "not Regime change." White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stated ground forces are "not part of the plan" . Trump had used aspirational language — "Make Iran Great Again" — but attached it to no operational framework. Netanyahu linked Regime change to "an organised plan," language that implies a strategy beyond the air campaign. Whether such a plan exists or the phrase is rhetorical is unknowable from the outside, but the gap between Israeli and American stated objectives is now visible.
The historical record on Regime change through air power is unambiguous. The United States attempted it in Iraq in 2003 — it required 130,000 ground troops and produced a sectarian civil war that killed hundreds of thousands. In Libya in 2011, NATO air power helped topple Muammar Gaddafi but left a failed state that remains divided among rival governments and militias fifteen years later. In Afghanistan in 2001, air strikes and special forces removed the Taliban from Kabul within weeks; the Taliban returned to power twenty years later. Trump himself explicitly rejected ground troops and nation-building . Air campaigns break governments; they do not build replacements.
Netanyahu's framing may be aimed at Israeli domestic opinion rather than operational planning. But the timing is pointed. Iran's Interim Leadership Council — the body meant to exercise supreme authority after Khamenei's death — is already publicly split between President Pezeshkian, who ordered a halt to attacks on neighbouring countries , and Parliament Speaker Ghalibaf, who contradicted that order within hours. The IRGC ignored Pezeshkian's ceasefire directive entirely . Khamenei's funeral remains postponed with no new date . Netanyahu's declaration targets a governing structure that is fracturing without external assistance — but fracturing and falling are different processes, and air strikes have historically been far better at accelerating the former than producing the latter.
