Time for Israel to take out ‘head of the snake,' target members of Iranian regime, says former IDF intel chief
Israel's ongoing military campaign on Iran's nuclear infrastructure could mark not just a military escalation but a strategic shift, according to retired Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin.
The former head of Israeli military intelligence and one of the architects behind the legendary 1981 strike on Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor said Israel should expand its sights not just military targets, but political ones.
"Israel took the decision that, on one hand, it's time to end the leadership of the Axis of Evil — the head of the snake," Yadlin told Fox News Digital. "At the same time, deal with the main problems there. Which is the nuclear."
Yadlin didn't say how long he thought the conflict would drag on. While he didn't openly call for regime change, Yadlin suggested the IDF take out regime targets "beyond the military level."
"It's not a one-day operation. It seems more like a week, two weeks. But when you start a war, even if you start it very successfully, you never know when it is finished."
"I hope that the achievements of the IDF, which are degrading the Iranian air defense, degrading the Iranian missile, ballistic missile capabilities, drones capabilities, and maybe even some regime targets beyond the military level that Israel started with, will convince the Iranians that it is time to stop. And then they will come to negotiation with the Trump administration much weaker."
While Secretary of State Marco Rubio initially insisted it was not involved in the initial strikes on Tehran, President Donald Trump seemed to suggest he hoped Israel's strikes would pressure a weaker Iran to acquiesce at the negotiating table.
The two sides are at loggerheads over the U.S.'s insistence that Iran cannot have any capacity to enrich uranium and Iran's insistence that it must have uranium for a civil nuclear program.
"The military operation is aimed, in my view, to a political end, and the political end is an agreement with Iran that will block a possibility to go to the border," Yadlin said.
"We need a stronger agreement" than the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, he said.
Yadlin, who in 1981 flew one of the F-16s that destroyed Iraq's nuclear facility in a single-night operation, made clear that Israel's latest campaign is far more complex.
"This is not 1981," he said. "Iran has learned. Their facilities are dispersed, buried in mountains, and protected by advanced air defenses. It's not a one-night operation."
He added, "There are sites that I'm not sure can be destroyed."
He said the recent attack was the result of years of intelligence gathering – and brave Mossad agents on the ground in Iran. Israel lured top Iranian commanders into a bunker, where they coordinated a response to Israel's attacks, then blew up the bunker.
"All of the intelligence that Israel collected, from the time I was chief of intelligence 2005 to 2010, enabled this operation against the Iranian nuclear program to be very efficient, very much like the good intelligence enabled Israel to destroy Hezbollah. Unfortunately, the same intelligence agencies missed the seventh of October, 2023."
Indeed, Israel's past preventive strikes — 1981's Operation Opera and the 2007 airstrike on Syria's suspected reactor — were rapid, surgical and designed to neutralize a singular target. In contrast, Yadlin suggested the current campaign could last weeks and involve broader goals.
"It's not a one-day operation. It seems more like a week, two weeks. But when you start a war, even if you start it very successfully, you never know when it is finished."
The operation is being framed by Israeli defense officials as a continuation of the Begin Doctrine, established after the 1981 Osirak strike, which declared that Israel would never allow a hostile regime in the region to obtain weapons of mass destruction.
Yadlin himself is a symbol of that doctrine. As one of the eight pilots who flew into Iraq over four decades ago, he helped define Israel's policy of preemptive action — a legacy that is now being tested again under radically different circumstances.
"This campaign," Yadlin emphasized, "is unlike anything the country has done before."
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Israel's airstrikes aim to break foundations of Khamenei's rule in Iran
By Samia Nakhoul, Matt Spetalnick and Maayan Lubell Dubai (Reuters) -Israel's sweeping campaign of airstrikes aims to do more than destroy Iran's nuclear centrifuges and missile capabilities. It seeks to shatter the foundations of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's government and leave it near collapse, Israeli, Western and regional officials said. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants Iran weakened enough to be forced into fundamental concessions on permanently abandoning its nuclear enrichment, its ballistic missile program and its support for militant groups across the region, the sources said. He also wants to leave Khamenei's government debilitated. The campaign is about "exhausting the regime's ability to project power and maintain internal cohesion," one senior regional official said. Iran's Islamic government faces an existential crisis unlike anything since the 1979 Revolution - not even the brutal 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war posed such a direct threat to clerical rule. Israel, the Middle East's most advanced military, can strike anywhere in Iran with drones and advanced F-35 fighter jets, assassinations by Mossad operatives, and cyberwarfare technology. In recent days, Israel has broadened its targets to include government institutions like the police and state television headquarters in Tehran. Netanyahu's government is planning for at least two weeks of intense airstrikes, according to four government and diplomatic sources, though the pace depends on how long it takes to eliminate Iran's missile stockpiles and launch capacity. Dennis Ross, a former Middle East envoy and advisor to several U.S. administrations, believes Iran is feeling the pressure and may be inching toward the negotiating table after the strikes eliminated much of Khamenei's inner circle, damaged nuclear infrastructure and missile sites, and killed top security figures. "I do think the regime feels vulnerable," said Ross, now a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. While he insisted Israel's primary aim is to cripple Iran's nuclear and missile programs, Ross conceded that if the regime were to fall as a consequence, "Israel wouldn't be sorry." Despite U.S. President Donald Trump's belligerent tone in recent days, he would likely accept if Tehran can offer a credible path to a deal, Ross said. But, after Tehran offered no concessions during six previous rounds of nuclear negotiations with the U.S., Washington will need firm assurances from Iran that its goals, including the permanent abandonment of enrichment, will be met before it will support a ceasefire. "I think the cost to them is going to be high,' he said. For Iran, there is one key calculation: letting the 86-year-old Khamenei retreat without humiliation, two Iranian sources said. Strip him of dignity or the prospect of survival and he may choose all-out conflict, they added. After Trump demanded Iran's "unconditional surrender" on social media on Tuesday, Khamenei promised in a televised speech that any U.S. military intervention in Iran would be met with "irreparable damage". In recent days, Netanyahu has also overtly raised the prospect of regime change, promising Iranians "the day of liberation is coming". Regional governments are fearful the situation could spiral out of control, pushing Iran - an ethnically diverse nation of 90 million people that straddles the Middle East and Asia - into chaos or unleashing a conflict that could spill across its borders. "You can't reshape the region through belligerent force," said Anwar Gargash, advisor to the president of the United Arab Emirates. "You might resolve some issues, but it will create others." IRAN ISOLATED Iran's decades-old playbook - waging war from the shadows via its proxies - collapsed under an Israeli offensive following the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas. Its regional Axis of Resistance crumbled, with Hamas crushed in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon defeated, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad ousted by rebels, and the Houthi militia in Yemen on the defensive. Russia and China - seen as allies of Tehran – have remained on the sidelines, leaving Iran isolated in the face of Western powers determined to end its regional influence and nuclear ambitions. "Iran isn't just facing Israel," said Alex Vatanka, director of the Iran Program at the Middle East Institute, based in Washington D.C. "It's facing off the United States and European powers." And while Sunni Arab Gulf states have publicly condemned Israel's strikes, privately leaders in Riyadh and Abu Dhabi – longtime U.S. allies - may welcome a weakening of their Shi'ite rival, whose proxies have targeted vital Gulf infrastructure, including oil facilities, analysts say. Militarily, Tehran has few options. Israel controls the skies over Iran, having largely destroyed its air defences. Much of Iran's stockpile of ballistic weapons is believed to have been damaged by Israeli strikes, and 400-or-so it has fired have mostly been destroyed by Israel's multi-layered aerial defence system. "When the missiles run out, what's left?," asks Vatanka. But with the Iranian opposition fragmented and no signs of divisions within the powerful Revolutionary Guard (IRGC), which has nearly 250,000 fighters including its Basij militia volunteers, there is scant prospect Iran's ruling elite will collapse easily. There have been no major protests on the streets of Tehran, and many Iranians profess anger towards Israel for the attacks. Without a ground invasion or domestic uprising, regime change in Iran is a distant prospect, the officials said. On Tuesday, Trump issued a veiled threat to Khamenei, declaring that U.S. intelligence knows his location and had no intention to kill him "for now". Israel's assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in September plunged the Lebanese group into disarray but regional officials and observers warned that killing the ageing Khamenei would not have the same impact. "Real power now resides with his son, Mojtaba, and the IRGC, which is deeply embedded despite the loss of key commanders," one regional source said. "They remain the regime's spine." Killing Khamenei, a religious leader to millions of Shi'ites, could cause a major backlash. Jonathan Panikoff, a former deputy U.S. national intelligence officer on the Middle East during Trump's first term, said that if the Israeli campaign does foment regime change in Iran, it could result – at least initially – in a more hardline administration. "What is likely to follow a theocratic Iranian government is not democracy but Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps–istan," said Panikoff, now at the Atlantic Council think-tank. "Israel might find itself in a perpetual, ongoing, and far more intense war that is no longer in the shadows." ISRAEL NEEDS AMERICA The next move belongs to Trump, Ross said, who must decide whether to intervene militarily to try to force Iran's hand. Israeli officials acknowledge that to destroy Iran's nuclear capabilities – which are hidden in secure locations deep underground like the fortified Fordow site outside Tehran – it would need the U.S. to provide its largest bunker-busting bombs. On the other hand, if Trump declares a ceasefire linked to a nuclear deal with Iran, Netanyahu will not protest provided he can credibly claim that Tehran's threat to Israel has been fundamentally rolled back. In recent days, Trump has hardened his tone towards Iran, making veiled military threats while leaving open the possibility of negotiations. "No-one knows what I'm going to do," he told reporters on Wednesday, adding that Iranian officials had reached out about negotiations. "It's a little late." The message to Iran is clear, Ross said: start serious talks soon, or face a military situation far worse than today's. The White House referred Reuters to Trump's latest remarks and declined further comment for this story. In an effort to restart negotiations, the foreign ministers of Germany, France and Britain plan to hold nuclear talks with Iran's foreign minister Abbas Araqchi on Friday in Geneva. Mark Dubowitz, chief executive at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank in Washington, said he believed Trump ultimately wanted a diplomatic solution but he was likely to allow Israel more time to pursue its military campaign to give the U.S. more leverage at the negotiating table. Dubowitz, an Iran expert who has been consulted by the Trump administration on its policy, said Israel's main objective appears to be setting back Iran's nuclear program as many years as possible. Central to that is removing its human capacity by killing nuclear and weapons scientists, and Dubowitz said his team had identified 10 to 12 more who are likely being hunted by Israel. Meanwhile, Israel's opposition parties – and the public – have rallied behind Netanyahu, giving him leeway to pursue the difficult operation, despite Iranian missiles hitting Israeli soil. Israel is operating 1,500–2,000 km from home, with complex and costly logistical needs. "This is math," said one Israeli source. "How many missiles they launch. How many we destroy. How long we can keep going." The Israeli strikes have already killed key members of the so-called "weaponisation group" - those Israel alleges are tasked with turning enriched uranium into an actual bomb – and eroded Iran's ability to produce long-range missiles. That, Israeli leaders argue, creates the conditions for a U.S.-Iran agreement that addresses Israel's red lines. Yuli Edelstein, head of the Israeli parliament's Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee, and a prominent member of the ruling Likud party, told Reuters that if Washington and key European powers engage diplomatically, apply pressure, and shape a clear exit plan, "they can prevent unnecessary developments in this war." DANGEROUS VACUUM If the conflict does escalate, regional officials fear a collapse of Khamenei's government would not lead to democracy but to fragmentation - or worse: a civil war, fuelled by Iran's marginalized minorities - Arabs, Kurds, Azeris, Baha'is, Baluchis and Christians - could erupt in a dangerous power vacuum. "And that," a Gulf source warned, "no one is ready for." The UAE foreign ministry directed Reuters to its statements condemning Israel's strikes against Iran. Saudi Arabia's and Qatar government media office did not respond to a request for comment. French President Emmanuel Macron echoed that warning at this week's G7 leaders summit, saying forced regime change in Iran would bring chaos. He cited the failures of the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the 2011 NATO-backed intervention in Libya as cautionary examples. Vatanka, of the Middle East Institute, warned that shockwaves from the collapse of the government in Tehran would not stop at Iran's borders. "A destabilized Iran," he added, "could ignite unrest from Azerbaijan to Pakistan. Its collapse would reverberate across the region, destabilizing fragile states and reigniting dormant conflicts." (Additional reporting from Maha El Dahan in Dubai, Matt Spetalnick in Washington, Maayan Lubell in Jerualem, John Irish in Paris, Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow, Reporting and Writing by Samia Nakhoul)
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13 minutes ago
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Iran air strikes: Republicans split over support for Trump and another ‘foreign war'
After returning early from the G7 summit in Canada, Donald Trump met with his national security team to be briefed on the escalating Israel-Iran conflict. It became clear that Trump was considering direct US military support for the Israelis. This has the potential to cause a split among the president's supporters between the Republican hawks (traditional interventionists) on one side and the Maga isolationists on the other. During his three presidential campaigns, Trump condemned former presidents for leading America into 'ridiculous endless wars'. This isolationist tilt won him plaudits with his base of those who supported him for his populist promises to 'make America great again' (Maga). In their work on US attitudes to foreign policy and US overseas involvement, Elaine Kamarck and Jordan Muchnick of the Brookings Institution – a non-profit research organisation in Washington – looked at a range of evidence in 2023. Get your news from actual experts, straight to your inbox. Sign up to our daily newsletter to receive all The Conversation UK's latest coverage of news and research, from politics and business to the arts and sciences. They found Republicans supporting less global involvement from the US had increased from 40% to 54% from 2004 to 2017. At that time only 16% of voters supported increasing US troop presence abroad, and 40% wanted a decrease, they found. They related this change in attitudes to Trump's foreign policy position. Fast forward to his second term, and many in the Maga camp are fiercely opposed to Trump's current posturing about leading the US into another conflict in the Middle East. Over the past few days the White House has doubled down on the line that Trump keeps repeating: 'Iran can not have a nuclear weapon'. As Trump edges closer to committing the US to joining Israel in air strikes on Iran, Steve Bannon, a staunch Trump ally, argued that allowing the 'deep state' to drive the US into conflict with Iran would 'blow up' the coalition of Trump support. Meanwhile, Conservative podcaster Tucker Carlson denounced those Republicans supporting action against Iran as 'warmongers' and said they were encouraging the president to drag the US into a war. Congresswoman Majorie Taylor Greene, in an unusual break with Trump, openly criticised the president's stance on the Israel-Iran conflict, writing on X: 'Foreign wars/intervention/regime change put America last, kill innocent people, are making us broke, and will ultimately lead to our destruction.' Other prominent Republican senators, including Josh Hawley and Rand Paul, have urged the president to avoid US involvement in an offensive against Iran. Another Republican congressman, Thomas Massie, has gone even further. He has joined with a coalition of Democrats in filing a House resolution under the War Powers Resolution of 1973, which would seek to prevent Trump from engaging in 'unauthorized hostilities' with Iran without Congressional consent. These Republicans may believe their views are popular with their electoral base. In an Economist/YouGov poll in June 2025, 53% of Republicans stated that they did not think the US military should get involved in the conflict between Israel and Iran. But Donald Trump does seem to enjoy widespread support in the US for his position that the US cannot allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. According to CNN data analysis, 83% of Republicans, 79% independents, and 79% of Democrats, agree with the president's position on this issue. This slightly confusing split suggests there could be US voter support for air strikes, but it's clear there would not be that same support for troops on the ground. IranInfogram Resistance from ultra-Trump die-hards, however, might put them on the wrong side of the president in the long-term. Greg Sargent, a writer at The New Republic magazine, believes that, 'people become enemies of Trump not when they substantively work against some principle he supposedly holds dear, but rather when they publicly criticize him … or become an inconvenience in any way'. So why is Trump, to the dismay of many from within the Maga faithful, seemingly abandoning the anti-war tenet of his 'America first' doctrine? Jacob Heilbrunn, editor of The National Interest magazine, thinks that 'now that Israel's assault on Iran appears to be successful, Trump wants in on the action'. The president has several prominent Republican hawks urging him to do exactly that, and order the US Air Force to deploy their 'bunker-buster bombs'' to destroy Iran's underground arsenals. One of these is Senator Lindsey Graham. Earlier this week on Fox News, he told Trump to be "all in … in helping Israel eliminate the nuclear threat. If we need to provide bombs to Israel, provide bombs. If we need to fly planes with Israel, do joint operations.' Former Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell is also advocating US military action. He told CNN: 'What's happening here is some of the isolationist movement led by Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon are distressed we may be helping the Israelis defeat the Iranians,' adding that its 'been kind of a bad week for the isolationists' in the party. The same Economist/YouGov poll mentioned earlier showed that the stance taken by these Republicans – that Iran poses a threat to the US – is a position shared by a majority of GOP voters, with 69% viewing Iran as either an immediate and serious threat to the US, or at least somewhat of a serious threat. Some believe that Trump's evolving attitude towards American military involvement in the worsening crisis in the Middle East, however, is not a volte-face on isolationism, or an ideological pivot to the virtues of attacking Iran. Ross Douthat of the New York Times has observed that Trump 'has never been a principled noninterventionist' and that 'his deal-making style has always involved the threat of force as a crucial bargaining chip'. It is always difficult to fully determine what Trump's foreign policy doctrine actually is. It is useful, however, to reflect on some of the president's overseas actions from his first term. In April 2018, following a suspected chemical weapons attack by the forces of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad in a Damascus suburb, Trump ordered US air strikes in retaliation for what he called an 'evil and despicable attack' that left 'mothers and fathers, infants and children thrashing in pain and gasping for air'. This led the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic magazine, Jeffrey Goldberg, to describe Trump as 'something wholly unique in the history of the presidency: an isolationist interventionist'. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Richard Hargy does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
