Nahal Toosi
Nahal Toosi is POLITICO’s senior foreign affairs correspondent. She has reported on war, genocide and political chaos in a career that has taken her around the world. Her reported column, Compass, delves into the decision-making of the global national security and foreign policy establishment — and the fallout that comes from it.
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment