Opinion | The Endgame of the Iran Attacks Isn’t Clear, Even in Jerusalem
“The big question, in other words, is whether Netanyahu has not set his sights on regime change. Whether his sights have not been blinkered by a new logic deriving from the manifest results of his own escalation — that Iran’s nuclear program and missile program are one; that given the danger to Israel merely from the missiles, leaving the Ayatollah’s regime in charge itself amounts to an existential threat.
“As we achieve our objective,” Netanyahu addressed Iranians on YouTube last Saturday, “we are also clearing the path for you to achieve your objective, your freedom.” On Monday, he told ABC News that killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei would “not escalate the conflict but end the conflict.” How does one retreat from this logic any more than from the demand for total victory in Gaza?
Most vexing of all, why, under these circumstances, should the Iranian regime stop the war? It says it will be prepared to put enrichment back under international monitoring, as under the previous nuclear deal. But, for now, why capitulate?
Why not launch a dozen missiles every night, or every third night, keeping Israeli business depressed, our airspace closed, our sleep foiled — and watch us squirm? Why not tie up virtually the entire Israeli Air Force looking for missile development in a territory the size of Alaska and over four hours away? Why not deplete our reserves of anti-missile missiles that cost a couple of million dollars each?
True enough, the Israeli Air Force has destroyed a great many missile manufacturing sites. More damage will be inflicted. But destroy Iran’s very capacity to produce missiles? Does not the Iranian regime, too, see itself in a war for survival — a “war,” at any rate, according to the Supreme Leader — and does it not have the resources to sustain a war economy?
Finally, will Bibi, of all people, the leader in charge of Gazan carnage, bring Iranians to overthrow their government? Israel has now killed over 200 Iranian citizens by going after human “nuclear infrastructure” in various residential complexes. Just because ordinary people disdain the regime, that does not mean they welcome Israelis buzzing their neighborhoods, blowing up every economic asset from which the regime’s missile program could conceivably profit from. Even some people who may “not agree with the Establishment,” the journalist Abas Aslani told CNN on Monday, agree that Israel must be answered with “a crushing response.””
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/06/17/israel-iran-letter-from-jerusalem-00408540