Israel appears to have forgotten a lesson from the Iraqi invasion of Iran in 1980. Instead of inducing regime change, it led to the people of Iran rallying behind the Islamic Republic in the name of nationalism, not necessarily out of love for the clerical elite.
Rather than fuelling internal dissent, Israel’s recent strikes have similarly sparked a resurgence of nationalist feeling – centred not on support for the regime, but on defence of the nation.
There have been public mourning ceremonies and online tributes. Even some of those once aligned with the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement have begun expressing solidarity with those they now frame as “defenders of the homeland”.
In working-class neighbourhoods and rural areas, where opposition movements had struggled to gain a foothold, such sentiments are even stronger.
Israel’s attempt to divide the Iranian people from their state has, at least for now, backfired. The dominant reaction inside Iran has not been jubilation or uprising, but a rallying around the flag – a phenomenon familiar to those who study the mechanics of national trauma and external threat.
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The targeting of high-ranking officials, far from emboldening calls for regime change, has been interpreted by many Iranians as a direct assault on national sovereignty.
Beyond Israel’s high-profile air strikes on Iran’s nuclear and missile infrastructure, and the deliberate suppression of Iran’s air defence systems, the most consequential and defining achievement of Israel’s recent military campaign lies elsewhere: in the targeted assassinations of Iran’s top military leadership.
Broader ambitions
The deaths of Mohammad Bagheri, the Iranian army’s chief of staff; Hossein Salami, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC); and Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of the IRGC’s Aerospace Force, among others, have left the upper echelons of Iran’s military apparatus shaken.
These were not peripheral figures. They were the architects of Iran’s regional deterrence doctrine, and their coordinated elimination – within hours – signals a shift in the nature and objectives of Israel’s campaign.
The operation went far beyond a preemptive strike against nuclear escalation; it delivered a calibrated blow to the strategic command structure of the Islamic Republic.
Israel might have inadvertently provided the Islamic Republic with a powerful political gift: a moment of cohesion, a common enemy
While Israeli officials officially maintain that their core objective is to stall or derail Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the scale and precision of the strikes – particularly Monday’s attack on a national television station, and the assassinations of top officials – suggest broader ambitions.
For years, there has been speculation in regional and western policy circles that Israel’s long-term strategic calculus views a strong, stable and territorially intact Iran as an enduring geopolitical threat. Israel regards Iran not merely as a hostile state, but as a regional civilisational rival whose power must be contained – not just its nuclear programme, but its very political and geographic coherence.
This strategic logic has shaped decades of covert operations, diplomatic isolation efforts, and economic sanctions. It also informs long-standing ideas – whispered and sometimes stated outright – about eventual regime change, and even the fracturing of Iran into smaller, weaker successor states.
Such visions, once confined to hawkish policy white papers in Washington and Tel Aviv, gained renewed currency in the wake of the nationwide protests in Iran following the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini. The uprising, led by women and youth under the slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom”, presented the clearest domestic challenge to the Islamic Republic in a generation.
Sensing an opportunity, both the US and Israel amplified their support for opposition groups. Among them, Reza Pahlavi – the exiled crown prince – emerged as a symbolic figure. His widely publicised visit to Israel, and his statements openly calling for coordinated support to overthrow the Islamic Republic, was unprecedented. This convergence of opposition figures and foreign governments marked a shift from passive solidarity to open alignment.
Liberation narrative
That realignment became more explicit in the aftermath of this month’s strikes, when Israel’s messaging pivoted. No longer framed solely around nuclear non-proliferation, Israel began portraying its operations as part of a broader struggle to liberate the Iranian people from a repressive regime.
The narrative emphasises a separation between the Islamic Republic and the Iranian populace, insisting that this is not a war against Iran, but against its rulers. Public campaigns have sought to connect Israel’s military actions to the aspirations of ordinary Iranians. Diaspora figures such as Pahlavi and former footballer Ali Karimi have publicly echoed this framing, calling on Iranians to support the downfall of the regime.
But despite the clear strategic communications effort, the campaign has failed to capture the domestic imagination in Iran.
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What the Israeli leadership and its allies might have underestimated is the Iranian public’s deeply ingrained historical memory and reflexive resistance to foreign intervention. While opposition to the Islamic Republic remains widespread, especially among younger and urban populations, the sight of a foreign military killing Iranian commanders on Iranian soil triggers an altogether different sentiment.
This shift is not just symbolic. The level of domestic unity being observed, especially in contrast to past periods of internal unrest – such as the 2019 fuel protests or the Amini demonstrations – suggests that Israel might have inadvertently provided the Islamic Republic with a powerful political gift: a moment of cohesion, a common enemy, and a temporary suspension of internal divisions.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has thus joined the ranks of Saddam Hussein, whose decision to invade Iran in 1980 consolidated Ayatollah Khomeini’s precarious position among other revolutionary factions in Iran.
It is premature to say whether this unity will last. Iran remains a deeply fractured society with generational, ideological and economic cleavages. But for now, it is clear that the Israeli strikes have not accelerated regime collapse; rather, they might have delayed it. And in the long arc of strategic planning, Israel’s most recent operation may be remembered not for what it destroyed – but for what it unintentionally reinforced.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
