Blueprint: How Israel could topple Iranian regime

As opposition leaders craft detailed plans for regime change in Tehran, security experts and Iran scholars warn that the fall of the clerical leadership could usher in an even more radical force — with the Revolutionary Guards poised to seize control.

Dr. Saeed Ghasseminejad believes there’s already a detailed plan to transform Iran’s political landscape. Born in Tehran, he regularly participated in protests against the clerical rule during his university years.

“One day, while driving back from a protest, two Revolutionary Guard members suddenly got into my car,” he recalls in a phone conversation with Israel Hayom from New York. “I drove in silence for several minutes with them inside, until they moved me to the back seat and drove me directly to a detention facility. I spent a month in solitary confinement and received a two-year suspended sentence. Following this, I left Iran, leaving my family behind.”

He relocated to the United States, completed his doctorate in economics, and became a prominent opposition voice. He later joined the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a nonpartisan research institute in Washington.

“Many people say there’s no chance the Iranian regime will fall. I think that’s a mistake,” says Ghasseminejad. “There’s currently great disappointment with the regime in Iran. In the last presidential election, for instance, voter turnout was the lowest ever. The economic situation is fragile, and since 2017, protests have occurred in more than 150 cities across Iran. Since September 2022, there have been over 7,000 demonstrations in Iran.”

These statistics, he believes, indicate that the regime is unstable and the Iranian government stands on shaky ground. According to him, all the Iranian people need to overcome the clerical leadership is some external assistance. That’s exactly why a five-point plan was formulated.

In recent years, Ghasseminejad served as an adviser to Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, son of Iran’s last shah, who has lived in the US since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. The two even visited Israel together about a year and a half ago.

In his role, Ghasseminejad was involved in formulating Pahlavi’s plan to transform Iran’s political system. According to sources who spoke with him, the crown prince doesn’t seek to take control of the country, but rather to return as a unifying, symbolic figure under whom a new republic would be established. Not everyone agrees with this idea.

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Ghasseminejad breaks down the plan into five points:

The first point “is applying maximum economic pressure on the regime by outside nations. The Iranian regime has a narrow support base, maintained through money offered to its supporters. If you cut off economic resources through sanctions and other tools, it becomes increasingly difficult for the regime to buy loyalty.”

The second point is what Ghasseminejad describes as the maximum empowerment of the Iranian people.

“Let me give you an example. The regime constantly tries to disconnect the Iranian people from the global internet. Internet access allows people to express their opinions, organize protests, and share information the regime doesn’t want reaching the public. That’s why the regime filters extensive content online. If we could somehow provide free internet access to Iran’s residents, the regime would face serious problems.”

The third point seeks to mobilize Iranian emigrants who have flooded Europe and America since 1979. “We’re talking about five to eight million people, many of them affluent, who can pressure governments in their host countries to act against the regime in Iran,” Ghasseminejad explains.

The fourth point addresses the day after. The crown prince “has a detailed plan for the first 100 days following regime change,” he said.

This brings us to the final point in the plan, which Ghasseminejad calls “maximum defection.”

“To transform the regime, you need some security institutions in Iran to join the revolution, or at least declare neutrality. You need support from insiders. It would be very difficult without this. Such a delicate and complex matter is something foreign governments can greatly assist with. Especially governments with proven intelligence capabilities inside Iran. Israel, for instance.”

Israel, Ghasseminejad adds, has already enabled the beginning of the journey toward regime change.

The current war has revealed the Islamic regime “as a paper tiger,” he said. “It’s losing many of its proxies in the Middle East, its intelligence organizations are deeply compromised, and its military power hasn’t impressed. When you put all this together, you discover the regime is at a very weak, fragile point. We have an opportunity to transform it.”

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When Ghasseminejad is asked if Israel is involved in some way in his efforts to transform Iran’s political landscape, he responds diplomatically, “I believe all stakeholders who see the regime’s fall and its replacement with a responsible government as aligned with their national interests should improve their coordination and cooperation beyond current levels.”

“Regime change in Iran wasn’t on the agenda in the last ten years,” says a former senior official in Israel’s diplomatic system. “It was never Israel’s objective to change the regime, or even engage with it. All kinetic activities carried out by the Mossad in Iran, such as eliminating scientists, stealing the nuclear archive, and more, were excellent operations, but they focused on the nuclear program. There wasn’t even one significant operation aimed at regime change targets.”

Last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the Iranian people directly, saying in a recorded message that “there is one force putting your family in grave danger: the tyrants of Tehran. That’s it.”

Netanyahu went further and repeated, in Persian, one of the protest slogans against the Tehran regime: “Zan, Zendegi, Azadi (Women, Life, Freedom)!”

“Israel needs to be involved, or at least formulate a plan, regarding the possibility of regime change in Iran, but in my opinion, it’s not doing enough,” says Sima Shine, an Iran expert who previously served in Military Intelligence’s Research Division and headed research at the Mossad.

“Probably because regime change is a Sisyphean process, it’s hard to measure its success, and it’s difficult to know if it will bring the desired outcome,” says Shine, co-founder of Forum Dvorah and head of the Iran program at the Institute for National Security Studies.

These statements align well with comments from a former Mossad senior official who dealt with Iran in his role.

“Regime change has been an operational topic for years, but I’m skeptical about whether it’s even possible,” the fromer Mossad office said. “In terms of territory, Iran is 74 times larger than Israel. In terms of population, Iran is seven times larger than Israel. It’s an enormous country with two armies — the Iranian military and the Revolutionary Guards — and its people have endured more than 50 years of totalitarian rule. Not simple. …

“This process is complex, takes years, and needs constant recalibration. This doesn’t mean the Tehran regime won’t fall — even Communism and the Roman Empire collapsed — I just don’t know if it’s something that can be done from the outside and through coercion.”

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Most Iranian exiles, Iran researchers in Israel, and former security system officials agreed in interviews that regime change is not an achievable objective in the near term. Worse still: They point to the possibility that when the clerical leadership is eventually removed from power, their successors might be even more extreme and combative.

The popular revolution of 1979 didn’t end as many Iranians expected. “No one dreamed that the revolution that led to the Shah’s removal would ultimately lead to the establishment of an Islamic republic,” Goldberg explains.

“Those who led the street demonstrations weren’t religious figures, but rather secular economic and class elites, usually liberal ones as well. The entire Islamic story is a product of the political chaos that emerged after the shah’s departure. That’s why, by the way, Iranians today fear regime change. When they look at the Middle East and see what happened following the Arab Spring in Syria, Libya, and Yemen, many of them calculate that maybe the current situation isn’t so bad.”

The Islamic Revolution of 1979, which brought Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to power, gave birth to the “Islamic Republic of Iran,” which is effectively a religious dictatorship. Dr. Tamar Eilam Gindin, an Iran specialist at the University of Haifa’s Ezri Center for Iran & Persian Gulf Studies, says, “Ostensibly, Iran has a democracy with separation of powers, a body that oversees the Supreme Leader, and free elections. But ultimately, Khamenei rules Iran absolutely, and his word is final.”

Khamenei, designated as the Republic’s “supreme leader,” rules through the “Guardian Council,” a 12-member body that approves all candidates for political positions in the country, including the president, as well as the laws enacted by the Majles, the Iranian parliament. Khamenei personally appoints the six religious clerics who serve on the council, as well as the head of the judiciary, who in turn appoints the six jurists who serve on it. Through this, the supreme leader effectively controls all branches of the Republic — executive, legislative, and judicial.

“I haven’t heard of any confrontations between Khamenei and anyone in Iran’s political leadership,” Eilam Gindin says. “When former president Ahmadinejad tried, for example, to do things on his own initiative, he received an angry phone call from the supreme leader, was sick for 11 days, and never tried to defy his orders again.”

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Other presidents elected to lead Iran have also found themselves powerless against the supreme leader’s authority.

“The current president, Pezeshkian, is the one who disappointed the fastest of them all. After he was elected, committees sat for four weeks, each in its field, developing recommendations for ministers to fill various government ministries. In the end, there was no connection between these recommendations and the actual appointments. The government he presented was almost identical in composition to the previous government, including the interior minister who was involved in violent suppression of protests. The ministers’ identities were imposed on the president from above.”

The Revolutionary Guards also stand ready to assist the supreme leader, being Iran’s strongest institution and the one charged with preserving the regime. The Revolutionary Guards have been granted authority to suppress riots, prevent Western cultural infiltration, capture regime opponents, and more. Their loyalty to the regime is absolute.

According to Goldberg, the Iranian regime controls the country not only through force, but also through cunning and wisdom. “In Israel, this is less recognized, but within the Iranian regime there are significant differences of opinion,” he says.

“The republic reflects a variety of political views and perceptions about Iran’s future, and in the corridors of power, they place great importance on public opinion and sentiment. In Iran, the rulers always know something that former Egyptian President Mubarak, for example, didn’t know – that the people can always take to the streets and remove them.

“While Khamenei makes the decisions, he knows where the public stands, and within the leadership, there are constant discussions about how to improve relations with citizens and increase their loyalty. One reason for this is that Iran’s rulers don’t come from a disconnected elite – quite the opposite. The religious leaders succeeded in taking control of the country precisely because they had direct connection with Iranian citizens, a connection that exists to this day.”

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The Iranian regime is certainly a fortified target, but in recent years its walls have begun to crack. Since 2009, civil unrest has been common in Iran, manifesting in several waves of political protests.

The peak came in 2022, during what was called the “Hijab Protests,” which erupted after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. For a moment, it seemed the turbulent demonstrations across the country, ignited in response to strict enforcement of hijab laws, threatened regime stability. The revolutionary spirit of the Iranian people was felt in the streets.

However, once again the “republic” managed to silence the protest: according to opposition group estimates, about 500 people were killed in Iran during the suppression of the riots. Thousands more were injured or arrested. The clerical leadership’s suppression machine proved its effectiveness.

“In 2022, the protest was strong, the world’s eyes were on the demonstrations in Iran, and for the first time the Iranian protest movement became something global that people talked about worldwide,” says an Iranian regime opponent living in the US, who asked to remain anonymous. “If regime opponents living outside Iran, led by Crown Prince Pahlavi, had managed to capitalize on the momentum, Oct. 7 wouldn’t have happened, because we would have changed the regime in Iran two years ago. When Khomeini overthrew the shah, he had a plan, networking, internal organizations. The Iranian opposition had 40 years to build such a system, and they didn’t do it.”

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When asked whether Israel can be part of such a process, the regime opponent said, “I always thought that Israel, which was historically our best friend, could help. We are much closer to Israel than to our Muslim neighbors – Arab countries, Pakistan, or Afghanistan. It took time for people in Iran to understand that Israel is our best ally in the region.”

Not everyone agrees with this. After the suppression of the Hijab Protests, Pahlavi again tried to form a coalition of Iranian exiles to exert international pressure on Iran, but this too quickly fell apart. One of the reasons was Pahlavi’s visit to Israel in April 2023, at the invitation of then-Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel.

The crown prince’s cooperation with Israel was not well-received among all members of the coalition he had built around him, and beyond. “The visit was a major embarrassment,” says a source familiar with the details. “They took him to private Likud party gatherings, threw him celebrations that weren’t exactly fitting for a royal. It also became clear that he would be a puppet king, because if he was already a puppet of the intelligence minister, how could he be expected to rule an entire country?”

Indeed, one of the reasons why Iran’s Islamic regime hasn’t fallen yet is the absence of a single leader who could unite a broad coalition of sectors and classes in Iran under his leadership. According to Goldberg, “Iran is an enormous country, very diverse in human terms, with a very sophisticated and complex society. There isn’t necessarily one element that could control the country by itself.

“Historically, what’s common to all revolutions in Iran, including that of 1979, is that they were coalition revolutions. They only occurred when different groups within Iranian society, with different interests and different priorities, managed to connect and form a platform through which they acted together. The problem is that currently in Iran there’s no feasibility for such a coalition that could unite together to change the regime.”