Aletho News

How ‘Israel’s’ Iran regime change plot failed – again

By Kit Klarenberg | Al Mayadeen | May 4, 2026

An investigative report by Israeli outlet Ynet has laid bare the embarrassing cataclysm not only of the US-Israeli war on Iran, but the Zionist entity’s effort throughout to end the Islamic Republic via covert and overt military and intelligence operations. Violent Mossad-orchestrated protests, the murder of Leader Sayyed Ali Khamenei, and a Kurdish invasion were intended to produce regime change and “total victory” over Tehran. Yet, as Ynet concludes: “what started as a far-reaching Israeli move, rich in imagination, final in its solution, ends in heartache.”

In granular detail, the investigation tracks how the Zionist entity’s deranged scheme germinated in the minds of Israeli intelligence, military, and political chiefs, before the Trump administration was comprehensively sold on the plot. Along the way, Ynet exposes extraordinary and dangerous levels of delusion and imperial hubris at the highest levels of Tel Aviv and Washington. For example, Benjamin Netanyahu sincerely – and entirely falsely – believed “Israel’s” criminal September 2024 assault of Lebanon, and the June 2025 12-Day War, had decimated Hezbollah and Iran.

This perspective was shared by Mossad, which had been building a vast, dedicated anti-government army in Tehran since 2022. The Zionist entity was delusionally convinced it had the power to collapse the entire Islamic Republic. “Fostering mass protest” and encouraging “armed resistance of minorities” – specifically, Kurds within and without Iran – in “parallel” with assassinating Leader Sayyed Ali Khamenei was part of a three-pronged coup d’etat strategy. Netanyahu believed “total victory” over the Resistance was in grasp in every theatre. Ynet reports:

“Overthrowing the regime was the heart of Israel’s overall war plan.”

The operation was intended to be put into action this June. Yet, in January, with “tens of thousands” of Mossad-directed insurrectionists in the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities, the Zionist entity believed conditions had sufficiently “ripened” to make a decisive move. Mossad’s “influence organization” was birthed in 2022, reaching “operational maturity two and a half years ago.” Ynet bleakly boasts of the “effort and sophistication” of the Zionist entity’s armed clandestine army of anti-government rioters in Tehran:

“Israel has established its own poison machine. This is a serious weapon system that, if fully operational, can be fatal.”

Mossad pitched its braindead regime change plan directly to the CIA, Pentagon Central Command was informed of it by visiting Zionist Occupation Forces chief of staff Eyal Zamir, while Trump got personally lobbied by Netanyahu. The President – “convinced there were no limits to the capabilities of the military system at his command” after Nicolas Maduro’s January 3rd kidnap – and his administration were a highly receptive audience. Trump indicated his endorsement of the conspiracy on January 13th, publicly informing Iranians “help is on its way.”

A vast US military buildup in West Asia immediately began, while supposed peace talks with Tehran were ongoing. The negotiations were of course a con, intended to lull the Resistance into a false sense of security before the next phase of “Israel’s” intended palace coup commenced. On February 28th, Zionist-American airstrikes rained down on Tehran. “Israel” and the US firmly believed Iran’s leadership had been eliminated or scattered, and the Islamic Republic’s command and control system was “severely beaten.” But then, catastrophe started to erupt.

‘Popular Uprising’

While Sayyed Khamenei was killed – in an assassination demonically celebrated by Western media as “the assassination of the century” – sending Iran’s leadership temporarily underground, “an orderly change of government, in accordance with Khamenei’s will,” was successfully executed. Iran’s command and control system wasn’t significantly disrupted, returning to full capacity within hours. No defections were forthcoming. Still, “euphoria” abounded in Washington and Tel Aviv. Trump – who privately “welcomed the Israeli hit” – issued a video statement urging the Iranian people to take power by violence, warning:

“To the members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, the armed forces and all of the police. I say tonight that you must lay down your weapons and have complete immunity, or in the alternative, face certain death.”

Netanyahu joined the insurrectionary call. Problematically though, “the crowd chose to stay home,” in no small part because of genocidal US-Israeli bombardment from the skies. A deliberate strike on a primary school killed 165 young girls, sparking fiery international condemnation, vengeful mourning throughout West Asia, and UN investigations. Iranians instead took to the streets in sizeable numbers to grieve Khamenei, while celebrating his son Mojtaba’s ascension to Leader. Immediately, the IRGC moved to blockade the Strait of Hormuz.

Despite the closure being an absolutely inevitable upshot of criminal Zionist-American aggression against Iran, which Western intelligence assessments universally long-forecast, Ynet reports the US was “not ready for this move and its devastating economic consequences.” Trump’s threats not to blockade the Strait were ignored. The riddle of why Washington was so caught off guard is perhaps best answered by Netanyahu’s assurances to Trump that the Islamic Republic would collapse in mere days. Astonishingly, there was no contingency plan beyond that.

In the meantime, another cog of the Zionist-American regime change operation in Tehran was also fatally faltering. “After 100 hours of air activity… a ground invasion from Kurdish militias based in Iraq” was supposed to commence. An invasion force had been training there over prior weeks, preparing “to reach the Kurdish region of Iran” and link up with fighters locally before a “mass march” to Tehran. For inspiration, Tel Aviv looked to Damascus being overwhelmed by MI6-supported HTS forces in mere days in December 2024.

However, Ynet reports Iranian intelligence quickly learned “in advance about the planned invasion,” and supposedly informed Turkey, prompting Recep Erdoğan to personally demand Trump call it off. The entire proposal was, in any event, manifest insanity. After reports emerged in early March of the CIA working with Kurdish militants “with the aim of fomenting a popular uprising in Iran,” even Zionist think tank pundits and diaspora activists warned such action was a recipe for disaster, which would unite Iranians of every extraction in opposition.

Still, Kurdish invasion remained a fundamental component of “Israel’s” regime change strategy in Tehran during the war. When a tentative ceasefire was struck on April 7th, after 40 days of devastating Iranian strikes, Ynet reports Israeli officials wondered why the invasion never came to pass. Did the US not believe in the operation in the first place? Perhaps Trump changed his mind after Erdoğan picked up the phone? Or was “the whole idea a fantasy, with no chance of being realised?”

‘Inadvertent Effects’

That the Zionist entity was so convinced its self-evidently misguided mission could possibly succeed is all the more damning, given the contents of a July 2025 report from the highly influential, Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies. A withering appraisal of the 12-Day War, the think tank acknowledged Iranian regime change had been an avowed Zionist objective from the conflict’s inception, which failed spectacularly. Nonetheless, the report still advocated for the Zionist entity to pursue the Islamic Republic’s destruction, via a palace coup.

However, INSS explicitly warned against employing precisely the regime change tactics depended upon by the ZOF and Mossad during the latest Zionist-American war on Iran to achieve that end. For one, the think tank correctly predicted any Israeli military effort – including civilian bombing – intended to ignite mass anti-government protests had no chance of success. Such actions during the 12-Day War had in fact produced an intense “anti-Israel wave” among Iranians, who “exhibited a notable degree” of “rallying around the flag” in response.

Iranians’ determination “to defend their homeland at a critical moment against an external enemy” endured after the 12-Day War ended, to the extent all traces of public dissent in the Islamic Republic “almost completely disappeared” in the conflict’s wake. INSS likewise vehemently cautioned against encouraging “separatist tendencies” in Iran – such as Kurdish militancy. Due to “heightened public sensitivity to any perceived foreign attempts to promote ethnic fragmentation,” separatist insurrection, let alone invasion, would unite “large segments” of the Iranian public “against Israel.”

Moreover, an eerily prophetic portion of INSS’ report explicitly warned against assassinating Leader Sayyed Ali Khamenei, as doing so “would not necessarily result in regime change,” and inevitably backfire. The think tank precisely foretold Tehran “would likely have little difficulty selecting a successor, who could prove to be more extreme or more capable.” INSS likewise predicted the Iranian government instead being strengthened, and anti-Zionist sentiment skyrocketing in Iran and beyond, leaving any subsequent “efforts to destabilize the regime through popular protest” dead on arrival.

All these humiliating outcomes came to pass. As yet, INSS’ forecast that military-driven Israeli regime change efforts in Iran would compel the Islamic Republic to seek nuclear weapons capability “as an existential insurance policy” hasn’t materialised, although Western officials now widely fear it may. Meanwhile, ever since the ceasefire was implemented, talks between Washington and Tehran have been stuck in a seemingly implacable stalemate. While US officials remain committed to imposing sharp limits on Iran’s nuclear research, the Islamic Republic refuses to even negotiate the issue.

Furthermore, Tehran has made clear its chokehold over the Strait of Hormuz will only be loosened when the Empire stops blockading the country, and ends the conflict. While Netanyahu still harbours reveries of shattering the Islamic Republic, the Empire lacks the requisite economic and military muscle. Meanwhile, overextended Tel Aviv has blundered into a colossal trap in Lebanon, and the Resistance is waiting and watching intently. In recklessly seeking self-evidently unattainable regime change in Iran, the Zionist entity has only hastened its own permanent destruction.

May 4, 2026 - Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | Iran, Israel, Lebanon, United States, Zionism