by Ben Caspit
The IRGC ignored the fact that Israel changed after the October 7 massacre, and now they’re paying the price. Dictatorships don’t fall from outside; they collapse from within.
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Former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei of Iran made the same mistake as Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah. He ignored the fact that Israel changed on October 7. He didn’t believe it could happen to him. He fell asleep at the wheel.
When the details of his elimination become clear, jaws will drop. The deception, the pinpoint intelligence, the quality of the execution, the creativity. The fact that Israel had a photo of Ali Khamenei’s body is beyond comprehension. It should spell things out for the ayatollahs who are still there, and for their situation.
Israel went from fighting alone on seven fronts to a situation where Iran is fighting alone on seven fronts. In a little over two years. Not bad.
On October 7, 2023, Israel fought for its life, surrounded by a “ring of fire,” on the verge of the “extermination plan” that came out of Iran’s playbook. We took the hardest blow in our history. Despite the brutal starting conditions, we won. Am Yisrael (the people of Israel) got up off the floor, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) showed its capabilities, the intelligence community showed its edge.
Now comes the strategic reversal. Iran is the one surrounded by a “ring of fire,” and the ayatollah regime is fighting for its last breaths.
Iran has been caught with its pants down. Its proxies are frozen with fear or responding weakly just to say they did something. Senior figures are being taken out in bulk. Missiles are being fired sparingly. True, it doesn’t end until it ends, and the ending is still ahead of us, but the turnaround is one of the most astonishing in history. Compare it to Nazi Germany, which went from an empire that nearly took over the world to a heap of ruins in six years. Iran was on the way to controlling the entire Middle East. Now it’s being pounded by the two best air forces in the world and fighting for its life. These are historic days, no less.
Most of the details of what happened yesterday and what will happen in the coming days will only be published in the future. Only then will we understand the level of precision in Israeli intelligence, the almost inconceivable intelligence superiority inside a country thousands of kilometers from Israel.
If it were up to me, the name of this war, which opened on Purim, should be “Ozen Aman” (a pun on Ozen Haman, the Purim pastry, and Aman, the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate). Its opening blow will be studied for decades in every military college in the world.
Khamenei is gone, but more work is needed
The deception operations, the intense intelligence collection that proved itself again in the Iranian capital, the precision and the coordination, all of it is hard to process. Still, it’s early to celebrate. This isn’t over. Hard moments are still ahead, and it’s unclear whether the goal of the operation, toppling the Iranian regime, will be achieved. If the ayatollahs remain in Tehran, nobody can declare victory. Keep the joy and the optimism for later.
For now, it’s possible to admire the capabilities, the precision, the unprecedented coordination with the US, and the realization of an old dream, seeing the most powerful country on earth lead the campaign against Iran. US President Donald Trump is with us, all in, all in. It won’t last long. His patience could run out soon, and that’s why our air force is operating at an intensity we’ve never seen before, on a broader scale than it operated in Operation Like a Lion.
Each pilot is flying three sorties a day, meaning roughly 20 hours out of the first 24 are spent flying to Iran or back. The reason is simple: the push to compress 12 days into three, the effort to hit as many Iranian launch capabilities as possible so we don’t reach an interceptor shortage, and the effort to get as much done as possible before Trump gets tired and starts signaling that it’s over. Time is short, and the work is immense.
In two or three days, it will be the Iranians’ turn. Dictatorships don’t fall from outside; they collapse from within, especially without “boots on the ground.” The only regime that fell as a result of an air campaign was Serbia in 1999. Iran is not Kosovo. Iran will require far more than an air campaign. We should hope the Mossad (Israel’s foreign intelligence agency), the CIA (the US Central Intelligence Agency), and the West’s other partners in the region know what they’re doing.
Forty percent of Iran’s residents are minorities who despise the regime. Eighty percent of the rest also despise it. Inside Iran’s military there are pockets of resistance and ferment against the regime and against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which treats the regular army with contempt. Those are strong ingredients to work with. The Mossad went to work with plenty of Iranian civilians yesterday on Telegram. In three or four days, when the intensity of the airstrikes starts to drop, their moment arrives. The moment for uprising and liberation. That’s the ambition. Will it happen? Nobody knows.
Today is expected to be even more intense for Iran than yesterday. Yesterday, more than 2,500 munitions were dropped on Iran, by Israel and the US together. Let’s hope it doesn’t happen on our side too.
Yesterday’s Israeli and American attacks focused on three main objectives: decapitating as many military and political leaders as possible, first and foremost Khamenei and senior IRGC figures. Striking as many missiles, launchers, launch tunnels, and launch assets as possible. Reopening the safe corridor for Israeli and American air force aircraft to Tehran by destroying Iranian interception and radar capabilities, along with command-and-control systems.
You can say those three goals were largely achieved. Launch capabilities still exist, but they’ve been significantly reduced. Starting today, Iran will absorb even more powerful strategic bombing: government targets, infrastructure targets, IRGC targets, and an effort to hit those who can suppress protests, aiming for maximum shock and awe against the regime, its symbols, and its enforcers, with the hope that this pushes crowds back into the streets and frees the country.
This US-Israel operation is unprecedented. Even in the Sinai Campaign (Operation Kadesh), when Israel coordinated with Britain and France to “liberate” the Suez Canal from Egypt, nothing looked like this. Israel and the US essentially fused their air, sea, and intelligence arms into a single arm.
Our air force has nothing to be ashamed of compared to what the Americans brought to the table. On intelligence, the Americans couldn’t have done what they did without us.
This combination fulfills a dream, even during a low point in Israel’s standing in the US. The poll published yesterday, showing American support for Israel hitting a worrying and unprecedented low, didn’t affect what’s happening now. We need to pray and act so it doesn’t shift further in the future.
Despite everything written here, there’s still no room for euphoria. The top goal is regime replacement. If that doesn’t happen, Iran stays on the list of existential threats to Israel. If it does happen, a new era begins.
Ben Caspit
Source: https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-888335
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