With Iran, Israel will need to know when to stop - opinion

Israel’s campaign against the Iranian regime is a historic moment — a bold and effective strike at the heart of a central threat to Israel, and indeed a menace to the region. But the true measure of victory will be the endgame.

The damage already inflicted on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure and the regime’s prestige is significant, and the point is approaching where the return diminishes and the risk grows in a suboptimal way. It’s easy to forget in our overheated era, and it was forgotten in Gaza, but the basic combat doctrine of Israel was short wars, with clear objectives, on enemy soil.

This is not necessarily a call for immediate cessation, but for strategic thinking. Israel must capitalize on its achievement, understand what it can — and cannot — realistically accomplish, and act accordingly. Against Hamas, it instead got dragged into an aimless war, ignoring the day after, and capitulating to extremists who seek permanent occupation.

Nor is this a call to surrender to external pressure, at least not in the familiar sense: most of the world understands that Israel is right in this case and that the Islamic Republic regime is a criminal enterprise. The situation is entirely different from the Palestinian issue, where most of the world is horrified at the devastation of civilian life in the strip.

But such a change cannot come as a direct result of an Israeli attack. The strike must humiliate the regime, inflict targeted damage, and perhaps even cause some economic and social pain — but not so much that it pushes Iranians to rally around their leaders in anger at external aggression.

If change does come down the line, there’s a far more likely scenario than millions in the streets or Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei fleeing by helicopter.

The Iranian regime is built on efficient mechanisms of repression, deep mistrust between citizens, and economic dependency of many layers of society on the state apparatus. Therefore, the more realistic scenario is a palace coup: a rift within the establishment — possibly even within the Revolutionary Guards themselves, whose leadership has already taken a major hit.

It’s possible that more “pragmatic” figures in the military, or those with deep economic interests, will recognize the moment of vulnerability and decide to sacrifice the leadership to save themselves.

There are precedents for this — for example, Romania in 1989, where the moderate wing of the Communist Party and the security forces joined together to topple the dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu. Such change cannot be forced from outside — but conditions that enable it can be created, if approached with cunning.

According to all reports, the current strike has severely disrupted the nuclear program, exposed the weakness of Iran’s air defenses, eliminated an astonishing number of senior figures, and demonstrated to the world that Israel’s red line is more than just words.

Israel can take pride in the achievement and leverage it. That is preferable to being drawn into uncontrolled escalation or prolonged attrition (which helps the larger country – Iran).

That’s why talk of a campaign that may continue for “weeks” is troubling. It’s better to calculate wisely — and before a mass-casualty event inside Israel sparks a full-blown war — when one can say the message has been delivered, declare that a military objective was achieved, and coordinate with the United States the transition to phase two of the operation: pursuing strategic goals through coercive diplomacy.

The ideal scenario is for Washington to return to negotiations with Tehran — this time from a position of confidence and a policy of “power with purpose.”

The west claims to try and avoid war

(Yes, this is the carrot that can be offered to get Iran to climb down: as a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty — which Israel scorns — this is technically Iran’s right, but only under real and supremely strict oversight that eliminates risk.)

If Israel plays its cards right, it can help rally the US and Europe to invoke the snapback mechanism — a provision of UN Security Council Resolution 2231 that allows for the automatic reimposition of sanctions on Iran if it is found to be in serious breach of the nuclear deal.

With the October 2025 deadline for triggering snapback rapidly approaching, this can be a major part of post-war negotiation with Iran.

If this all happens, it could also pave the way for a new paradigm in the south. Instead of insisting on permanent occupation and the “management” of a devastated enclave, the Israeli government should seize the momentum to enable the Palestinian Authority — in coordination with Arab states, far-reaching reforms, and massive funding from the Gulf states — to return to civilian control in the Strip.

The pressure on Hamas remnants would be immense, and Israel’s international standing could begin to recover.

In an Al Jazeera interview I was asked a fairly obvious question that Israelis tend to ignore: why is Iran forbidden nuclear weapons while Israel is allowed? I answered that Iran is a rogue regime and a non-democracy that does not respects the sovereignty of its neighbors or the sanctity of human life, and that has no mechanisms for transparency and accountability. So the comparison doesn’t hold.

But ask yourself, dear reader, what it looks like from afar. For the argument to carry weight, Israel must act in the opposite way. The destruction in Gaza, the immoral voices declaring there are “no innocents” on the Palestinian side, a 68-year occupation of millions of people without democratic rights — all these undermine the argument. In the day after Iran, Israel would be wise to seek a paradigm shift that addresses these things as well.

Israel showed courage and risk tolerance. Now comes the stage of wisdom.

Dan Perry, who oversaw coverage of Iran as the Cairo-based Middle East editor of AP, was also the agency's London-based Europe/Africa editor of the Associated Press. A former chairman of the Foreign Press Association in Jerusalem, he is the author of two books about Israel. Follow him at danperry.substack.com.