Israel cannot settle for a temporary military win, it must topple the Islamic regime - opinion
For Israel, this is not a conventional conflict, it is a confrontation with a country that is determined to destroy the Jewish State.
The calls for restraint will come, as they always do. As Israeli military successes against the Islamic Republic of Iran mount, a chorus of international voices will urge Jerusalem to “take the win” and seek a diplomatic off-ramp. They will argue from a well-worn script, advising Israel to consolidate its victory from a position of strength. It is a tempting and logical-sounding argument that would be a catastrophic mistake.
For Israel, this is not a conventional conflict that can be concluded with a ceasefire and a treaty. It is a confrontation with an ideologically driven regime whose very identity is predicated on Israel’s destruction. To settle for anything less than the removal of the Islamist regime in Tehran is to merely pause a clock that is ticking towards a more dangerous future: a defeat in disguise.
A remarkable consensus is forming across the Israeli political spectrum on this critical point. When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks directly to the Iranian people, urging them that “your light will defeat their darkness,” he is doing more than scoring rhetorical points.
His words, echoed by key opposition figures like former prime minister Naftali Bennett, who has long expressed a desire to see the Iranian people freed from their oppressors, signal a fundamental shift. The debate in Israel is no longer about whether to confront Iran, but how to ensure the confrontation yields a permanent solution. The answer is clear: the regime must go.
Israel has degraded critical threats, it must do more
Israel’s immediate military actions have, by all accounts, been successful in degrading Tehran’s most critical threats. The three pillars of the regime's threat – its nuclear program, its ballistic missile arsenal, and its global terror network – have been shaken. But to believe these setbacks are permanent is to ignore decades of history.The Islamic Republic’s ambition is resilient. Its nuclear program, though damaged, retains its most crucial asset: the knowledge to build a bomb. The scientists may be gone, the centrifuges shattered, but the blueprints remain. History shows us that after every setback, Tehran has rebuilt its program with greater speed, sophistication, and secrecy. To allow this regime to survive is to guarantee that it will rise from the rubble more determined than ever to cross the nuclear threshold, this time building deeper, more fortified sites, and learning from every Israeli success.
Similarly, its ballistic missile program is not merely a strategic asset; it is a core pillar of its regional dominance and its primary threat against the Israeli home front. While stockpiles can be destroyed and launch sites cratered, the industrial base and the engineering expertise remain. The regime’s leaders are driven by ideological and strategic imperative to maintain and advance this capability. They will rebuild, and they will aim for missiles that are faster, more precise, and capable of overwhelming any defense system.
Finally, the regime’s tentacular support for terrorism has been its primary method of waging war for decades. From Hezbollah in Lebanon to the Houthis in Yemen and militias in Iraq, this proxy network is Iran’s way of bleeding its enemies without risking a direct state-on-state war. Disrupting weapons convoys and eliminating commanders are necessary tactical actions, but they do not address the source of the cancer. As long as the head of the snake remains in Tehran, it will continue to fund, arm, and direct its legion of proxies to sow chaos and violence on Israel’s borders.
The nature of this regime is not subject to negotiation. It will not be pacified by diplomacy or deterred by temporary military defeats. Its commitment to regional hegemony and the destruction of Israel is woven into its very DNA.
Therefore, Israel faces a stark choice. It can heed the calls for de-escalation, enjoy a fleeting moment of victory, and allow a wounded and vengeful regime to reconstitute its strength for the next, more lethal, round. Or, it can commit to a policy that sees this conflict through to its only logical conclusion: to topple the regime once and for all. It is time to stop trimming the branches of the poison tree and focus on uprooting it entirely.
Saeed Ghasseminejad is a senior adviser for Iran and financial economics at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, specializing in Iran’s economy, financial markets, sanctions, and illicit finance. Follow him on LinkedIn and X @SGhasseminejad.
