The report in the Jerusalem Post that Washington and Tel Aviv are quietly reassessing the idea of regime change in Iran marks a revealing moment in the long, uneasy relationship between power, protest and intervention in the Middle East. For years, the official line from the United States and Israel has been that their dispute with Tehran is narrowly defined: Iran’s nuclear program, its regional influence, and its support for armed groups across the region. Regime change, both capitals insisted, was not the goal. Now, if the reporting is accurate, that carefully drawn boundary appears to be blurring. At the heart of this reassessment is a sense that the political weather may be shifting in unexpected ways. Protests in Iran, though not new, have persisted with a stubbornness that has unsettled the country’s leadership.
From women defying compulsory veiling to workers striking over wages and shortages, the unrest reflects deep social and economic grievances rather than a single flashpoint. Until recently, Israeli and American officials largely dismissed these movements as insufficient to threaten the survival of the Islamic Republic. The state, they believed, remained resilient, its security apparatus loyal and ruthless enough to contain dissent. What has changed, according to the Jerusalem Post, is not only the situation inside Iran but the example set elsewhere. The arrest of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, by US forces has reportedly recalibrated thinking in Washington and Tel Aviv. In this reading, Venezuela became proof that an entrenched leader, long treated as untouchable, could suddenly be removed through decisive external action.
For policymakers inclined to see global politics as a series of transferable lessons, the episode appears to have expanded the menu of options. This is a dangerous way of thinking. Venezuela and Iran are vastly different states, with different histories, institutions and regional contexts. Yet the temptation to draw parallels is understandable in capitals accustomed to viewing unrest through a strategic lens. The report suggests that US officials are now exploring whether pressure on Iran’s leadership could be intensified by indirectly amplifying protests, using targeted measures rather than overt military force. The emphasis, tellingly, is on deniability and restraint, on shaping outcomes without triggering a regional war that no one genuinely wants.
Israel’s position, as described in the report, is more openly assertive. Israeli officials have long viewed Iran not just as a rival but as an existential threat. The suggestion that Mossad has publicly acknowledged assisting Iranian protesters, and that Iran claims to have arrested an agent linked to such efforts, underlines how far this shadow conflict has already extended. Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to convene a special security meeting after the Venezuela developments, and Benny Gantz’s call for overt support for Iranian protesters, point to a belief in Israel that the moment may be ripe for bolder action. Only months ago, both Washington and Tel Aviv were said to be focused almost exclusively on Iran’s nuclear program.
The aim was containment, not collapse. The apparent shift reflects a broader impatience that has characterized recent US foreign policy, particularly under Donald Trump. The idea that limited intervention could tip the balance in Iran without spiraling into full-scale conflict is alluring, especially to leaders who see hesitation as weakness. Yet history offers little comfort to those who believe regime change can be engineered cleanly from the outside. Iran’s leadership is acutely sensitive to foreign interference, and the specter of external manipulation has often strengthened hardliners rather than weakened them. Protests that emerge from genuine domestic grievances can quickly be reframed by the state as foreign plots, justifying harsher repression.
The public acknowledgment, real or perceived, of Israeli or American involvement risks contaminating movements that draw their moral force from their independence. For many Iranians, resentment of their own rulers coexists with deep mistrust of foreign powers that have repeatedly intervened in their country’s affairs. There is also a broader regional context that cannot be ignored. The Middle East is already fractured by wars, proxy conflicts and humanitarian crises. Any escalation around Iran would reverberate far beyond its borders, affecting Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and the Gulf. Even “limited” intervention has a habit of expanding once events take on a life of their own. The belief that pressure can be finely calibrated, that unrest can be encouraged without chaos, reflects a confidence that has often proved misplaced.
The Jerusalem Post is careful to note that no final decision has been taken, and that Washington in particular is weighing the fallout from the Maduro arrest. That hesitation matters. It suggests an awareness, however faint, of the risks involved. It also raises questions about what success would even look like. Is the aim to force reforms, to weaken Iran’s regional posture, or to bring about the collapse of the Islamic Republic altogether? Each objective carries different costs and consequences, and none can be neatly separated from the others. For Iranians on the streets, the calculations in Washington and Tel Aviv may feel distant, even irrelevant. Their demands are rooted in daily life: dignity, economic security, personal freedom. External actors can influence the environment in which these struggles unfold, but they cannot control their direction without distorting them.
The danger is that protests become pawns in a geopolitical game, their outcomes judged not by the well-being of the people involved but by strategic advantage elsewhere. What this reported reassessment ultimately reveals is less about Iran than about the enduring allure of interventionist thinking. The idea that a moment of unrest, combined with decisive external pressure, can reshape a hostile state remains seductive, despite repeated evidence to the contrary. If Washington and Tel Aviv are indeed moving in this direction, they would do well to recall how often such strategies have produced instability rather than order, resentment rather than reform. Iran’s future will be shaped first and foremost by Iranians. External pressure can constrain, provoke or inflame, but it cannot substitute for internal political evolution. Treating protests as levers to be pulled from abroad risks undermining the very forces that might one day bring genuine change.
