Netanyahu says Israel successfully ‘created the conditions’ for future fall of Iranian regime

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu argues that Israel succeeded in creating the conditions for eventual regime change in Iran, while speaking at the JNS International Policy Summit in Jerusalem.

The premier stated at the start of the US-Israeli campaign against Iran that “creating the conditions” for the regime to fall was among the war aims, but has largely refrained from publicly evaluating the success of that goal, as the regime emerged intact from the conflict, during which the Iranian public made no known effort to overthrow their government, following a deadly government crackdown that killed thousands after widespread January protests.

Netanyahu lists military successes of the campaign, saying, “We decapitated the leadership of the terror regime; we shattered their missile industry; we knocked out their navy; we knocked out their air force; we attacked their military industries; we attacked their bridges.”

“The cumulative damage that we did to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards’ economy is… counted in hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars,” he says.

“It will take them a long time to recover… And they may not recover,” the premier continues. “Because once you deal these blows, and once the rift between the regime and the people is so deep, you cannot tell when such a regime will fall. And I think we created the conditions for its future fall.”

He says this will still ultimately depend on the Iranian public: “That is what will be the real triumph, when the Iranian people take their own destiny in their hands and they knock out this brutal regime that is terrorizing them and terrorizing the rest of the world.”