The U.S./Israeli Regime Change Fantasy In Iran Is Over.

The U.S. and Israel Will Not Get Regime Change Or Regime Collapse In Iran.

The goal of the U.S./Israeli war on Iran was the hope that killing Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei would lead to mass defections and a mass uprising to collapse the Iranian state.

While the U.S. and Israel continue to target civilian infrastructure in Iran in an attempt to destroy it as a nation, the fact that the new Iranian government leaders refuse to bow down to U.S./Israeli demands and the fact that many Iranians are rallying around the flag mean that the U.S. and Israel have already failed their regime change/collapse goal.

Hoping to destroy Iran as a functioning country, the U.S. and Israel continue to strike civilian targets. As antiwar.com reported :

US and Israeli airstrikes have pounded civilian targets across Iran since the war began on February 28, damaging more than 19,734 civilian units, according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS).

The ICRS said the figure includes 16,191 residential units, 3,384 commercial units, 77 pharmaceutical and medical centers, and at least 69 schools.

Despite the mass destruction, the U.S. and Israel are still failing at their regime change/collapse goal.

While the U.S. and Israel hoped that the assassination of Ali Khamenei would spark an anti-government uprising, the bombing of Iranian civilian infrastructure, targeting of Iranian civilians, and attempts to stoke ethnic civil war in Iran have caused many in the country to rally around the flag, and the country’s new leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

This is underscored by the fact that demonstrations were held across the country in support of Mojtaba Khamenei and against the U.S. and Israel.

As Antiwar.com reported:

A massive rally was held in Tehran on Monday in support of Iran’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed by an Israeli airstrike in the opening attacks of the US-Israeli war against the Islamic Republic.

The massive turnout for the younger Khamenei, who also lost his wife, mother, and sister in the Israeli airstrike, is the latest sign that the Iranian government is not close to collapsing despite the continued US-Israeli bombing campaign.

According to Iranian state media, similar rallies were held in other major Iranian cities, including Shiraz, Kerman, Ahvaz, Tabriz, Hamedan, and Ardabil.

“We lost our beloved Leader while he was leading our caravan against the arrogant powers of the world. The wound is too deep, but now there is reassurance in the form of the new Leader, his worthy successor, who will take the mission forward,” a participant in the Tehran rally told PressTV.

The appointment of Khamenei to replace his father was seen as a defiant move in the face of the continued US-Israeli assault, as President Trump has said he would not be a suitable leader. “They are wasting their time. Khamenei’s son is a lightweight. I have to be involved in the appointment,” Trump said last week.

As Vali R. Nasr, a professor of international affairs and Middle East studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, explained, the Israeli/American war on Iran has unified many Iranians against the U.S. and Israel, due to their understanding of the American/Israeli goal being a collapse of Iran as a functioning society and possibly the balkanization of the country.

As he noted,

Resistance will not remain limited to Iran’s military force and its core supporters. The United States and Israel have hoped that bombing will pave the way for a popular uprising against the deeply unpopular and weakened regime. They may hope that Mr. Khamenei’s rise will only make that more likely. But the obverse could happen. The fundamental threat posed by this war is not just to the Islamic republic but to the whole country.

under constant bombardment Iranians are growing increasingly worried about the devastation of their country. They worry that U.S. and Israeli support for Kurdish and maybe even Azeri and Baloch separatists will break up the nation. These concerns are constantly circulating in public forums and are seen nightly in the form of antiwar demonstrations across the country and are morphing into an emerging sense of national resistance.

He added:

If Iranians come to see this war as waged against Iran — and not just the Islamic republic — then Iranian nationalism may be mobilized in the service of resistance. America and Israel’s strategy of regime change by bombing military and government industries and infrastructure in Iranian cities, towns and neighborhoods and threatening Iran’s territorial integrity by arming Kurdish militias will not drive a wedge between the population and the regime and produce a popular revolution.

Meanwhile, the new Iranian leadership has made clear their refusal to bow to down to U.S./Israeli demands.

As Veteran journalist Joe Lauria documented :

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) said Monday they will “determine the end of the war.”

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of the Iranian Parliament, wrote on social media: “We believe that the aggressor must be punched in the mouth so that it learns its lesson and never again thinks of attacking our beloved Iran.” Iran was determined to break the cycle of “war-negotiation-cease-fire and then war again,” he said, which was Israel’s plan to dominate the region.

The war “is an existential threat to the Islamic Republic. Therefore, we have to stay with full might as we’re doing now,” Kamal Khazari, foreign policy advisor to Iran’s new supreme leader, told CNN. “I don’t see any room for diplomacy anymore – Donald Trump had been deceiving others and not keeping his promises. We experienced it two times during negotiations.”

Vali R. Nasr, noted that choosing Mojtaba Khamenei as the successor to Ali Khamenei was done to show that Iran was “determined to resist” the U.S. and Israel. As he wrote:

But Iran is not about to surrender to the president’s plans. On Sunday, Iran chose Mojtaba Khamenei, a son of the slain Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as the new supreme leader. It was a clear signal that Tehran is determined to resist. Mr. Trump had warned Iran against choosing him, a leader who symbolizes defiance and someone best placed to lead Iran in continued resistance to the United States. Mr. Khamenei is a man of the regime, closely associated with its core values and institutions and his father’s legacy. He has been selected not to break with all that but to preserve it.

He added:

The selection of Mr. Khamenei makes one thing clear: Rather than compelling Iran to change course, Mr. Trump’s war plan is pushing the country to dig in. Surrender is not an option for the Islamic republic. It knows how to resist and to thrive in resistance; that has been its credo since its founding nearly 47 years ago. The Islamic republic was shaped by the bruising Iran-Iraq war; defying U.S. plans in Lebanon, Iraq and Syria; facing economic sanctions; and confronting Israel.

In other words, the attempted regime change in Iran by the U.S. and Israel has resulted in a government determined to resist the U.S. and Israel, with a unified population behind them, fearing state collapse or the balkanization and breakup of Iran.

This is why , “A U.S. intelligence assessment completed shortly before the United States and Israel launched a war in Iran had determined that American military intervention was not likely to lead to regime change in the Islamic Republic,” an assessment the Trump administration apparently chose to ignore.

The regime change plan has not only backfired, but is seemingly now a dead fantasy.

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