Israel on Monday destroyed multiple targets the Iranian regime uses to stifle popular unrest and police internal dissent, potentially paving a way for the country’s repressed population to rise against its hardline rulers. The strikes came just a day after President Donald Trump put out a call to “MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN” and signaled support for regime change.
The Jewish state shifted the focus of its campaign from the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program to regime power centers and Tehran’s internal security apparatus. The strikes are meant to further destabilize a regime already on the ropes after the United States dropped massive bunker-buster bombs and tomahawk missiles on its three most significant nuclear sites.
More than 50 Israeli fighter jets struck “military command centers” across Tehran, including its Basij Headquarters, an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) outpost that enforces Islamic law and detains those who violate it, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Other targets included the Sayyid-al-Shuhada Corps, a homeland defense faction that suppresses internal unrest, and the General Intelligence Directorate of the Internal Security forces, which oversees Tehran’s domestic security wing and disseminates propaganda.
Israel also landed a direct hit on Iran’s notorious Evin prison, dramatically blowing the doors off a penitentiary the regime has long used to torture dissidents and even hold Americans hostage. Israel reportedly cut power in the area, allowing any number of political prisoners to flee the facility. Israeli leaders made clear through targeting such a powerful symbol of repression that they intend to cripple Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei’s centralized ruling authority.
“We warned Iran time and again: Stop targeting civilians! They continued, including this morning,” Israeli foreign affairs minister Gideon Sa’ar wrote on X. “Our response: Viva la libertad, carajo!”
Andrew Ghalili, senior policy analyst with the National Union for Democracy in Iran dissident group, told the Washington Free Beacon that the Israeli strikes have brought Iran closer to the conditions necessary for an uprising.
“By hitting the very command centers and intelligence units that uphold the regime’s domestic stranglehold—Basij bases, IRGC regional corps, and internal security directorates—Israel is weakening the spine of the system that surveils, punishes, and suppresses the Iranian people,” Ghalili said.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said regime change is not his war goal, but after Monday’s strikes, that “could well be the outcome,” Ghalili said. “If the regime’s instruments of repression are dismantled from the outside while the Iranian people continue resisting from within, and if civilian casualties are avoided, these attacks may well create the conditions for a historic breakthrough.”
Trump personally fanned the flames of revolt on Sunday after the U.S. strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, including the Fordow enrichment facility buried deep within a mountain bunker.
“It’s not politically correct to use the term, ‘Regime Change,’ but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change???” Trump wrote on Truth Social, declaring, “MIGA.”
Israeli operations on Monday further weakened the hardline regime’s power centers.
Its bombs hit Iran’s “Thar-Allah” command center, which operates under the IRGC and is “designated to defend Tehran from security threats, including internal threats,” according to the IDF.
Israeli airstrikes also hit the Alborz Corps, which oversees security and military operations throughout Tehran, while another attack destroyed the country’s Information Security Command, which is responsible for “monitoring and controlling information,” the IDF said.
Israel targeted Iran’s Intelligence and Security Police as well, part of the country’s Internal Security Forces and a central “part of the regime’s military forces,” according to the IDF.
“These forces consist of various corps and command centers, and are responsible, on behalf of the Iranian regime’s military, for defending the homeland security, suppressing threats, and maintaining the regime’s stability,” the IDF announced Monday morning.
Jason Brodsky, policy director at United Against Nuclear Iran, said that Israel’s targeted strikes penetrated deep into “the belly of the beast of the Islamic Republic.”
“Tehran uses a multi-layered system to suppress and repress its people consisting of the police, Basij, and IRGC Sarallah Headquarters,” he said. “By degrading these institutions, this is scrambling the bureaucracy and weakening command-and-control at least temporarily. It shatters the myth of the Islamic Republic as all powerful and incapable of being countered. It’s an important image to project to Iranians.”
Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s former shah, said he is ready to take power in the country. Pahlavi reportedly “offered himself up as interim leader” and pushed Western powers to actively seek regime change.
“I am here today to submit myself to my compatriots to lead them down this road of peace,” the 64-year-old Pahlavi said during a Monday press conference. “This is our moment. I am with you. Let us build this new Iran together.”
