Israel’s delusions about Iran
JVL Introduction
This +972 Magazine interview with Professor Lior Sternfeld, who teaches the modern history of Iran at Penn State University, explores the Israeli delusion that Reza Pahlavi [the exiled Iranian crown prince] and his supporters form a serious, widely supported opposition force that could overthrow the government headed by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
A discussion on Mehdi Hasan’s Zeteo channel on June 10 covered some of the same ground.
OpenDemocracy has reported that Israel’s reliance on US weapons systems and surveillance impose serious limitations on its capacity to deafeat Tehran.
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NWI
This article was originally published by +972 Magazine on Fri 20 Jun 2025. Read the original here.
Why everything Israelis think they know about Iran is wrong
For Lior Sternfeld, a historian of modern Iran, Israel’s regime change fantasies ignore realities inside the Islamic Republic and risk repeating historic mistakes.
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They really think that the people of Iran are longing for the clown prince and his Savak secret police? Crazy
The Israeli government determinedly blocks free coverage of the harm done within Israel of Iran’s retaliatory air strikes. While there’s seepage through social media – eg via dashcams and mobiles, showing big explosion(s) and wreckage – it’ll be difficult for Israelis to assess how badly they’re being hit and whether what their government tells them is fact or wishful thinking.
Israeli support for the government went UP after Israel’s strikes on Iran. Will it now NOSEDIVE so steeply as to be politically dangerous for Netanyahu and his coalition WHEN this war of choice carries on well beyond the short engagement Israel had expected?
Israelis may soon be in a state of shock and disbelief, once they realise the dangers and have to think their way into a better, dramatically different future. A third of at least one major city (Tel Aviv?) is said to be in ruins already. Key “defence” and infrastructure institutions have been hit. Israelis trusted in the protection of the “Iron Dome” – they now know it can be defeated.
Chris Hedges did an interview a year back with USA’s Colonel Wilkinson (it’s on YouTube) whose military colleagues had war-gamed TWICE what would happen if Israel and the USA combined to go to war with Iran.
The results of those two war games were that the combined forces of both countries would lose against Iran. It would cost them trillions of dollars, a heavy death toll amongst their military and an even more ghastly death toll of the civilians (Israeli and Iranian). The USA and Israel could only attack with air power – they were too weak to do anything else – and that would not change the facts on the ground.
“The results of those two war games were that the combined forces of both countries would lose against Iran.” Good call – lol. Next article please.
Am Yisrael Chai