Israel’s Long Strategy Against Iran and the Reza Pahlavi Question

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Israel’s Long Strategy Against Iran and the Reza Pahlavi Question

For all its defiant rhetoric abroad, the Islamic Republic has long faced mounting pressure at home. Inflation has eroded purchasing power. Unemployment remains stubbornly high. The national currency has lost much of its value. These hardships are not incidental. They are the result of years of sanctions, chronic mismanagement, and entrenched corruption. Decades of underinvestment in infrastructure and productive sectors have made daily life increasingly difficult for ordinary Iranians. At the same time, the distance between the state’s ideological posture and the aspirations of large segments of society has widened. Repeated waves of protest have revealed that divide. Each time, the response has been severe. Thousands have been detained. Many have been tortured. Many have been killed.

It is within this climate of economic strain, political repression, and deep public anger that Israel has moved to execute what appears to be the final phase of a broader strategy aimed at weakening and ultimately toppling the Islamic Republic. This article examines that strategy. It also explores why Israel has been promoting and elevating Reza Pahlavi as its candidate.

Israel Plan Objective

Islamic Republic internal fragility shapes the strategic calculus of regional actors, particularly Israel. Within parts of Israel’s strategic community, there is a view that replacing the Islamic Republic with a progressive and democratic government would not necessarily advance Israel’s long-term objective of achieving dominant military and political status in the region. This concern is heightened if a successor state were to retain Iran’s existing nuclear and military infrastructure. From this perspective, a strong, unified, and independent Iran, even under a moderate leadership, would continue to pose a strategic challenge.

Accordingly, Israel objectives could go beyond simple regime change and extends to the possible territorial fragmentation of Iran. This is not mere conjecture. In April 2023, i24News reported that 32 members of the Knesset signed a letter urging then Foreign Minister Eli Cohen to support the Azeri minority in Iran and increase diplomatic pressure on Tehran over what they described as discrimination against ethnic Azerbaijanis in the northwest. According to i24News (April 27, 2023), the letter called on Israel to “raise awareness of the Azeri struggle” and framed the issue in terms of supporting the “national aspirations” of South Azerbaijan. Beyond parliamentary initiatives, certain Israeli analysts have examined Iran’s ethnic composition in strategic terms. Dr. Mordechai Kedar, writing in The Jerusalem Post, argued that Iran is a multi-ethnic state composed of Persians, Azeris, Kurds, Arabs, Baloch, and Turkmen, and that these internal divisions represent structural vulnerabilities. In commentary cited by the International Institute for Iranian Studies (Rasanah), Kedar suggested that Iran could theoretically be reorganized into several ethnically based states.

The Israeli Plan

To meet the objectives outlined above, Israel has pursued a multi-dimensional strategy built on several reinforcing pillars. That strategy is now reaching a critical stage.

Pillar One: Weakening Iran Internationally

Israeli leaders have worked consistently to prevent a lasting diplomatic settlement between Iran and the West while keeping Iran’s nuclear program at the center of international policy debates. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeatedly warned that negotiations would strengthen Iran over time. In his March 2015 address to the U.S. Congress, recorded in the U.S. Congressional Record, he called the proposed agreement a “historic mistake” and argued that Iran was approaching nuclear-weapons capability. Analysts at the Brookings Institution and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy have documented sustained Israeli diplomatic efforts to ensure that Iran’s uranium enrichment program remained a central focus of U.S. and European strategy. The result has been expanded sanctions, sustained pressure, and Iran’s deepening political isolation.
This campaign has unfolded despite the fact that Israel is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and is not subject to full-scope International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards. Independent assessments estimate Israel’s nuclear arsenal at roughly 90 to 200 warheads. Over the past two decades, Israeli officials have nonetheless framed Iran’s potential weaponization as the primary regional nuclear threat, using that argument to justify continued diplomatic and economic pressure on Tehran.

Pillar Two: Crippling the Economy.

Economic pressure has been another pillar of the campaign against Iran. Israel has consistently advocated stronger sanctions as a matter of policy. Israeli leaders urged the United States and European governments to impose financial and trade restrictions aimed at weakening Iran’s economy. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly supported tighter measures and praised the 2012 decision to disconnect major Iranian banks from the SWIFT international financial system, describing it as a significant step in increasing pressure on Tehran, according to The Times of Israel (March 2012). Policy initiatives aligned with Israeli security concerns, including efforts by organizations such as United Against Nuclear Iran, also promoted financial isolation and pressed international firms and banks to sever ties with Iranian institutions.
The sanctions that followed targeted the core sectors of Iran’s economy. Under European Union regulations in 2012, Iranian banks were cut off from SWIFT. Billions of dollars in Iranian state assets were frozen abroad under U.S. and European sanctions regimes. Oil exports were restricted. Foreign investment declined sharply. International transactions became difficult for many Iranian entities. These measures constrained economic capacity and reduced state revenues, contributing to prolonged strain. Internal corruption and economic mismanagement compounded these pressures and further weakened the country’s financial stability.

Pillar Three: Degrading Iran’s Regional Proxies

Another element of Israel’s long-term strategy has been the systematic weakening of Iran’s regional proxy network. For decades, Iran relied on its “Axis of Resistance”, a constellation of allied armed groups that included the government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, Shiite militias in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Houthis in Yemen, as a forward deterrent against any direct attack on Iranian territory. Israeli officials have repeatedly identified the dismantling of this network as a strategic priority. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated in several security briefings that Iran’s proxies represent the “first line of aggression” against Israel and therefore must be weakened or neutralized before any direct confrontation with Iran becomes possible. This assessment appears consistently in Israeli strategic discussions. The Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) noted the same logic in Strategic Assessment 2024, and similar language appears in public statements released by the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office between 2023 and 2024.

Since 2023, Israeli operations have inflicted substantial damage on these forces. Asad regime was removed in Syria. In Lebanon, senior Hezbollah commanders were killed and parts of the organization’s missile infrastructure were destroyed, as documented in the INSS report Fracturing the Axis (2024). Other Iranian-aligned groups faced sustained pressure. The Houthis in Yemen retained strike capability but were subjected to repeated U.S. and Israeli attacks on ports, weapons depots, and launch sites aimed at limiting operational reach, as detailed in RAND’s Middle East Aftershocks Report (2025). Analysis by the Critical Threats Project (2024) observed reduced coordination among Iran’s proxy forces during recent crises, indicating erosion in the network’s deterrent capacity. What once functioned as Iran’s outer defensive ring has been significantly weakened, reducing Tehran’s ability to deter direct confrontation with Israel.

Pillar Four: Direct War and Government Change

With Iran increasingly isolated, weakened by sanctions, and deprived of much of its regional proxy network, Israeli strategy moved toward a final objective: direct confrontation aimed at forcing government change in Tehran. Analysts at the RAND Corporation and the International Institute for Strategic Studies note that years of covert activity inside Iran, cyber operations, sabotage, and targeted assassinations of nuclear scientists, were intended not only to slow Iran’s strategic programs but also to prepare the ground for a broader confrontation, according to RAND’s Israel–Iran Conflict Analysis (2025) and the IISS Strategic Dossier on Iran (2024). This phase requires capabilities Israel does not possess alone. Israeli planners have long understood that any decisive campaign against Iran would require direct American participation. Without U.S. airpower, intelligence, logistics, and missile defense support, Israel cannot sustain a major war against a country of Iran’s size.
Against this background, the Israeli strike of June 13, 2025, launched while the United States and Iran were engaged in direct negotiations, marked a turning point. The twelve-day campaign effectively disrupted the diplomatic track and placed Washington and European governments in a position where support for Israel became politically difficult to avoid. The operation appears to have been conceived as a shock campaign. Strategic sites inside Iran were struck while senior military commanders, government officials, and nuclear scientists were targeted. The underlying assumption was that the United States and Europe would align with Israel, Arab governments dependent on Western for their security would follow, and domestic unrest inside Iran would intensify. In that environment, Reza Pahlavi, promoted internationally in recent years, could emerge as the head of a transitional authority aligned with Western and Israeli interests. Events unfolded differently. After the initial shock, the Islamic Republic reconstituted its command structure and launched eleven days of sustained missile and drone attacks. Iranian missiles penetrated Israel’s multi-layered air defense system and caused significant damage to infrastructure and strategic facilities. Civilian life was disrupted, and large parts of the country operated under emergency conditions. At the same time, Israel and the United States expended interceptors at a rate that raised concerns about long-term stockpile sustainability.

Israel did inflict heavy damage inside Iran. Sensitive facilities were struck and more than a thousand Iranians were killed. The United States later joined the campaign by bombing Iranian uranium enrichment installations. Yet the central objective was not achieved. The Iranian government did not collapse, and public anger inside Iran turned outward rather than inward. The twelve-day war also exposed structural limits in Israel’s military capacity. It showed that Israel lacks the depth required to bring down the Islamic Republic on its own and cannot sustain a prolonged full-scale war against Iran. Since June 2025, Israel has regrouped and adjusted its strategy. The emphasis has shifted toward bringing the full weight of American military power to bear in pursuit of government change in Iran. The recent Israel-U.S. war on Iran reflects this evolving approach. The ultimate outcome remains to be determined.

Pillar Five 5- Shaping and Controlling the Narrative

Israel has for more than a decade been systematically engaged in shaping the political narrative among Iranians inside the country and across the diaspora. This effort has unfolded in parallel with the political, economic, and military pressures described in the previous sections of this article.

Political power has long depended on shaping perception as much as controlling territory. Scholars from Émile Durkheim in The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912) to Walter Lippmann in Public Opinion (1922) and Hannah Arendt in “Truth and Politics” (1967) observed that repetition, ritual, and controlled messaging shape how societies interpret reality. Modern psychology confirms this pattern. Research on the “illusory truth effect” first demonstrated by Hasher, Goldstein, and Toppino in 1977 and later expanded by Fazio and colleagues (2015) and Pennycook and Rand (2019), shows that repeated claims are more likely to be accepted as true regardless of their accuracy.

History provides sobering examples. Early twentieth century Germany produced philosophers such as Kant and Hegel and some of the world’s leading scientists. Yet Joseph Goebbels’ propaganda apparatus normalized Nazi ideology through disciplined message repetition and media saturation. Historians such as Richard Evans in The Third Reich in Power (2005) and Ian Kershaw in Hitler (1998) document how propaganda reshaped public perception across large parts of German society.

Against this backdrop, a parallel narrative campaign emerged in relation to Iran. Over the past decade, professionally produced Farsi-language television networks appeared and quickly gained large audiences both inside Iran and across the diaspora. These channels operate without advertising revenue and function as pure cost centers, with expenditures estimated to exceed one billion dollars over the past decade. They appear to be funded by foreign governments or foreign special interest groups, though the sources of financing remain largely opaque. Their acceptance was largely due to the fact that many Iranians view the Islamic Republic’s state media as rigid, depressing, and propagandistic. This created a cultural and informational vacuum that the new networks quickly filled. They became major sources of news and entertainment while steadily shaping political discourse against the Islamic Republic. In 2023, researchers monitoring Iranian online activity identified thousands of coordinated Twitter and Instagram accounts promoting the same messaging as these television networks.

During the protests following the death of Mahsa Amini, these networks pushed a clear political line. Reza Pahlavi, who had remained largely silent for more than four decades, was suddenly activated and presented as the supposed leader of an uprising with which he had no connection. The same pattern appeared during the twelve-day Israeli attack on Iran. As Israeli strikes targeted Iranian cities, Reza Pahlavi issued statements from the United States calling on Iranians to rise up and overthrow their government. The response was largely silence. Many Iranians who oppose the Islamic Republic nevertheless viewed the events primarily as a foreign attack on their country rather than a moment for internal political change.

Since early 2025, these television networks and coordinated social media accounts have intensified their activity. Coverage promoting both Israel and Reza Pahlavi has expanded, while his handlers have increased his exposure across American and European broadcast media. The campaign has generated some limited support inside Iran, particularly among audiences under twenty five. His strongest base, however, remains in the diaspora. The operation still lacks transparency. The financial backing behind these media platforms and Reza Pahlavi campaign remains unclear. What is clearer is that the messaging consistently aligns with Israel’s strategic objectives. Reza Pahlavi has openly called on Western governments to take decisive military action to topple the Islamic Republic and clear the path for his return.

The Israeli strategy resembles a classic bait-and-switch. The “bait” presented to Western audiences and segments of the Iranian opposition was the claim that eliminating Ayatollah Khamenei and a handful of senior officials would trigger rapid political change in Tehran. The “switch,” however, points to a far broader objective: weakening Iran as a functioning country and nation, and potentially fragmenting it into smaller, weaker states, by systematically degrading its military capabilities, infrastructure, and governing institutions. Within this framework, the emphasis on assassinating a small circle of leaders served largely as political cover. It created the impression that regime change could be achieved through a limited and quick operation, while Israelis knew all along that the military campaign would have to involve sustained attacks against the country’s military assets, infrastructure, and institutions. The narrative goal has been to present the confrontation as a simple and decisive action in order to draw the United States into the war and to persuade some Iranians who oppose the Islamic Republic, particularly those aligned with Reza Pahlavi, to view external military intervention as the only path to political transformation.

Taken together, the evidence suggests that Israel’s media campaign has been in development for more than a decade and has achieved significant success. Through sustained media operations, coordinated social media messaging, and the promotion of a monarchy centered alternative, the campaign has shaped and organized some critics of the Islamic Republic into supporters of policies that align with Israel’s strategic objectives. Within this narrative, Israel has promoted Reza Pahlavi as the only political alternative, knowing that he would facilitate the broader Israeli goal of weakening, destabilizing, and potentially fragmenting Iran. What appears increasingly clear is that the driving force behind this effort, the strategic direction and the financial resources sustaining it, is not Reza Pahlavi himself but Israel. The remaining question is whether Pahlavi knowingly participates in this project or whether, like some of the most vocal monarchist supporters of bombing Iran, he has become what political literature often calls a “useful idiot.”

Why Reza Pahlavi?

This brings us to the central, inescapable question: Why has Israel chosen Reza Pahlavi as its candidate “leader” for a post Islamic Republic government? He has not set foot in Iran for nearly half a century. He has no organization inside the country and no meaningful management experience. He lacks both charisma and a strong political personality. His primary claim to prominence is lineage to a throne overthrown a generation ago. He is arguably one of the most divisive and polarizing figures in contemporary Iranian politics. From the outset, large segments of the country, including Azeris, Kurds, Persian Arabs, Balochis, progressives, republicans, and others, would be firmly opposed to his return. Can this be a miscalculation by Israeli intelligence? Is it plausible that the architects of such a meticulous, multi-dimensional strategy are simply “clueless” about Iranian history and its ethnic complexities?

One must give Israelis more credit. The choice of Reza Pahlavi is likely not a mistake, but a feature of the plan. It was not in spite of his divisiveness, or his shortcomings but precisely because of them. As stated earlier, the ultimate Israeli objective is not a friendly Iran, but a weak and fragmented one, a state resembling Iraq, Libya, or Syria. Reza Pahlavi is the most reliable guarantee of that outcome. If he were ever to set foot in Iran, it would almost certainly trigger a devastating civil war, an outcome that would inevitably lead to the weakening, and potentially the formal fragmentation, of the Iranian state.

Seen in this light, the entire enterprise begins to appear coherent: the billion-dollar Farsi language television networks, the thousands of coordinated social media accounts, and the sudden political “awakening” of a dormant prince long absent from Iranian public life. Together they point to a broader strategic operation, one that extends far beyond the tactical ingenuity displayed in operations such as the Israeli pager attacks in Lebanon. The objective, in this interpretation, is not to empower the Iranian people to choose their own leaders, but to manage a process that weakens and potentially disintegrates the Iranian state.

The choice now rests with the Iranian people: to recognize this carefully constructed script for what it is and to reject it. If that happens, the episode may ultimately mark the final political act of Reza Pahlavi, either as a figure who knowingly led segments of the monarchist movement into alignment with those seeking to harm Iran, or as someone who allowed himself to be used by Israeli strategists as what political literature describes as a “useful idiot.” 

By: M.Davar
March 2026

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Below are a few of recently published related article by M. Davar:

Exile, Intervention, and a Nation Trapped Between Power and Betrayal

Name Recognition Is Not Legitimacy: The Limits of Exile Leadership

Pushing Toward Conflict: The Calculations Driving the U.S. and Iran to the Brink

Manufacturing a Leader? The Rise of Reza Pahlavi

Iran’s Revolution: The Distance Between Rhetoric and Resistance

Iran at the Crossroads: Liberation, Illusion, and the Cost of Foreign Salvation

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of IranOnline.com.

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