Beni Sabti, an Iran expert at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv, spoke to a February 9 Middle East Forum podcast (video). The following summarizes his comments:
Hezbollah, “the right hand of Iran outside of Iran,” was the first terror group to attack U.S. troops and civilians.
Iran’s Islamic regime has schemed to expand the Islamic revolution since the ayatollahs seized power in November 1979. It aims to restore the ancient Persian Empire that encompassed the territory of many of today’s Middle Eastern countries and beyond. The regime’s Islamist ideology, which is vehemently opposed to the foundational liberal democratic values of the West, spreads its global reach through its terrorist proxies.
Long before the Taliban and ISIS struck Western targets, Hezbollah, “the right hand of Iran outside of Iran,” was the first terror group to attack U.S. troops and civilians. Hamas, the Sunni terror organization supported by Iran, has targeted Israel for decades, unleashing its barbaric massacre on October 7, 2023. In addition to Iran’s violent proxies, the regime engages in information operations against the West by promoting propaganda which undermines the internal stability of Western countries, as evidenced by the organized campus unrest against Israel post-October 7.
“But now Iran comes and threatens the whole world with [its] missile program and with the nuclear program.” Despite the 12-day war in June 2025, a joint Israel-U.S. operation against the Iranian regime, “the problem is that [the regime] didn’t understand the message of the war.” The Iranian people, encouraged by the Western strike against the ayatollahs, again took to the streets, frustrated by the denial of human rights, crippling inflation, and the lack of water and electricity attributable to the regime’s corruption. Following the 12-day war but prior to the street protests, the regime had conducted a secret poll, the results of which were leaked to the Iranian media, which revealed that “92 percent of the Iranians hate the regime.” Iranians demonstrated in massive numbers, recognizing that “their regime is like a paper tiger.”
Proposed talks about the nuclear program are a confusing turn, as there is nothing the Iranians have to negotiate because “there is no nuclear program today. We bombed it.”
The regime cracked down by subjecting its people to even more brutality than in past demonstrations. The number of those massacred by regime forces ranged from 30,000 to 60,000. President Trump, announcing full-throated support for the Iranian people, threatened to take action against the regime and moved military assets to the area. The Iranian people, emboldened by America’s actions, courageously expressed their frustration against their rulers. Although “the energy is still there,” promised help has yet to arrive. “Tired and beaten and killed,” people returned to their homes and are waiting.
A worrying development is that the Trump administration has shifted from promising action to opting for negotiating with Tehran. Proposed talks about the nuclear program are a confusing turn, as there is nothing the Iranians have to negotiate because “there is no nuclear program today. We bombed it.” In this psychological war, Netanyahu and Trump prudently keep their plans close to the vest, while the media spins. “Don’t believe everything that is said to you by the media.”
Although the regime’s terror proxies, missile program, foreign propaganda operations, and suppression of the Iranian people’s human rights are still in place, the assessment among security professionals is that Trump wants “to be in a maximum place of legitimacy to attack Iran again.” The coordination between Israel and the U.S., where the former is small and the latter big, must be “in kind of a synchronized place.”
Under the circumstances, as the Islamic Republic’s goal is survival, it is likely to play for time. The public is not privy to the complicated dynamics currently unfolding, even though the time is ripe to bring down the regime. As to what would transpire the day after the fall, Iran’s minorities, who are located in the “center part of that ancient Iranian empire,” are “more Iranians than they are Kurdish or Baluchis or Azeris or Arabs.” Consequently, they want to stay together and not tear Iran apart because “they love Iran.”
The first step that would make a difference in Iran is to remove “the glue of the Iranian regime” by targeting its leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Many favor bringing back the monarchy under the former Shah’s son, Prince Reza Pahlavi, a dissident in exile in the U.S. Other Iranians are not monarchists, but see Pahlavi as an option because he endorses liberal values and respects minority rights. Pahlavi could serve as a guide for a people transitioning to a more democratic form of governance. The “best option for Iran [is] to be united around him,” but the problem is that “he doesn’t have any kind of soldiers, any kind of organization inside Iran.”
The first step that would make a difference in Iran is to remove “the glue of the Iranian regime” by targeting its leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Although his son is his sole successor, “the people and other clerics, and also some of [the] IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps], hate him.” Once the leader is brought down, “there can be a rebellion inside [the] IRGC” and “inside other establishments” where more moderate segments can emerge and “are ready not to hate Israel or [the] U.S.” Should that transpire, the regime’s terror program, ballistic missile program, and nuclear program will be gone. “The leader is the main problem. If [the] U.S. succeeds” in targeting him, it will usher in a new day for the Iranian people.
