Ep.211: Is Iran regime change a realistic option?

The United States and Israel are waging a war to eliminate an existential threat from Iran's

Islamic regime and to hopefully cause it to topple.

But why did the Sinslayan grand Ayatollah, Ali Hamani, Iran's supreme leader, misread

President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu?

Despite the initial successes of this offensive, Israel's regime changed a realistic option

and what does this conflict mean for a region that prior to October 7th thought that Iran

and its allies were invulnerable?

Next, on Thing Twice, we take a deep dive into the conflict with a top Israeli military

intelligence analyst, Yossi Kubawasa.

Hello, and welcome to Thing Twice.

Today we have an important conversation for you with veteran, Israeli intelligence

analyst, General Yossi Kubawasa.

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get your podcasts.

And now to today's program.

The joint U.S. Israeli effort against the Islamic regime in Iran is still in its early stages,

but the war the Tehran Theocracy has been waging against the West began 47 years ago.

Over the past five decades, Iran has killed hundreds of Americans and strived ceaseless

to undermine Washington and its allies and aid its enemies like Russia and China.

Looted in religious fanaticism, their sponsorship of terrorism and nuclear ambitions are non-negotiable.

Yet many in the United States either don't know this or don't understand the nature of

the regime and believe that Americans can live with these threats or that the Iranian

government is a reflection of their own illusions about how the world works, rather than what

it actually is.

That's why the stakes in the conflict that began on February 28th was Israeli and U.S.

strikes on the Islamist regime are so high and why so many Americans oppose President Trump's

wise decision to act don't understand any of this.

To discuss this topic, we're fortunate to have with us today one of Israel's most serious

analysts of the strategic situation in the Middle East and the conflict with Iran and its

proxy groups.

Brigadier General Yossi Kupelwasser is the director of Jerusalem's Institute for Street

Strategy and Security.

He is also the head of the Institute for the Research of the Methodology of Intelligence

at the Israeli Intelligence Community Commemoration and Heritage Center.

He was formerly the director general of the Ministry of International Affairs and Strategy.

In his long career at the IDF, he served in various roles in military intelligence.

He has authored a wide variety of publications on the Middle East, terrorism and intelligence,

and he is an opinion contributor to various Israeli and international papers and other

media outlets, including JNS.

Yossi Kupelwasser, welcome back to Think Twice.

My pleasure, Doc.

Well, General, thanks so much for taking the time to join us today.

I want to start by asking you, why did Iran's leaders miscalculate so badly with respect

to President Trump?

Did they really believe they could string out negotiations with him the way they did

with Barack Obama and Joe Biden?

Or do you think they really knew something like this was coming and just let it happen?

Well, as always, I think there is one more than one reason why they made this mistake.

The main reason is that they couldn't do anything else, because accepting the conditions

put forward by the President would have portrayed him as weak and they cannot afford to

being seen weak at home.

And that's the first and most important reason.

Second is that they are already committed to having this nuclear weapon and they want

to see the program maintained and secured and they can, the timetables are less important

for them, but having the capability to produce nuclear weapons is extremely important for

them because in the other day, this is a regime with a mission and its mission is to spread

Islam all over the Middle East and beyond.

And they really believe that in order to be able to do that, they need the nuclear weapon

that would secure them against any threat from other superpowers.

And that's why they can't afford giving it up.

And thirdly, they were under the belief that there are enough people around the Trump

who are going to tell him, don't go that far, it's risky, it's not worth the effort.

Seven years is good.

And let's not take the risk of suffering what the Iranians promised us, closer, closer

of the almost straights that had worked, that had worked in the past, hadn't it?

It has worked very well in the past and they had rumors that this is working this time

as well.

All these people who wanted to create the impression that Trump is succumbing to these ideas

and is going to tell Whitkopf himself is supporting of this attitude.

All these people caused the Iranians a very heavy damage because they made them believe

that there is a possibility that they are going to get away with this program and will

be able to produce nuclear weapons in the future.

This was a big mistake and they are paying the price right now.

But by the way, I'm not sure that, as I said, they had any other option.

Even if they didn't have this rumor about flexibility of Trump, I'm not sure that they would

have taken any other option.

Yeah, well, they box themselves in because this is an ideological thing, this is theological,

it's not just a policy option for them, isn't it?

No, look, according to their theological thinking, there are situations in which you are

allowed to drink the poisonous cherries and make all kinds of concessions.

As long as these concessions are not existentialists, not as long as they are not giving up the

cause for which you leave.

They draw their thinking from Islamic precedents, like the Hudaibia agreement, in which when

Prophet Muhammad was faced with a much stronger force, he decided not to go to war but to

go back and retreat and even gave a promise to the people of Mecca, but for ten years

it's not going to enter Mecca.

And knowing that they were going to take advantage of this situation in order to become stronger

and then after two years after he fought against all kinds of forces in the Arab Peninsula,

mainly the Jews.

He was strong enough in order to re-enter Mecca without a fight.

This is the logic, this is the logic according to which they made the 2002 and 2003 agreement

with the Europeans delaying the timetable for having a nuclear weapon.

According to the same logic they made the 2003 and 2013 agreement, the 2015 agreement, the

JCPOA, all were under this logic.

We can postpone things but as long as we don't give up the chance to having the nuclear

weapon eventually, it doesn't matter if we have it in 2031 or in 2033.

But we have to make sure that we stay in power and we have to make sure that we are going

to be able maybe a little bit later to have those nuclear weapons.

What Trump was asking them to do was to give it up all together to give up the nuclear

option.

This was not acceptable for them.

You have long written to advocate for regime change in Iran, which is one of the stated

goals of the U.S. Israel offensive.

But can it really happen if the people in charge in Tehran remain fanatic Islamists?

What can the U.S. and Israel do to help the goal of regime change along other than bombing

the regime without attempting to occupy Iran, which President Trump clearly does not want

to do because he remembers the follies of George W. Bush in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Well, it's a very difficult question, a very difficult task in front of President Trump

and to some extent, Prime Minister Netanyahu, because all the attempts to change your

regime face this problem that if you are not going to do it by force and with boots on

the ground, how are you going to make it happen?

But the Iranian case is a very special one and the way to do it as put forward by the

President and by Prime Minister Netanyahu is to weaken the regime to the extent that the

people of Iran, this is the major issue here, the feelings of the people of Iran, the

people of Iran are very strongly against, they have very strong opinions against the regime,

they want to change it all together.

And what needs to happen is to weaken the regime to the extent that the people of Iran

will be safe once they move to the streets and they move it from power.

And we are not anywhere close to that, even though we cause a lot of damage to the

regime, we are not anywhere close to this situation where the people can go out to the streets

safely.

And in order for them to do that, we would like to see some parts of the regime that are

armed, helping the people and the chances that this is going to happen are small.

Although I heard President Trump speaking about some of them calling the Americans and

ready to lay down their arms and join the help.

Good.

I don't know if to what extent this is the really exact description of the situation.

But we need to weaken them, to weaken their ability to hit us and to hit America by decimating

their capabilities to launch ballistic missiles.

And once this is done, this is going to take in my mind at least two more weeks.

Then there may be a chance for the people to go and do what needs to be done by themselves.

The mother might be a need to arm them a little bit in between so that they will feel

more secure when they go out to the streets.

But maybe it's not going to be necessary if we see that the regime collapses.

How optimistic are you about that happening?

I'm optimistic.

I'm optimistic, not very optimistic, but optimistic to some extent.

And based on my optimism and the fact that the people around have shown the readiness

to take risks in order to bring about the change in the situation, when the people went

out in late December and early January, they knew they'd take a risk.

And they did it, nevertheless, and many, many of them paid with their lives.

And this didn't change their attitude towards the regime, they still think that the regime

should go.

They just stay at home because everybody told them, look, you're not going to get

any defense when you, any protection when you go out to the streets.

So you'd rather not go to the streets again.

But I don't think they have changed their attitude.

And if they feel that this time this outcome is going to be different and the regime is

going to fall and not shoot at them, then they might take the risk again.

That's why I'm optimistic, but I'm not very optimistic because we have to realize that

those, this part of the Iranian population that supports the regime is ready to shoot

their fellow Iranians, and at least for the time being, they're still ready to shoot

their fellow Iranians.

As long as this is a case, it's going to be hard to replace the regime.

I heard President Trump today speaking about how he and Visujas, this is going to unfold.

And he portrayed it a little bit different.

He said that he expects that the people that would lead the revolution to be people

from within the regime.

So I guess he's referring to the reformists within the regime want to see a change in

the attitude, definitely to the people.

Although they are not less committed to having a nuclear weapon, they are not less committed

to the idea that this is a misionic regime that has to spread Islam all over the world.

I hope that the President knows that these reformists are not exactly the people you

want to work with.

Well, I think one of the reported differences between Israel and the United States about

the future of Iran is that the Israelis are a bit more enamored with the son of the

late Shah, Reza Palebi, and the Trump administration doesn't seem to have much use for him.

What do you think about him?

Do you think there's any chance that he can actually play a productive role in a post-Islamist

Iran, or is this just wishful thinking on his part and wishful thinking on the part

of Israelis who love to see a more rational, more moderate Iran that may not be in the

cards?

Well, first of all, when you say Israelis, you have to be cautious because there's no such

thing as Israelis.

We have many Israelis.

Everybody has an opinion.

I guess by that, I meant the government.

Yes.

Let me put it this way.

The Iranian opposition is fragmented and it's very problematic to choose from within the

opposition.

Somebody who is going to be the next leader of Iran.

They don't manage well with each other, and the fact that the five Kurdish factions

were able to sit together is really impressive.

But this was not also done without problems.

And definitely when you're talking about the rest of the opposition, it's more complicated.

Among the opposition, we have to, first of all, differ between two kinds of opposition,

that opposition at home in Iran, which we know very little about who is the leaders and

who can lead the revolution from within them.

And they have a better chance to lead the opposition because they have taken the risks.

They are more fit for that mission.

And the opposition outside of the opposition in exile.

The opposition in exile, the most prominent figure amongst them is Rizasha, Rizapalavi.

He is the most prominent.

And that said, he is unwanted by many of his fellow Iranians in exile.

And he probably represents something like that, he percent of them, which is nice.

But it's not a majority.

But in the end of the day, somebody has to lead.

And the problem with Balavi that he doesn't pretend to be the leader, wants to be a facilitator

of the transitional period.

And so he might be a solution for the temporary time.

But this is not necessarily going to be the next leader of Iran.

And he's not even accepted the transitional leader by many of the factions.

So that's one of the major problems we are facing.

We are dealing with Iranians.

And they are very opinionated, and everybody has his own agenda.

And everybody believes in himself as the best fit for the job.

And some of the groups are minority groups that are not trusted by the majority because

they are afraid that they are actually trying to get some sort of separatism.

It's not easy to deal with the Iranian opposition.

And clearly, I think everybody realizes that.

But in the end of the day, I hope they are going to rise to the challenge of removing the

regime because the one thing that connects them all is they don't want this regime.

That's the one thing that they have in common.

And they have to first get rid of this regime and then start to quarrel among themselves

about who is going to be the next leader.

And I hope, I sincerely hope, that the way they were going to decide on this matter is

going to be democratically.

Let's hope that this is going to be the case.

If I am optimistic about that, not so much.

Yeah, there's good reason for skepticism there.

Switching to the US-Israel alliance, are you worried about the effort by Trump's right wing

and left wing critics to blame US involvement in the war on Israel?

And the impact this will have on the alliance, especially if it doesn't go smoothly in the

next few weeks.

Yes, I'm worried that there's no way to escape being worried about the fact that everybody's

trying to blame Israel.

So today, the New York Times, the description of how we ended up in this war and this attempt

to put it on Israel, I was happy to see that President Trump said it was not because of Israel.

I had to force Israel to go to war.

So it's nice to see that he's saying that, but enough people who are guided by the need

to blame Israel for everything.

And you have to take a caution on the one hand and many other lunatics on that side of

the aisle.

And of course, the old and the same anti-Semites in the next Zionists on the extreme left.

But sometimes not very extreme.

And we face a very strange situation where we are attacked from both sides of the aisle.

It's problematic.

We have to prioritize our first priorities to make sure that the Iran terrorist regime

is out of business.

That's the first priority.

Might cause us some pain, some prices in the United States.

We should take care of that, I hope, later on.

Right now we are focused on getting rid of the Iranian regime and that's the most important

thing.

And we hope to be successful and if we are successful many of the critics will not be able

to wipe out the wipe off what they said before.

We don't want to want the United States to be involved in problematic affairs.

We want the United States to win, we want the United States to enjoy better security.

We contribute a lot of the security of the United States.

We took upon ourselves a lot of the activities in this joint operation with the Americans.

We contribute to the intelligence, we contribute to the operations.

We prove again, I think, that we are an asset for the United States when it comes to its

security and safety.

And I hope this is the failure of this war is going to be remembering this, like this

in the American history.

Moving back to Iran, we know that many Iranians want change.

But after 47 years of indoctrination by an Islamist government, how much support does the

regime still have?

And just what do you think a post-Islamic or public could actually look like given the

fact that while there are many people who took to the streets, risked their lives and

were killed to stop it, there probably are still a great many who would fight to keep

it.

Yes, definitely.

There are many supporters of the regime in Iran.

But they are outnumbered by those who oppose the regime and this is really amazing because

you correctly point to the indoctrination that every Iranian goes through as a young

people at school and so on.

And it tells you how committed to freedom the people of Iran are, spite of this indoctrination.

They are able to see things clearly and understand that this is bad and what they want to see

happening is good.

And that's really impressive.

And you see the youngsters in the universities, they are totally against it.

You see what happened with Maksa Amini and the support she got after her death, unfortunately.

There is a fortune about how ineffective the indoctrination is.

But yes, some supporters, of course there are some who support it and I would guess something

between 15 and 20 percent of the population supports the regime, which would put the

numbers of those who are against it at 80 to 85 percent.

The unfortunate thing about it is that those who support the regime or those who first

of all have the weapons.

And secondly, they have the IRGC and the IRGC, the IRGC, the IRGC, the IRGC, as well.

All these security apparatuses.

And they have a vested interest in keeping it in place because the IRGC controls not

only the guns, but it controls the economy as well.

So those who support the regime get rewarded for that.

And this is, of course, makes the commitment to support the regime even stronger.

And what about that?

You know, as much damage as the regime has sustained, it still has some cards to play.

You've written about its international terror network and the possibility that it has

sleeper agents in the West.

Do you think it can really deploy them to create mayhem in the United States or Europe?

And I guess if they aren't going to activate them now, when would they do so?

Definitely.

You know, this is the fight over the existence of the regime.

So five of the regimes, it's now or never.

And that's why I think that everybody should be in high alert.

It takes time to wake up those dormant cells, but they have to plan.

They have to decide what to do.

Some of them have some plans for you in advance.

They are going to activate them.

They're going to try to activate them, I'm sure.

I don't think that what happened in Austin looks to me.

Nothing, nothing, nothing, anything.

Radiation operation, but just operation, the support of Iran.

But this can happen too.

You see all these lunatics in the universities that came against these were doing the war in Gaza.

They are supported and they support Iran.

They can take you to the streets again.

So it's not only necessarily terror attacks, but also instability and riots and things like that that can happen.

And, but also terror attacks.

I would also point at something else that's going to be a lot.

And there is already the beginning of activity of cognitive warfare in the internet and other facilities.

They use it in order to spread question marks about the reasoning behind going to war and blaming Trump and Netanyahu for acting.

Legally and so on and so forth are a lot of claims that they can come up with in order to weaken the commitment of the Americans and the Israelis to make this to have this job done properly.

All of these efforts are done for the same purpose and it also goes for the attacks against the Gulf States.

All of this has one purpose.

To convince the United States, especially the United States, they have less expectations from Israel, but to convince the United States to stop.

Whereas in Israel there is a consensus about the importance of this war and this effort.

In the United States, as you mentioned before, there's no consensus.

There's maybe white support, but some support, some considerable support, but not consensus, definitely not.

They are going to take advantage of Netanyahu in order to convince Trump to stop.

Well, I think prior to 2023 and 2024, I mean, many people thought of Hezbollah and Lebanon as sort of a failsafe for Iran because of its arsenal of missiles to rain down terror on the north of Israel.

But I think the failure of Hezbollah to do much, it's done some things in the last few days to aid its masters in terror on.

Is it telling as the reaction of the Lebanese government, as well as a lot of power since its defeat by Israel in 2024, is it possible for it to lose even more as a result of this current conflict?

Well, they are trying to make as many mistakes as they can.

They began sitting on the fence, which was a wise move by them in my mind.

But then again, after they waited for two days, they decided to intervene.

One day did so, they lost the Lebanese people because the Lebanese saying, you pretend to be our shield, our protector.

Well, what you actually do is put us in harm's way.

So what is the logic behind that? You do that in order to support your Iranian veterans, ignoring the security needs of Lebanon, that's terrible.

So even the government, and to some extent, even Ahmad was criticizing Hezbollah, this was really strange to see.

And of course, they gave us an excuse to hit them hard, which we did.

And even deployed some forces in the southern, along the southern border of Lebanon.

Because this made them very furious. They launched a missile towards Tel Aviv tonight and towards Haifa.

And this gives us another reason to take in house measures against them.

I don't know what they're trying to accomplish.

I mean, okay, you wanted to say that you show solidarity with Iran, you did it, you paid the price, okay, you can go up to bed.

No, they insist on escalating. And that knows what's going to be the retaliation of Israel.

We are going to take house measures. Of course, we are not going to allow them.

We are not going to leave with them launching missiles towards Tel Aviv and Haifa.

This is not going to.

Is this like the Iranians where, as you said in my opening question, they really don't have that much choice.

They're just ideologically and feel logically committed to defense of the regime in Tehran.

Well, Hisbalah didn't have a choice. It was difficult to choose this choice.

But he didn't have a choice. He could have said, like the khutis, for the khutis, for example, and Tim now say,

we are watching what's happening. We think the Iranians are doing well.

And we don't think that for the time being, we have to intervene.

We might decide to intervene tomorrow, but so far, no need.

Hisbalah could have adopted the similar attitude.

But they decided to move.

Maybe because their leader is inexperienced and doesn't know how to handle such a situation,

it doesn't matter. The fact is that they decided to move paying the price.

They could have avoided it. They could have. But they decided to.

It's not exactly like the Iranians.

It's not the existential. It could have been not an existential issue for Hisbalah.

It might end up being an existential issue for Hisbalah because if we hit them really hard,

we might reach a position where the Lebanese government is going to feel capable enough to handle this matter by themselves.

And that's what we ordered. That's the wet dream of everybody that there will be forceful enough in order to take care of Hisbalah by themselves.

And for that, we have to weaken Hisbalah even much more.

And we're doing it.

Well, you mentioned the Houthis who are another Iranian proxy.

But they are seemingly taking a more reasonable and wise stance of staying out of this.

But looking down the line, can they survive the mullahs fall in Tehran?

Do you think the fact that they've been so quiet in the last few days shows signs that they are not quite as irrational as the times they've seen?

Well, they are irrational.

They don't have our rational. They're irrational, but not our rational.

But they understand that it's very risky to intervene now because of that they weigh the different arguments and trying to decide which way to go.

We're only on day four of the war.

There's still enough time to decide later that they are going to go one way or another.

So far, they sit on the fence just like Hisbalah did in the beginning.

The problem with Hisbalah is that it has many identities.

And one of them is the Shiite identity has to take care of the Shiites in Lebanon.

And it has to take care of Lebanon because it has a Lebanese identity.

And it has a jihadic identity that pushes it to take action.

And it has an Iranian identity that was at stake now because Iran was under threat and being attacked heavily.

And they felt that something has to be done especially after Hamani was eliminated.

And I can understand this decision that I don't justify it.

And I think it was a wrong decision, but I can understand what went through their mind.

The Houthis, the calculation is a little bit more simple.

Their commitment to the Iranians is not of the same magnitude of Hisbalah.

They really control their land.

It's not Hisbalah that has to operate within the complicated Lebanese arena.

They control the land. They have a problem with the rest of the Yemenites.

But they do control the land.

So nobody is going to take them out of them.

Not in the foreseeable future at least.

So why get involved in something that is risky?

They still remember very well the price they paid.

Hisbalah should have remembered that price they paid too, but they probably forgot it.

Houthis remember it.

It's fresh a little bit.

They decided so far to postpone the decision.

Now I guess the logical next question is what's next for Hamas around the other ally in the region.

Will it position in the parts of Gaza?

It still holds worse than as a result of this fighting.

Or is it counting on help from Turkey and Qatar and the war-wearingness of Israelis

to ensure that there is no new fighting in Gaza or at least none this year in advance of Israeli elections?

And while both the U.S. and Israel are busy with Iran, how do they factor into this situation?

They definitely want to see Israel and the United States failing in Iran.

Because they understand if Iran falls, their position is going to be weakened considerably.

It's not an immediate impact.

They're not going to collapse just because Iran fails.

But it's making the entire axis that they belong to much weaker.

And it's a bad news for Hamas.

And it shows that when people tell them, look, there's going to be a military disarmament of your organization.

And they think that that's not going to happen.

Look, your friends in Iran were given the same warning and they ignored it.

Look what happened.

So you'd rather disarm yourself before the similar things happen here.

I think that they realize that just like Israel and the United States cooperated in Iran, they may cooperate here

because the President is very clear. They have to disarm, he repeatedly says so.

And I think that they realize that for the time being, they are very happy that it's not happening in Gaza, but it's happening somewhere else.

And everybody's attention is moving to this other arena.

But they know that if the United States and Israel are successful, it has difficult precautions for that.

And I think that Israel, I don't know when the elections in Israel are going to take place, but it doesn't matter if it's going to be three months later or three months earlier.

Eventually, if Hamas doesn't disarm by its own will, we should go for military operation to disarm it.

Are you confident that's going to happen one way or another that Israel isn't going to, you know, that the government and whatever government follows this one, assuming that, you know, there might be a different one.

That they won't live with the current status quo.

But if this, as long as this government is in power, they are going to do that.

Yeah.

Now, there are optimists, both in the United States and Israel, who hope that Iran's transformation, assuming that's possible, will revive interest in expanding the Abraham Accords.

But I guess my question is, won facilities be even less likely to join them if their number one foe is not merely weekend, but, you know, eliminated.

Haven't they already signaled their disinterest in full normalization with Israel, despite Trump's desire for it?

First of all, it's, as we say in the Middle East, it's complicated.

Yes, it is.

Because on the one hand, yes, Iran may cease to be threat to Saudi Arabia.

But on the other, Iran may join hands with Israel.

The pragmatic camp in the Middle East can kill strengths.

And the Saudis will be facing a totally different regional architecture that they will have to join in.

They can't stay out of it.

This may be widening of the Abraham Accords, not necessarily first Saudi Arabia, but first Iran.

This is a possibility.

You saw the Israeli flags and the Iranian demonstrations.

They are more than willing to join hands with Israel.

They appreciate Israel more, not less than they appreciate the United States effort to have them, to give them the freedom.

Yes, the Saudis understand that they need something under Palestinian track, but look, Israel has already done whatever the Saudis asked.

We inserted in, we were ready to see 19th article in the 20 points plan of President Trump.

It says that if there are reforms in the Palestinian Authority, there might be a path towards Palestinian-South determination that may take the shape of a state.

What else do they want?

This is what we promised, this is what they asked for.

And so the Palestinian aspect of building normal relations between Israel and the Saudi Arabia was already dealt with.

It's amazing that the Saudis still got cold feet and left the building.

I would expect that if we have the Iranian issue settled the way we all wanted to see settled, the United States should go to the Saudis and say,

look, you have an article 19, go make peace with Israel, establish normal relations with Israel.

And you have to give us something also, not only ask for things from us, beyond trillion dollars.

Well, that's the optimistic scenario.

Let's examine a more pessimistic scenario.

What is Israel's fallback position if the regime doesn't fall?

We can live without normal relations with Saudi Arabia.

We lived until now for 76 years without Saudi Arabia.

We can live more years without it.

Israel is doing extremely well and the economy is flourishing and the shaker is so strong without having normal relations with Saudi Arabia.

We don't need Saudi Arabia.

We would like to have good relations with Saudi Arabia because it's good for everybody.

But we can live without it.

And anyhow, we are going to continue to have some sort of integration with Saudi Arabia.

It's not normal relations, but we can have integration with Saudi Arabia.

This was an Saudi idea.

We can cooperate on economic issues and economic issues.

We can cooperate on technological issues.

We can cooperate on climate issues.

We can cooperate on security issues as well without having full normal relations.

We can do all of the above.

It's up to the Saudis.

If they want to have it, they can have it.

We would like to have it.

We would like to have normal relations where they can be satisfied with integration.

With respect to Iran, what is Israel's fallback position if the regime there doesn't fall?

Is damaging it as it has been damaged enough?

If the war, the subsequent weeks, goes badly, which unfortunately hasn't so far,

are there repercussions that you think the government hasn't considered about how that will play out?

Well, you see, if the regime decides to capitulate on the nuclear issue,

give up, really give up the nuclear issue in a very fiable and monitoring, monitored way,

and give up on the ballistic missiles, and give up on the proxies,

and give the guarantee that it's not going to shoot these people and stays in power.

It's a bad option, but in my mind, it can be a fallback option.

It's going to be very difficult for the regime to accept it.

Let's put it this way.

I don't think that this is going to happen.

But if we end up with this, it's not the result we want.

We want to see the change of the regime, but we can be satisfied with this.

Now, I think it's a given that Israel isn't going back to where it was with respect to many issues on October 6, 2023.

But it's entirely true, as we've touched on briefly before, that its popularity in America has fallen since then.

What do you think are its options in terms of dealing with improving its image in the face of really hostile international media,

influenced by radical myths that have helped foster anti-Semitism on the right as well as the left?

Do you have any ideas about how Israel is coping with what has really been a tsunami of anti-Semitism,

but a tsunami of hatred for Israel in the West?

Well, first of all, we have to realize that it's going to be extremely difficult to change the minds of those who hate us.

Those who hate us, what we can do is to prove how terrible they are and how anti-Semitic they are and how anti-United States they are,

how anti-American they are, because those who are anti-Israeli are usually anti-American as well.

So we have to show that in order for people not to join them and maybe convince some of them that they shall be dead anti-American and then be Jewish.

That said, our main effort in my mind should be regarding those people who are bombarded with this message,

and I'm not supportive of this message yet, and we have to focus in my mind on that part of the democratic party that is still pro-Israeli.

It's not that small part of the democratic party, but sometimes we look at the democratic party as a lost case.

I don't think this is the case, we should make an effort with those Democrats that are still supportive, and there are some of them that are really very friendly and very supportive.

There are some of them who are undecided, and we have to be relevant to those undecided, and we have to put much more effort and money on this issue,

because for many years we thought that, well, this is a minor issue, we are so, as the mother of Jerry Seinfeld used to say to him,

how can anybody not love you? So we thought to ourselves, how can anybody not love us? We are really a force, we'll be good.

And we were so convinced about it that we ignored the need to convince people that we are really good people.

We have to put more effort on that. What we have done so far is very little, and sometimes wrong, sometimes we threw our money on the wrong efforts.

We have to focus on this area, and of course keep the strong ties with those supporters, that's obvious.

Those supporters should be feeling how much we love them and how much we appreciate what they are doing.

And first of all, this is President Trump. He has to know that we really appreciate what he is doing.

He is unbelievable. He is really unbelievable, starting with moving the embassy to Jerusalem, and lastly taking the war into Tehran.

It's not to change the reject. This is unbelievable.

And the reason he does that is, first of all, recognizing our rights, and secondly, recognizing that this is for the best interest of America.

That's his main concern is how to promote the interest of America. And this supporting Israel is good for America. That's what we have to make everybody understand.

I think that's a good point to end, General Kupfer-Wanzar. Thanks so much for joining us today.

How can people find out more about the organization and follow your work?

Well, I'm the head of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategic and Security, and if you do JISS, or Jerusalem Institute for Strategic and Security, you will find our website.

She is JISS.org.in, and you can enjoy what we wrote.

We have this habit of being right about many things, so I don't know to brag too much about it, but from time to time you're right.

If you already want to follow what I wrote, because I'm with JISS only for one year now, but some of the things I wrote, you can look back in the Internet.

I recommend the paper about disarming Gaza, but I wrote this armament of Gaza.

I wrote in June 2023, which I said we need to do that, otherwise we should end up with something even though we don't have legitimacy.

We have to do that because otherwise we will end up with paying a very, very high price, much more than the price of taking the initiative in order to disarm Gaza.

Yeah, well, that was definitely prescient. Well, thank you. We also want to thank our audience.

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