Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has openly backed Iranian demonstrators, anticipating the demise of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's rule. From Israel's vantage point, dismantling a regime committed to its destruction – one that pursued military nuclear capabilities while constructing a proxy "ring of fire" encircling Israeli territory – represents a potentially game-changing Middle Eastern development. Yet regime collapse offers no assurance that successor governments will adopt more moderate or Israel-friendly positions. The notion of restoring the Shah's monarchy or installing overtly pro-Western leadership remains largely a fantasy.

More troubling still, pre-collapse developments could spawn dangerous transformations. Should the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) dramatically eclipse clerical authority, Tehran might abandon Khamenei's comparative caution, embracing aggressive postures regarding both nuclear advancement and direct confrontation with Israel.

Seemingly "positive" developments carry hidden dangers too. Moderate factions gaining power and negotiating fresh international agreements could trigger sanctions relief, economic revitalization, and political rehabilitation for Iran, while simultaneously eroding global willingness to challenge Tehran, leaving Israel diplomatically isolated, minus meaningful American support.

Khamenei's paradoxical benefits

Despite posing existential threats, Khamenei's regime provides Israel with certain international advantages. His intransigent refusal to halt domestic enrichment blocks problematic nuclear deal restoration, while his ideological hostility enables Jerusalem to assemble broad anti-Iran coalitions.

Should protesters topple the government, nationalist or authoritarian successors appear likelier than moderates. Their Israel policies – particularly post-direct military engagement – could manifest rigidity and hostility even absent Islamist ideological frameworks.

Opposition forces don't uniformly embrace pro-Israel positions. Israel's grasp of Iranian internal opposition remains severely limited. Assuming all regime opponents automatically support Israel inverts reality. Current protests encompass diverse actors pursuing varied agendas: Baluchestan militants, Kurdish insurgents, bazaar merchants, and urban students. Syrian precedent suggests emerging Iranian leadership might pursue Western economic engagement while maintaining anti-Israel stances. Citizens brainwashed with anti-Israeli propaganda won't rapidly abandon ingrained enemy perceptions.

Historical irony underscores this complexity: the Shah – Israel's former ally – originally championed Iranian nuclear development. Even future Tehran governments favorably disposed toward Jerusalem might retain strategic military capabilities rather than dismantling them.

Another crucial reality: despite Israel's recent campaign, Tehran retains substantial missile inventories plus nuclear infrastructure theoretically enabling enrichment of remaining uranium stocks to 90% weapons-grade purity – a dramatic leap toward bomb production.

This proves especially perilous because Tehran's leadership, despite its dogmatism, has maintained relatively methodical, cautious strategic decision-making. Regime transformation scenarios raise alarming prospects of more extreme factions – the Revolutionary Guards foremost – seizing these capabilities and deploying them without hesitation.

Worse scenarios loom: governmental collapse could enable terrorist elements operating inside Iran to capture strategic assets. Beyond extreme factions accessing sensitive capabilities, Iranian governmental disintegration could trigger complete control loss over these capabilities – carrying severe regional and international consequences.

Therefore, while Israeli aspirations for Iranian regime change prove understandable and natural, crucial recognition matters: regime transformation guarantees no policy transformation. Post-Khamenei realities could confront Israel with complex, dangerous circumstances – potentially worse than present conditions.

The writer is a senior researcher in the Iran program at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS).

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The uproar began after a court in Chubut province in southern Argentina determined that the devastating blaze stemmed from human intervention and may have been deliberately ignited. The court's finding unleashed a torrent of online speculation, including baseless accusations that Israelis or Jews intentionally started the fire.

A video posted hours after the court's decision – depicting a local resident berating tourists who had lit a campfire in a protected zone where such activity is banned – went viral with allegations that the two tourists visible in the clip were not merely Israelis but IDF soldiers dispatched by the Mossad to deliberately torch this part of Argentina.

Ante la inacción de una dirigencia cómplice, que cumple órdenes del enemigo colonizador, que sea el Argentino el que se encargue de expulsarlos.

No pertenecen a esta tierra, NO SON BIENVENIDOS

Difunda! pic.twitter.com/CYLb2r3OMe

— Sanmartiniano (@Ley_SanMartin) January 9, 2026

The footage, in which the tourists' identities remain completely ambiguous, spread across the country's social networks accompanied by the caption: "Defend yourselves from arson, expel Israeli soldiers from Argentina." Yet an investigation by the news site Ahora Caleta uncovered that the video was filmed at a location 870 miles (1,400 kilometers) from the actual fire scene. The person who recorded the video even informed the news site that he personally extinguished the fire, and no blaze resulted from the incident.

Despite the narrative being rapidly dismantled, anti-Israeli and antisemitic forces in Argentina persisted in disseminating the blood libel and even embellished it with additional fabrications. Some posts asserted that two Israeli tourists had been arrested and, even more outrageously, that weapons were discovered near the arrest location. Among those eager to propagate these falsehoods was the Iranian Fars News agency, which echoed the invented details in an effort to pin blame for the fire on Israel.

It bears noting that not only Jews and Israelis faced accusations of igniting the fire, but also members of the Mapuche nation, an indigenous community residing in southern Argentina and Chile, who are routinely blamed by nationalist and racist factions in Buenos Aires for committing sabotage and terror.

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The assessment arrives amid Iran's wave of demonstrations against the regime, sparked by economic devastation. Iran Human Rights, an Oslo-headquartered organization, reports that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's government has executed over 600 protesters while imprisoning more than 10,000 citizens in a savage repression campaign, according to Politico.

Last Friday witnessed Merz issued a trilateral statement with Britain's Prime Minister Keir Starmer and France's President Emmanuel Macron denouncing Tehran's violent suppression. The declaration conveyed: "We are deeply concerned about reports of violence by Iranian security forces, and strongly condemn the killing of protestors."

Kaja Kallas, the EU's senior diplomat, declared Monday her readiness to champion stricter punitive measures against Iran.

Merz's conservative faction in Germany has historically championed listing Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps among EU-recognized terrorist organizations. Leading conservative legislators recently escalated their demands on government officials to act on this classification. Hours before Merz spoke, US President Donald Trump had unveiled plans for 25% import tariffs targeting nations that engage in commercial activity with Iran.

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During the Biden administration's final weeks, Homeland Security Investigations purchased equipment for millions of dollars using Pentagon funds, two sources disclosed. Officials spent "eight figures" on the acquisition, these individuals stated, but refused to specify further.

Examination of the equipment continues amid persistent debate and skepticism within parts of the government about whether it is linked to roughly a dozen unexplained medical incidents with no official answers, CNN reported.

Sources told CNN that HSI's acquired equipment produces pulsed radio waves, which officials and researchers have theorized for years might cause the incidents. Though not entirely Russian-manufactured, the equipment incorporates Russian components, an individual noted.

Officials have struggled to understand how equipment powerful enough to cause reported injuries could be portable, a briefed source stated. The equipment fits within a backpack, this individual revealed.

Acquiring the equipment has reignited contentious and painful government debate about Havana Syndrome, officially termed "anomalous health episodes," according to CNN.

The mysterious condition first appeared in late 2016 when American diplomats stationed in Havana began reporting symptoms consistent with head trauma – dizziness and severe headaches among them, CNN reported. Subsequent years brought cases documented worldwide.

Over the following decade, intelligence agencies and the Defense Department sought to determine whether these officials had experienced directed-energy attacks by hostile nations, CNN reported. Senior intelligence officials publicly stated insufficient evidence supported that conclusion, while victims argued the US government gaslit them and ignored substantial evidence of Russian attacks on American personnel.

Defense officials nevertheless deemed their findings serious enough to brief House and Senate Intelligence Committees late last year, including details about the acquired equipment and testing, CNN reported.

Officials now worry primarily that if the technology proves viable, it may have proliferated, according to multiple sources who spoke to CNN. This means several countries could possess access to equipment capable of inflicting career-ending injuries on American officials.

CNN could not determine where or from whom HSI purchased the equipment, though HSI maintains extensive collaboration with the Defense Department for global operations. The agency has broad authority to investigate customs violations, including probes into the proliferation of US-controlled technology overseas.

A former Homeland Security official characterized these investigations as "the single biggest collaboration point between HSI and the US military."

When American forces discovered US technology in Afghanistan or Iraq, raising questions about regional component arrival, they consulted HSI, the official explained.

How the US government learned of the equipment's existence and how it purchased it remain unclear, CNN reported.

Havana Syndrome and its cause have remained frustratingly opaque to intelligence and medical communities. Medical professionals face challenges, including the continued absence of clear "anomalous health incidents" or AHIs definitions. Tests were conducted, sometimes extensively, after symptoms began, hampering understanding of the physical process, according to CNN.

An intelligence panel investigating AHI causes stated in 2022 that certain episodes could "plausibly" have resulted from "pulsed electromagnetic energy" emitted externally, CNN reported.

Yet in 2023, intelligence agencies announced publicly they could not link cases to foreign adversaries, ruling it unlikely that unexplained illness resulted from targeted enemy campaigns, according to CNN. Through January 2025, broader intelligence community assessments maintained that symptoms were very unlikely to stem from foreign actors, even as an official from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence emphasized that analysts cannot "rule out" the possibility in limited cases.

This stance has persistently enraged victims, many firmly believing intelligence exists providing definitive evidence of Russian responsibility for their symptoms, some severe enough to force retirement, CNN reported. Victims have treated the equipment's acquisition as potential vindication, according to CNN.

Marc Polymeropoulos, among the first CIA officers publicly disclosing injuries he claims he sustained in a Moscow attack in 2017, told CNN: "If the [US government] has indeed uncovered such devices, then the CIA owes all the victims a f*cking major and public apology for how we have been treated as pariahs."

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