Netanyahu says toppling Iran's government is Israel's 'primary objective'

Benjamin Netanyahu has described the overthrow of Iran's government as Israel's "primary objective", with the Israeli prime minister facing falling support in the polls a week before national elections.

His remarks followed talks with US President Donald Trump on Sunday and a visit to Israel by Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth. But Netanyahu gave no indication that Washington had agreed to join another offensive against Iran, let alone a campaign to bring down Iran's leadership.

Firepower without a path to regime change

Analysts told Al Jazeera that Israel has the firepower to inflict serious damage on Iran but lacks a clear strategy for turning military gains into political change. Airstrikes alone are unlikely to topple the government, they said, while a ground invasion would demand a far greater military commitment.

A renewed offensive would also mean confronting a state that has already survived two rounds of attacks and retains the means to retaliate, both against Israel and against Gulf neighbours hosting US military assets.

Urban Coningham, a research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), said Israel's offensive weapons stockpiles and aerial refuelling capability give it a substantial advantage. "Israel could again establish air superiority and strike Iranian targets," he said. But he is sceptical that Israel can accomplish regime change.

Netanyahu has portrayed Iran's leaders as a threat since his first term as prime minister in 1996, when he told the US Congress that "the most dangerous of these regimes is Iran". US participation in the June 2025 war, and again in the campaign launched on February 28 this year, gave him the military intervention he had long sought, but not the overthrow of Iran's government. In March he acknowledged airpower's limits: "You can't do it only from the air," he said, adding that "there has to be a ground component, as well."

Ground forces and covert options

Caglar Kurc, an assistant professor at Abdullah Gul University in Kayseri, Turkiye, said bombing could weaken Iran's military without eliminating its ability to fight back. "Airpower can degrade military capabilities but cannot fully destroy offensive capabilities," he told Al Jazeera, adding that "well-hidden systems would survive".

Overthrowing the government, Kurc said, would require a willingness to deploy troops and remain on the ground for years. Israel also cannot assume that covert methods used in earlier attacks would prove as effective again. Coningham described intelligence assets as "use and burn", because deploying them risks exposing networks that Iranian security services would investigate and disrupt.

Coningham was similarly doubtful that Kurdish or Baloch armed groups could supply the ground force needed to challenge the state, saying Kurdish groups "lacked the military capabilities to take on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps". CNN reported in March that the Trump administration had discussed arming Kurdish opposition groups, but the plan never progressed.

Sidharth Kaushal, a senior research fellow at RUSI, said the Iranians "likely retain sizeable stocks of missiles", even if damage to their targeting systems may limit their effectiveness. Antiship stockpiles probably remain large, he said, because such weapons are relatively easy to make, Iran has taken over production of older Chinese models and its southern mountains offer natural shelter.

US support uncertain

Analysts consider US participation unlikely, pointing to diverging political interests between Tel Aviv and Washington and pressure on Trump to avoid renewed escalation before the US midterm elections. The Financial Times reported this week that an Israeli proposal for renewed strikes had failed to secure Trump's approval, suggesting disagreement about immediate action rather than a US decision to rule out future attacks.

Without US involvement, Coningham said, Israel would lack the means to strike deeply buried facilities, including the 30,000-pound GBU-57 bunker-busting bombs that US B-2 bombers dropped on Iran's Fordow and Natanz nuclear facilities in June 2025. He suggested Iran might then concentrate retaliation on Israeli territory while avoiding US targets and the Strait of Hormuz, punishing Israel without drawing Washington into the fighting.

Kurc summed up the central obstacle. "You cannot change a regime unless you are prepared to deploy troops and stay in the country for some years," he said. "Israel cannot control Iran. The United States would not engage in another regime change, which could take decades."

Source: Al Jazeera.