Netanyahu, Trump believed in Mossad ability to incite rebellion in Iran

In the run up to the war, the head of Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence service, went to Prime Minister Netanyahu saying the agency likely would be able to galvanize the opposition in Iran in a rebellion that “could even lead” to the collapse of Iran’s government, The New York Times reports.

And despite doubts about the feasibility of the plan among senior U.S. officials and some officials in other Israeli intelligence agencies, both Netanyahu and President Trump “seemed to embrace an optimistic outlook,” the Times says.

“The belief that Israel and the United States could help instigate widespread revolt was a foundational flaw” in the preparations for the war, says the Times.

U.S. and Israeli intelligence assessments now have concluded that Iran’s government is weakened but intact and that widespread fear of Iran’s military and police forces has dampened prospects both for nascent rebellion in the country and for ethnic militias outside Iran to launch cross-border incursions, according to the Times.

“You can’t do revolutions from the air,” Netanyahu said during a news conference on Thursday. “There has to be a ground component as well.”

Netanyahu also said: “It is too early to tell if the Iranian people will exploit the conditions we are creating for them to take to the streets. I hope that will be the case. We are working toward that end, but ultimately, it will depend only on them.”

Nate Swanson, a former State Department and White House official who was on the Trump administration’s Iran negotiating team led by Steve Witkoff until July and is now at The Atlantic Council, says: “A lot of protesters are not coming into the street because they’ll get shot. They’re going to get slaughtered. That’s one thing. But the second thing is that there’s a good chunk of people who just want a better life, and they’re just sidelined right now. They don’t like the regime, but they don’t want to die opposing it. That 60 percent is going to stay home.”

“You still have fervent anti-regime folks, but they’re not armed, and they’re not bringing the majority of the population into the streets,” he says.

Israeli officials say they have yet to give up hope.

“I think that we need boots on the ground, but they’ve got to be Iranian boots,” said Yechiel Leiter, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, on CNN on Sunday, when he was asked how the war will end. “And I think they’re coming.”

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