The Men Who Think They Can Topple Regimes

(Written in the shelter during sirens, alarms and explosions)

The truth is simple. I support the stated goals of the war against Iran: the removal of a brutal authoritarian leader, the replacement of a theocratic regime, the separation of religious fundamentalism from the machinery of the state, and the opening of space for a democratic civil society to organize and take responsibility for the country. I only have one small amendment to propose. Instead of starting in Tehran, perhaps we should begin here, in Jerusalem. If it works, we can continue there. Let someone come, gently enough, and remove the authoritarian dinosaur and his entourage who have taken over the Prime Minister’s Office. There is no need for dramatic assassinations. It would be enough if the Israeli supreme leader were simply sent home, if the bond between messianic religion and political power were severed, and if a broad civic public were allowed once again to take responsibility for society and the state. Unfortunately, such fortunate outcomes are usually reserved for other countries, for regimes considered more wicked than our own. We, it seems, will have to do the work ourselves, the slow and difficult way.

The psychology of those who believe they can topple regimes is one of the most fascinating and tragic subjects in international politics. Again and again intelligent, experienced leaders, surrounded by intelligence agencies, advisers, data and immense resources, persuade themselves that they can bend history to their will. In their imagination history can be changed with a few decisive moves. Apply force in the right place, remove the right head, and the entire structure will collapse. The idea returns repeatedly, and it almost always fails.

The mistake begins with projection. These decision makers imagine that the societies they confront operate according to the same rules that govern their own political world: personal interest, flexible loyalties, the instinct to protect one’s safety and wealth above all else. In their imagination, leaders like Netanyahu and Trump embrace a modern version of Louis XIV’s absolutist instinct, the belief that the state and the ruler are indistinguishable. “The state, it is me.” And they assume their adversaries must think the same way. In this mental model a regime appears as little more than a pyramid of fear. Remove the apex and the structure collapses. But this assumption shatters when it encounters regimes built on belief. Some political systems are not held together primarily by fear or by personal interest but by an ideological narrative that gives meaning to the lives of millions. In such systems loyalty is not only to the man at the top but to the story the regime tells about history, sacrifice and destiny.

The United States should have learned this lesson long ago. Instead, it has repeated the same error across continents. In Afghanistan it spent two decades, trillions of dollars and thousands of lives trying to construct a liberal democratic state in the image of the West. The assumption was that Afghan society was waiting to be liberated, that elites would adapt, and that the public would eventually adopt a new political model. What followed was a vacuum into which the very forces the war had been meant to eliminate returned. The same logic shaped the invasion of Iraq and several other interventions where American power arrived with great confidence and left behind deeper instability. Israel has its own experience with this illusion. In 1982 the Israeli leadership believed that removing the PLO from Beirut and installing a friendly Christian leadership would usher Lebanon into a new political era. Instead it created a vacuum from which a new force emerged, one that would become Israel’s most formidable enemy on its northern border.

The reason is straightforward. Ideological regimes do not function like pyramids. They function like networks, sometimes like belief systems, sometimes like collective consciousness. When attacked from outside, the attack itself can strengthen the internal narrative of struggle and mission. Iran is an especially revealing case. Many Western analysts assume that the Iranian elite is loyal mainly to itself and that once personal risk rises high enough the system will fragment. Yet that assumption may reveal more about the observers than about Iran. Within Iran there exists a real ideological core. Not necessarily a majority, but a sufficiently large group of people who genuinely believe in the religious and revolutionary mission of the regime. For them the system is not merely a structure of power but a structure of meaning. Around them are many others who resent the regime deeply yet recoil at the idea of foreign intervention in their national life.

Here lies the painful irony of the present moment. The same political figures who speak most enthusiastically about bringing democracy to Iran are simultaneously pushing both the United States and Israel further away from liberal democratic norms. Instead of defending institutions, law and the restraint of power, they cultivate a politics centered on personal authority and deep suspicion of liberalism itself. They want Iran to become more Western while making the West under their leadership look increasingly Iranian.

A simple thought experiment exposes the weakness of their assumptions. Imagine that one morning the entire political leadership of Israel disappeared: the prime minister, the senior ministers, the coalition leaders and the extended family that circles around power. Would Israel collapse? Of course not. Schools would open, hospitals would operate, courts would convene, the army would function and civil society would continue its endless arguments and imperfections. The real life of the country would go on. This is not a political fantasy but a reminder of something that those who dream of toppling regimes often forget. Societies are larger than governments. Networks survive the collapse of individual nodes. When a regime is organized around belief rather than mere personal interest, the removal of a leader does not end the story. Sometimes it only begins a darker chapter.

The fantasy of regime change through the elimination of a leader is not always a strategy. Often it is a mirror. It tells us less about the societies others wish to transform and more about the psychology of those who believe they can engineer history. They assume the entire structure stands on one person: themselves. History is rarely impressed by such architects. It moves forward like a slow and stubborn river, ignoring militant spokesmen, manipulative politicians and second-rate strategists. It leaves behind ruins that no one intended and for which no one accepts responsibility. And the cruelest lesson of history is that the people who try to reshape the world through violence are rarely the ones who pay the price.