Netanyahu Says Toppling Iran's Regime Is Now Israel's Central Mission
- Hananya Naftali
- 4 hours ago
- 4 min read
Benjamin Netanyahu stood in front of the Israeli General Staff at the Kirya in Tel Aviv, raised a glass for Rosh Hashanah, and said that toppling the Iranian regime is Israel's central mission, and it is within reach.
"The regime is now faltering," Netanyahu told the room. "It is weaker than ever. It is fighting for its survival."
"I am confident in our ability to remove this threat once and for all, in other words, to topple this regime. That is the central mission that still lies ahead of us, but it is close. It is not impossible. It is within reach."
Defense Minister Israel Katz was there. So was the IDF chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir. Katz added his own line, warning that any Iranian attack would send the regime back to "Stone Age and darkness."
Why is Netanyahu saying this now?
For years Israeli officials talked about the nuclear program, the missile program, the proxies, the enrichment percentages, anything except the regime itself.
Then the war happened. Iran's supreme leader was killed in the opening round. Its command structure has been chewed through in the months since. Hezbollah has been broken in Lebanon and is now watching the IDF clear and demolish its tunnel systems on the Ali Taher Ridge. Assad is gone from Damascus. Hamas is a hunted remnant negotiating over its own disarmament. The Strait of Hormuz gambit, the one piece of leverage Tehran thought was untouchable, has become a noose around its own neck.
Look at the economy the regime has left. The rial has collapsed to roughly 2.2 million to the dollar. Official inflation runs above 80%. Iran has gone seven weeks without shipping meaningful crude through the strait it swore it controlled. Gas stations ration. Bazaars sit empty.
The most important line Netanyahu said was not the one about toppling the regime. It was this one: "It is no coincidence that they are not attacking us. They are attacking everyone except us. They know our strength, the force of our blows and our determination."
Check it against the last week. Iranian drones over Kuwait City. Intercepts over Bahrain. Ballistic missiles at Jordanian bases. A Saudi tanker hit in the strait with dead crewmen aboard. Iranian forces striking American installations in the Emirates and Kuwait under what Iranian officials are calling a new targeting doctrine that includes preemptive strikes.
Notice who is missing from that list. The country the Islamic Republic has spent four decades promising to erase is the one address it now avoids.
The people who insist Israeli force only creates more enemies should sit with that for a moment. Israeli force created a regime too frightened to fire at Israel and desperate enough to fire at Kuwait instead.
What is Pickaxe Mountain and why is Trump threatening it?
President Trump said the United States may hit Pickaxe Mountain "very soon." He has been circling this target since the summer, when he said it would be struck "pretty soon" and "very heavily."
Pickaxe Mountain sits next to Natanz, buried under roughly a hundred meters of rock, with two deep tunnel complexes carved into it. Iran built it after its aboveground plant was destroyed, and announced at the time that the replacement would be built in the heart of the mountain. The Wall Street Journal reported that Israeli intelligence believes Iran moved thousands of centrifuges inside during the autumn of 2025. The Institute for Science and International Security is more skeptical, arguing enriched material is still stuck at three other damaged sites.
Trump himself put the caveat plainly: "It doesn't mean anything unless they have the material." Experts split on whether bombs can even reach the chambers. Nicole Grajewski of Sciences Po says destroying the interior with conventional strikes is very close to impossible, though collapsing the tunnel mouths is achievable. Retired Brigadier General Robert Spalding frames the real question well: do you want the facility destroyed, or do you want it useless? Those are two different missions with two different price tags.
Pickaxe Mountain is not primarily a bombing problem. It is a regime problem. A hole in a mountain only matters because of who owns the mountain. Bomb it and Iran digs another one deeper. Change who is standing on top of it and the mountain becomes a geology curiosity.
The predictable objection arrived within hours. Regime change is hubris. Remember Baghdad. Remember Kabul. You cannot impose democracy from the air.
But nobody proposed an invasion. There is no Israeli plan to occupy Tehran, install a governor, or write anyone's constitution. Israel has neither the manpower nor the desire, and every serious person in Jerusalem knows it. What Netanyahu described is to strip the regime of the capacity to project power, strangle the money that buys its loyalty, and let 80 million people who already hate their rulers finish the job themselves.
That is the opposite of Iraq. Iraq was a foreign army creating a vacuum. This is a foreign air force removing the boot from a nation's throat and stepping back. And plus, nobody suggested to install democracy in Iran, that's up for the people to decide how they want their fate to look like.
What happens next
Axios reports the Trump administration is already drafting what comes after. A regional alliance against Iran with Washington as guarantor. Hamas disarmament in Gaza. A security arrangement between Israel and Syria. Further implementation of the framework with Lebanon. An expanded circle of normalization. One official described it perfectly: "They are cooking it, but it is not yet cooked." Nothing moves until after the Israeli election in late October and the American vote in early November.
So the next two months are the dangerous stretch. A regime this cornered has exactly one card left, which is to set the region on fire and hope the world blames Israel for the flames.
Netanyahu made his toast on Rosh Hashanah, and the prayer for that night asks that the year and its curses end so that a year and its blessings can begin. Tichleh shana vekililoteha, tachel shana uvirchoteha. For 47 years the Islamic Republic has been the curse. Time for the blessing.
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