Make Iran Great Again? Iran-Israel war and the struggle for freedom
A guest column by Dr Parisa Kooshesh
At the time of writing, a ceasefire had been called between Iran and Israel following their exchanges of missiles and the US air force’s bombing of nuclear installations inside Iran. There’s been talk about “regime change” in Iran, but what could this mean for Iranians themselves? The theocratic system of government in Iran, in place since the 1979 revolution, does not represent the values of the vast majority of Iranians. I invited journalist (and New Zealand citizen) Dr Parisa Kooshesh to share her insights about her country of origin.
Make Iran Great Again? Iran-Israel war and the struggle for freedom
by Parisa Kooshesh
More than 45 years of hostility between Israel and Iran finally erupted into a 12-day war.
The direct confrontation between these two long-standing enemies wasn’t unexpected, especially after the downfall of Iran’s allies in Lebanon and Syria—developments that, to some extent, brought an end to a prolonged proxy war.
Following the 2024 U.S. election and the return of Donald Trump, “the greatest friend Israel has ever had in the White House,” Netanyahu saw a golden opportunity to strike Iran. In a video statement released shortly after the attack began, Netanyahu said he had “begun planning this operation in November of last year,” coinciding closely with Trump’s re-election. Israel understood that a full-scale war with Iran would be impossible without a green light from the U.S., particularly to ensure their intervention to destroy Iranian nuclear sites.
Was Iran Really Close to having a Nuclear Weapon?
For about 33 years, Netanyahu has warned the international community about an imminent threat of an Iranian atomic bomb. Despite those warnings, it’s hard to find conclusive evidence supporting that claim. Iran received its first nuclear reactor in 1967—around the same time Israel reportedly got its first nuclear weapon, and well before the Islamic Republic came into power in 1979.
While the Iranian government has never admitted to pursuing nuclear weapons, the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) reported that Iran conducted activities relevant to nuclear weapons development prior to 2003. However, there is no evidence to suggest Iran has continued such activities since then. These assessments are considered credible, given Iran’s nuclear program is the most investigated in the world by the IAEA. As recently as last week, the IAEA chief confirmed: “We do not have any proof of Iran’s efforts to move into a nuclear weapon.” Similar conclusions were reached in U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s March 2025 report to Congress.
Who Won the War?
All three main players—Iran, Israel, and the U.S.—claimed victory. But what was actually achieved?
For Israel, with direct U.S. support, the key goal was the destruction of three major nuclear enrichment sites: Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. The assassination of 11 Iranian scientists involved in the nuclear program was also seen as a strategic move to slow any potential future restart of Iran’s nuclear development.
Israel also severely damaged Iran’s air defence systems, crippled missile and drone production infrastructure, and assassinated several Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders.
Iran, on the other hand, did not have the upper hand militarily, but it demonstrated its retaliation capability—largely homegrown—by launching deep strikes into Israel. Iranian attacks overwhelmed Israel’s Iron Dome air-defence system in some instances and caused significant damage to military and civilian targets. This marked the most substantial direct attack on Israeli soil by a foreign country since Israel’s founding in 1948.
The human toll must also be acknowledged: over 600 lost their lives in Iran and 24 in Israel, according to official figures.
In short, if the war’s primary goal was to destroy Iran’s nuclear capability, the mission remains incomplete. While the three main nuclear sites are heavily damaged, Iran retains the knowledge and capacity to rebuild its programme—potentially with even greater determination this time. It’s still unknown if the sites were completely destroyed.
An agreement similar to the one signed by five European countries, the US and Iran in 2015 (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), from which Trump withdrew in 2018, may have been a better way to manage and control Iranian nuclear developments than military action.
But what about the buzz of regime change? Was this also on the table?
Regime Change in Iran: Hope or Fantasy?
In his address to the nation just hours after launching the war on June 13, Netanyahu mentioned regime change in Iran, stating: “Twenty-five centuries ago, Cyrus liberated the Jewish people—today the Jewish people are assisting the Persian people in achieving their freedom.”
He called on the Iranian people to rise up against the Islamic Republic. Throughout the 12-day war, this narrative was echoed in numerous social media posts from Israeli and U.S. officials. Trump himself posted:
“If the current Iranian regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a regime change???”
There’s no doubt the Islamic Republic is deeply unpopular—both within Iran and among much of the Iranian diaspora. The regime faces a serious legitimacy crisis after decades of repression, censorship, and what has been widely described as gender apartheid. In the last 15 years alone, the regime has violently suppressed two major uprisings—the Green Movement in 2009 and the Women, Life, Freedom movement in 2022.
While there is strong support among many Iranians for regime change, as they are so over the government that doesn’t hear them, there is little agreement on how it should happen.
No matter how much they despise the regime, some Iranians are not convinced that freedom and democracy can be delivered by foreign interventions. The fact that the country pushing this narrative—Israel—is currently accused of committing genocide in Gaza, where about 56,000 people (many of them children) have been killed, doesn’t help the argument.
Many Iranian activists, at home and abroad, believe any political transformation must be led from within their country. They argue that regime change imposed from the outside is neither sustainable nor democratic.
Others believe that foreign invasion is the only path to freedom—that war is a price worth paying. This view is most common among those who support the return of ex-crown prince Reza Pahlavi and who are nostalgic for the pre-1979 era. Pahlavi has long lobbied Israeli leaders, and he recently posted a photo shaking hands with an Israeli minister, captioned: “Will be in Tehran soon.”
As well as the principle that change should come from the people themselves, no foreign military intervention in modern history has successfully installed long-term democracy in another country. And any opposition leader who remains in exile while asking a foreign power to bomb their homeland doesn’t look popular.
What Do Iranians Really Want?
Due to the absence of independent and reliable polling, it’s hard to know which view dominates among Iranians. One of the few available surveys (from 2021) found that 67% of Iranians considered a religious government “fairly” or “very bad,” but only 22% supported a return to monarchy—whether constitutional or absolute.
Final Thoughts
Whether you believe in internal reform or external intervention, it’s too soon to say whether regime change is on the horizon in Iran. What’s clear is that the Islamic Republic has so far survived another existential crisis—as it has before. While the 12-day war has weakened the regime, it hasn’t ended its will and capacity to govern. Its theocratic political structure remains largely intact.
Furthermore, Iranians have a strong sense of nationalism, and foreign attacks can foster a fragile unity around the current government. This is the kind of reaction the Islamic Republic is hoping for, as previously it had failed to generate unity, due to its legitimacy crisis.
The regime has repeatedly missed opportunities to reform itself in the past. The question now is whether it will use this moment to pursue political reforms that could lead to a gradual and peaceful transition to a secular democratic system, beyond the current structure of an Islamic republic, or whether it will continue down the same path, acting as a paper tiger. The evidence so far suggests the latter.
Without wishing to disparage Dr Kooshesh, I would make the case that authoritarian regimes exist, not because of random capture by malign internal elites, but because external pressures are opposed by those with deep conviction. That conviction can be religious, nationalistic or ideological in nature (often all three), and is rarely found in the mindless drifters that make up the major proportion of the population of so-called liberal democracies. Other factors that play into the problem is that liberalism is a basket of values (just like authoritarianism) that permits- even encourages if it thinks there's political or monetary advantage in it- certain social diversities, but these are intimately mixed with 'free-market' values that don't recognise other oppressions, particularly economic ones, that sit outside the permitted (and actually quite elastic over time) canon.
One cannot equate the unpopularity of the Islamic Republic within the Iranian Diaspora, with that within the country itself- that's the nature of a diaspora. Whatever the feelings within the country itself, and I freely admit that I wouldn't choose that government for myself, these will now be more solidly behind the government than they were before this debacle, just as the Russian population is more solidly behind the current administration than it was before the Ukraine conflict.
Another parallel with the situation in Russia is that, just as a more liberal attitude within Russia- compared with the Cold War era- allowed agents of Ukraine and its allies to operate within Russia to co-ordinate the (pointless from a UKR tactical perspective but nevertheless inflammatory) attack on Russia's aging strategic nuclear bomber fleet, so the recently more liberal attitude of Iran's government compared to the earlier days of the Islamic Republic has allowed Mossad and other agencies to operate within Iran to co-ordinate the first wave of attacks. The parallels are striking.
Authoritarian regimes are a response to the pressures that have been applied by the collective West to developing countries over many decades for a number of reasons both ideological and economic. At the current time they are largely related to the slow-moving collapse of the Neoliberal financial order, though of course Israel has additional reasons relating to Iran's support of the Palestinian cause over many years.
Regime change from outside carries too much baggage, as does the Pahlavi dynasty which was installed after the overthrow of Mossadegh. In fact the CIA admitted they erred in doing so. Had Mossadegh not been smeared as a Soviet lackey, he may have been Iran's Kemal Ataturk. The Shah's 1979 fall led to a power jostle between his deposers, and amidst the confusion Ayatollah Khomeini seized power. It's also worth noting that Khomeini regarded Mossadegh as too secular.
https://edition.cnn.com/2013/08/19/politics/cia-iran-1953-coup
And there's a strong likelihood of a Dubya-style invasion turning into Vietnam or Afghanistan, and further accelerating America's declining world reputation. A successful Persian Spring along the lines of the Portuguese Carnation Revolution or Czechoslovak Velvet Revolution would be the ideal but hardest outcome, given the strength of the Ayatollah regime & the IRGC propping it up.