Israel Officials Get Blunt On Iran Aims: ‘If We Can Have A Civil War, Great’

US mainstream media is issuing one headline after another that read like they are ripped straight off the plot of Homeland or some other subpar CIA counter-terrorism series. For example, Wednesday: Israel Is Blowing Up Iran’s Police State to Clear the Way for a Revolt.

In a bit of incredibly naive and wishful thinking and fantasy, WSJ writes: “Israel’s military is targeting the Iranian police state that brutally suppressed protests and killed thousands of people, with the hope of clearing the way for a popular revolt to overthrow the Islamic government.”

Sure thing… it all sounds so nice and easy, and even ‘good’ on paper.

In this rosy US media narrative, Israeli and US forces are cast as the noble good guy warriors riding in to valiantly to crush the ‘baddies’ of the IRGC and Basij forces.

“Israeli officials have made it clear they are looking to do enough damage to Iran’s police state from the air that the people can take over on the ground. While Israel has long been content to weaken Tehran with military action or covert operations, Israeli officials have concluded they now must push for regime change,” the same report continues.

The Israelis, however, are busy presenting their war in aims with much less romanticism, idealism, and dressed-up propaganda. 

Yet for all of these noble humanitarian goals – a separate report, this one in Financial Times, presents things with quite a bit more cold realism, laying out how Israeli officials actually think and view the situation:

For Israel, “If we can have a coup, great. If we can have people on the streets, great. If we can have a civil war, great. Israel couldn’t care less about the future …or the stability of Iran.”

That’s the assessment of Danny Citrinowicz, listed as an Iran expert and senior researcher at Tel Aviv’s Institute for National Security Studies.

The report further makes clear Israel is preparing at the very least for a “multi-week military onslaught” to dismantle the Iranian state.

“That is a point of difference between us and the US. I think [Washington is] more concerned about nation-building & threats to their regional partners,” @citrinowicz.
“We want to ensure Iran stays in disarray,” Israel mil official

— Laura Rozen (@lrozen) March 4, 2026

And they are at least a tad more realistic compared to their American counterparts:

A former senior Israeli official who is familiar with the current war plans warned that “this will take time . . . There is a lot of work to be done. Iran is huge.”

These Israeli officials are stating it bluntly on the record: the goal is to sow chaos, fragmentation, and sectarian hell inside Iran – akin to what happened in Syria:

Removing Iran’s ability to threaten Israel — primarily via missiles and a nascent nuclear programme — was the “obvious” endgame, but even more important to Israel’s government, Citrinowicz added, was “undermining this regime [so] it has to deal with internal problems”.

When you’ve lost something as establishment as The Telegraph:

If this what the right-wing pro-war Telegraph is telling you, then you can be sure the Israeli-US regime is waging an absolute war of terror on Iranian civilians pic.twitter.com/JyXHlrx7De

— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) March 4, 2026

Of course, there’s a flip side to this, given the likelihood of the Americans and Israelis suffering severe setbacks, casualties, and damage in the face of Iran’s resistance, which appears to somewhat already be happening.