Why Israel and the US were so deadly wrong about regime change in Iran

Why Israel and the US were so deadly wrong about regime change in Iran Submitted by Hamid Dabashi on Tue, 04/21/2026 - 13:38 Israel fooled Trump into war on Iran using the same network of native informants and think tank operatives that paved the way for the quagmire in Iraq A demonstrator holds a banner depicting US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a protest against the US-Israel war on Iran in Rome, Italy, 14 March 2026 (Filippo Monteforte/AFP) On Back in June 2018, when yet another Israeli - US - Saudi euphoria about "regime change in Iran " was in the air, I published a short essay in which I argued that the idea of regime change in Iran was delusional. Even earlier, in 2010, I published a book, Iran, the Green Movement and the USA , in which I identified the endemic struggles of Iranians against the draconian measures of their ruling government as a "civil rights movement" seeking civil liberties - and not a revolutionary uprising to which additional help could be provided by Israeli or American genocidal Zionists seeking distraction from their crimes against humanity in Palestine . In a recent interview with LBC News in the UK , soon after the ceasefire negotiated in Islamabad between the US and Iran, I was reminded of that essay and that book, now more than a decade and a half old, and cited them to the host interviewing me.