In one moment, American or Israeli officials may hint at a readiness to actively intervene in Iran in favor of regime change, while in another moment, they seem more concerned simply that Tehran does not lash out at them in a moment of desperation to distract from internal Iranian turmoil.
Does the US or Israel want to intervene or not?
How can these contradictory trends be reconciled?
One possible solution is all of the above.
Nation-states, including the US and Israel in the past, often have multiple goals and scenarios they are preparing for, which may in fact be contradictory.
But given that no one has the gift of prophecy and no one knows exactly which scenario will play out, especially in dynamic situations like nationwide protests, the responsible approach is to be ready for all scenarios.
Israel was caught flat-footed on October 7.
Because of that fact, it paid a terrible price.
Israel was again caught by surprise in December 2024 when the Assad regime fell in Syria.
But this time, in addition to not being under attack, Israel had shifted to a rapid-reaction mentality and a readiness to plan for and act on even highly unlikely scenarios.
Will US, Israel help topple Iran’s regime amid protests?
So, public statements by officials have made it clear that it is theoretically possible that either country might intervene proactively, though certainly American public statements have been more aggressive.
These statements gained steam after Washington abducted Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.
At the same time, Trump has been against putting extended boots on the ground even in Venezuela, so what does an interventionist regime change policy mean with those limitations, and when the protests, to date, are much weaker and smaller than past waves of protests, which failed?
Yet another option is that while all the talk is short-term, really the plan is long-term: to do whatever it takes to bludgeon and weaken the regime more during this round, not to topple it immediately, but to somewhat accelerate its fall over time. The more instability there is, the more officials at the top may be more open to defection possibilities in the future, part of what ultimately helped lead to the fall of the USSR.
Another possibility is that Israel and the US simply want to avoid past criticism of being too silent and not supportive enough during prior rounds of Iranian protests.
Simultaneously, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s most recent threat was that if Iran attacked Israel first, the ayatollahs would face terrible consequences.
This seems to indicate a much more modest goal: no intent to proactively intervene in Iran, but merely a desire to deter the Islamic Republic from initiating a new conflict with Israel.
Part of this move could be part of a series of circular mind-games: Iran knows Israel surprise attacked it in June; Iran knows Israel has threatened to attack it recently for rebuilding its ballistic missile capacities; there have been various threats about intervening to help the protesters; Tehran could be afraid that it has to attack Israel first in fear of a near certainty that Jerusalem is planning an attack; Netanyahu then wants to convince Iran that the Jewish state will not attack first, but that if the ayatollahs attack first, they will be decimated.
An additional scenario is that Israel and the US intend to refrain from using force if Iran refrains, but want to be ready to hammer the Islamic Republic so badly that they topple the regime if Tehran attacks first.
Finally, it is possible that much of the debate and security meetings relating to Iran really have more to do with Hezbollah.
Netanyahu and IDF officials have widely discussed that in early 2026, they might launch a major operation against Hezbollah to make it more likely that it will be forced to disarm.
It is possible that such an operation could have been paused by the situation in Iran, and might even be put on indefinite hold until the situation in Iran becomes clearer.
Many of these possibilities are completely contradictory.
And yet, being ready for all of them is likely to optimize the eventual outcome for the US and Israel.