Yasin Güngör
23 March 2026•Update: 23 March 2026
One of the core assumptions underpinning the US-Israeli military campaign against Iran -- that a wave of popular rebellion would topple the government from within -- has not come to pass after three weeks of fighting, the New York Times reported Sunday, drawing on accounts from current and former officials across several countries.
Mossad chief David Barnea told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu before the war that his agency could stoke opposition and set off a revolt within days of the first strikes. Netanyahu took the assessment on board and used it to convince US President Donald Trump that bringing down the Iranian government was achievable.
Senior US officials and Israeli military intelligence analysts cautioned that no one would take to the streets under aerial bombardment -- a warning that has since been borne out.
Intelligence agencies on both sides now assess the Iranian government as battered but still standing, with the threat of state repression keeping the population at home.
Netanyahu has privately vented his disappointment, reportedly telling a security meeting shortly after the war began that Mossad's operations had yet to produce results and that Trump could pull out at any moment.
A second component of the plan -- backing Iranian Kurdish militias in northern Iraq to launch a cross-border incursion -- has also quietly collapsed.
Israeli aircraft hit targets in northwestern Iran in the early days of the conflict partly to prepare the ground for such a push, but Washington's appetite for the idea faded fast.
Türkiye, a NATO member, warned the Trump administration against supporting any Kurdish military action, and on March 7 Trump himself told Kurdish leaders to stand down.
US-Israeli strikes against Iran began on Feb. 28 and have reportedly killed at least 1,300 people, including then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
