File photo: Mossad chief David Barnea
Mossad chief David Barnea reportedly told Israel’s cabinet before the war with Iran that regime change in Tehran was possible but most likely would take around one year, not just days or weeks, a recent report claimed.According to The Jerusalem Post, Barnea presented multiple scenarios to Israeli leaders on the eve of war, with some suggesting a few months, but a one-year timeframe was considered the most likely estimate.The report said this more cautious assessment has been obscured by recent anonymous attacks accusing him of overselling the chances of a rapid collapse of the Iranian regime.
Qualified assessment, not a guaranteed prediction
The main point emerging from the report is that Barnea’s position was more qualified than some later portrayals suggested. According to The Jerusalem Post, he did not present regime change as inevitable, but rather as a possibility dependent on several conditions and likely to take significant time. The report added that Barnea is known for attaching caveats to major intelligence assessments and that any pitch made to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or US officials would have been tightly controlled and framed within broader government strategy.However, that contrasts with earlier reports that claimed that Mossad expected a fast uprising.According to The New York Times report, Barnea had told Netanyahu and senior Trump administration officials in mid-January that within days of the war’s beginning, Mossad could potentially help galvanise the Iranian opposition, triggering riots and acts of rebellion that could even lead to the government’s collapse. However, the report also noted that three weeks into the war, such an uprising had not materialised, and US-Israeli intelligence assessments concluded the Iranian regime was weakened but still intact.The Times of Israel, citing Channel 12, similarly reported that Barnea had assessed it would be possible to topple the Iranian regime if key military goals were achieved first, including decapitating leadership, damaging regime institutions and weakening its ability to repress citizens. But it stressed that he also offered “disclaimers and qualifications,” noting the situation was fluid and that achieving such an outcome could take a long time.In public, both Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump initially hinted that military action could create conditions for regime change, but both also said the Iranian people themselves would have to act. Since then, the messaging has become more restrained. US director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said on Thursday that the US intelligence community assesses the Iranian regime “appears to be intact, but largely degraded.”Netanyahu has also stopped short of predicting imminent collapse. He said Israel was working to “create the conditions” for the regime to fall, but added, “it may survive, it may not. If it survives, it’ll be a lot weaker.”
