Israel did not have a realistic plan for regime change when it attacked Iran, multiple Israeli security sources have said, with expectations that airstrikes could lead to a popular uprising having been driven by “wishful thinking” rather than hard intelligence.
Iran has survived nearly two weeks of bombing raids and the assassination of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Donald Trump is publicly contemplating ending the increasingly costly war. If Iran’s new leadership keeps its grip on power, the long-term measure of the success of the conflict may hang on the fate of 440kg of enriched uranium buried under a mountain by US strikes last June, former and serving Israeli defence and intelligence sources said.
“These 440kg of uranium are one of the clearest litmus tests for how this war ends, whether it is a success,” said one former senior Israeli defence and intelligence official who worked on Iran. “We need to be in a position where either this material is out of Iran, or you have a regime where you are confident that it is safeguarded [inside Iran] in a very meaningful way.”
Hardliners in Iran have long argued a nuclear deterrent is the only guarantee of survival for the Islamic republic. The overwhelming military dominance of US and Israeli forces in this war is likely to bolster that view if the regime survives. The US is reportedly considering sending troops on a high-risk mission to secure the uranium.
Joab Rosenberg, the former deputy head of Israel’s military intelligence research division, described any conclusion of the war that leaves the uranium in Iranian hands as a pyrrhic victory. “The worst result of this war will be the declaration of victory of the type of June 2025, leaving the Iranian regime weak with 450kg of enriched uranium in its hands,” he said in a social media post.
The assassination of Ali Khamenei may have compounded the nuclear threat from Iran. His son and successor, Mojtaba Khamenei, could “run to a bomb right now”, according to a former senior intelligence official. Despite these risks, the US-Israeli war has broad support inside Israel’s military establishment, reflecting popular backing in Israeli society.
