Last June’s 12-day war against Iran, led by Israel, caused immense damage to Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs and its military command structure. Innumerable key commanders and nuclear officials were killed. Ballistic missile production facilities, launchers and stores were blown up.

The United States delivered the final major blow when it bombed three major Iranian nuclear facilities. Declining to target Iran’s Supreme leader Ali Khamenei or to openly seek the regime’s ouster, US President Donald Trump then imposed a ceasefire. He repeatedly declared that Iran’s nuclear program had essentially been “obliterated” and discounted the likelihood that the Islamic Republic would attempt to restart it.

In fact, while that war briefly destabilized the regime, and gave fresh hope to its domestic opponents, the leadership recovered and reorganized. The Islamic Republic began rehabilitating its missile production capabilities. According to the Israeli military, it moved to “fortify, shield, and conceal its nuclear program”; according to Trump, it attempted to rebuild the program.

Crucially, as the IDF said in a statement on Saturday, the regime “did not abandon its plan to destroy Israel.”

The attack launched by the US and Israel on Saturday appears to be an assault of a different and larger order, including the targeting of Iran’s prime leadership, and has a far larger goal this time, namely the fall of the regime.

More than six weeks after he vowed that “help is on its way” for Iranians who were being gunned down in their thousands for again protesting the regime, Trump promised Iranians, as the attack began, that “the hour of your freedom is at hand.”

Well aware of domestic opposition, including from within his own base, he framed the attack as essential to protecting America — declaring that the regime’s “menacing activities directly endanger the United States, our troops, our bases overseas, and our allies........

© The Times of Israel