This Editor’s Note was sent out earlier Wednesday in ToI’s weekly update email to members of the Times of Israel Community. To receive these Editor’s Notes as they’re released, join the ToI Community here.

Almost three weeks into the US-Israel war on the Islamic Republic, with much of the world dithering, Israel and much of the Gulf fiercely supportive, and US President Donald Trump confusingly vowing to keep going and to imminently stop, let nobody doubt what hangs in the balance.

We are at war because the mass-murdering regime in Tehran — during negotiations aimed by the US at avoiding this conflict, even as the ayatollahs had resumed their nuclear weapons program and were again expanding their ballistic missile arsenal — refused to give up its ostensible “right” to enrich uranium.

Why would that be? Because they had already evaded oversight protocols and enriched sufficient uranium for 11 nuclear bombs, as they cheerfully confirmed to Trump’s negotiator Steve Witkoff, and by extension fully intend to proceed along the road to a nuclear arsenal.

And what would they do if they reached their destination? Whatever is necessary to destroy Israel and anybody else that resists their would-be regional- and world-dominating skewed Islamic extremist vision of divine will. Just as they have been doing whatever is necessary to slaughter their own domestic opponents by the tens of thousands. Just as they have been targeting their own regional rivals, appeasers and supporters alike, to try to ratchet up pressure to end this war. Just as they are leveraging their capacity to play havoc with global energy supplies via the Strait of Hormuz. Just as they have inspired, armed and trained terrorist armies on Israel’s borders for decades to try to wipe us out. Just as they have carried out incessant acts of terrorism to destabilize free nations and peoples worldwide.

After almost three weeks of missile attacks, battered Israelis, hounded from Metula to Eilat, nonetheless overwhelmingly support this war. That’s because we know all too well that the tragic price paid so far — in loss of life, damage, the further decline of our international standing as far right and far left combine to misrepresent what is actually unfolding, and the impact on Jews and Jewish communities targeted by terror and antisemitism — is nothing compared to the apocalyptic consequence for all humanity if these coldhearted fanatics obtain the weapons of mass destruction they are insistently seeking.

Sooner or later — and for all of our sakes, let it be sooner — Iranians and the rest of us have to be freed from the black shadow of the Islamic Republic.

And if the regime doesn’t fall?

Is that, then, how this war will end? With the toppling of the regime?

Maybe, but not necessarily.

Both Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have said repeatedly that the goal of the war is to create the conditions in which the Iranian public — assessed to widely loathe the regime — can take control from the ayatollahs.

Not only that — both of them have said repeatedly since the start of the airstrikes on February 28 that the moment for doing so is imminent.

In his opening statement that day, in remarks addressed to “the great, proud people of Iran,” Trump specified that “the hour of your freedom is at hand. Stay sheltered. Don’t leave your home. It’s very dangerous outside. Bombs will be dropping everywhere. When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”

Netanyahu last week, in his only press conference to date since the war started, promised Iranians: “The moment when you will be able to embark on a new path of freedom is approaching. That moment is drawing closer.”

But both men have lately also reluctantly allowed that their breezy confidence may have been exaggerated and that this campaign may not end with the people of Iran emerging to seize control of their destiny.

On Friday, asked by Fox News whether he still believes the masses can oust the ayatollahs, Trump acknowledged, “I really think that’s a big hurdle to climb for people that don’t have weapons.” It will happen, he went on to assert, “but… maybe not immediately.”

Similarly Netanyahu, in his Thursday press conference, stressed, “We will create optimal conditions” for the Iranian public to emerge and take charge, but admitted, “I do not deny it: I cannot say for certain that the Iranian people will bring down the regime.”

“The [promised] help has come and more will follow,” he added. “We are all hoping for the result of this regime falling.” But “ultimately, a regime is ousted from within.”

The intelligence and execution of the joint attacks has been extraordinary, but what of the strategic planning? Have energized, capable new leaders been identified, encouraged and assisted in preparing for the intended moment of truth? Of that, we still know very little.

Is that because atypical secrecy has been impressively maintained, or because such planning has been inadequate? Who is supposed to lead the uprising, to reverse the Islamic Revolution? Who, and whose army?

And if this war does not end with the fall of the regime, or precipitate its fall in the near future, will the US and Israel keep returning, as they must, to thwart its revival until it does collapse?

That stockpile must come out

Whether this proves to be the defining round of conflict, or the Islamic Republic survives in one form or another, it is crucial that the fighting not end with the regime retaining those 450 kilograms of near-weapons-grade uranium — believed to be intact and held underground at the Isfahan nuclear facility and possibly one or two other locations.

The regime’s motivation to get to the bomb has increased hugely as it battles to survive — knowing the enhanced strength it would have as a nuclear power in resisting future efforts to oust it.

There has been talk of an ambitious and dangerous special forces operation to retrieve the stockpile, and Israel has pulled off some remarkable operations inside Iranian territory, including the Mossad’s seizure and methodical removal of Iran’s nuclear weapons project archive from Tehran in 2018. But this would be a challenge of a far different order, taking control of targets that the regime is undoubtedly braced to defend come what may.

In the run-up to this conflict, Iran’s negotiators proved unwilling to give up the 60% uranium hoard — merely to ostensibly downgrade or dilute it, in return for the lifting of all international sanctions. If the war is to have any medium-term benefit, Ariel Levite, a veteran former senior official at the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission, argued persuasively this week, Israel and the US must leverage their successes to ensure that what remains of the regime gives up both the stockpile and its purported right to enrichment. That’s a “preferred option and it’s not impossible,” Levite suggested, even with an extremist Iranian leadership and even at the price of a non-aggression pact and sanctions relief.

Far better, needless to say, for the regime to fall, life-affirming Iranians to take control, and the rogue nuclear program to be carefully and irrevocably dismantled.

The Israel-led “decapitation” policy — which began with the killing of ayatollah Ali Khamenei and many others on the morning of February 28, and continues unabated even as I write these lines — marks an astonishing feat of both intelligence gathering and execution.

The declared aim is to eliminate the regime’s leaders, and their successors, and their successors’ successors, until it can no longer function.

The intelligence penetration of the regime that is enabling not only pinpoint strikes on nuclear installations and other stationary targets, but, especially, ongoing targeted killings — of extremely savvy figures who know they are being hunted down and yet still cannot escape their fate — stands in almost unimaginable contrast to the catastrophic intelligence vacuum that enabled Hamas to invade southern Israel on October 7, 2023.

Those left standing have nowhere they can feel safe, and nobody they can fully trust.

But Israel must recognize the dangers of hubris. We wanted to believe — as Trump avowedly did — that the regime’s nuclear and missile programs had been strategically demolished last June, and the regime somewhat deterred from a rapid return to its bomb program. That was not the case.

We wanted to believe, and our leadership broadly assured residents of northern Israel, that Hezbollah — its leadership eradicated, many of its operatives killed in the legendary exploding beeper operation, its missile and rocket capacity massively degraded — was largely out of action. Hezbollah is, indeed, not the mighty terrorist army that it was until 2024, but recent days have underlined its ongoing capacity and determination, in defiance of much of Lebanon’s leadership, to wreak destruction.

And we may want to believe that Israel is immune to anything remotely resembling the intelligence penetration that the military and security services have evidently achieved in the relentless elimination of the leaders and commanders of the Islamic Republic. But the innumerable arrests and prosecutions here of spies and would-be spies for Iran, and the vast potential for cyber and other electronic penetration, tell a different story.

Israel is promising further surprises as it works to counter the Islamic Republic’s military capabilities and eliminate the leadership of the regime. Our leadership must surely know that the regime is trying to do the same, and must not be underestimated.

Dystopia via deadly prediction betting?

I have to add a short word, also war-related, about the death threats to our indefatigable military correspondent Emanuel Fabian by bettors on Polymarket.

Journalism can be a risky business, especially for war reporters. But such reporters have not hitherto had to worry about vicious threats to themselves and their loved ones, issued by financially incentivized criminals, stemming from their straightforward reporting of events.

The Times of Israel sadly has experience of dangerous people making credible threats to our staff because of our reporting of financial criminality, notably when we exposed the despicable binary options industry, a fraudulent enterprise that stole billions worldwide, ruined innumerable lives, and even pushed victims to suicide. That industry metastasized and almost all of its perpetrators remain at large, with not a single successful prosecution in Israel and precious few around the world.

Now Fabian was targeted by users of a real-life-events prediction gambling enterprise that allowed them to place bets on developments in the war against Iran. Polymarket has condemned the threats, says it has (somehow) identified the accounts involved and banned them, and has promised to convey the relevant information to the appropriate authorities.

That’s all well and good. But it is still promoting bets on the progress of the war.

Taking bets where lives are directly at stake should be unthinkable. And since nothing is unthinkable, it should be illegal. Where money is involved, some people are capable of unlimited immorality, unscrupulousness and criminality. These kinds of bets provide financial encouragement for such people to say, and do, things that get other people killed.

Think on that. Think of where it can lead. Think what corrupt and dangerous people in positions where they have the capacity to get people killed — private criminals and criminals with political power — can do to win these bets. From threatening a reporter to get him to change an accurate report for the sake of a few million pounds, to sending troops into this or that battle, starting this or that war, and lord knows what else. The opportunities for financial gain are endless, and the consequences for victims are unlimited.

Dystopia via deadly prediction betting. Is that the way we want to go? It’s past time for honest people with political power to intervene.

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