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........

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