Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei saw his nuclear strategy blow up in his face when an Israeli strike killed him on the first day of the war Jerusalem launched together with the United States against the Islamic Republic on February 28.

For decades, Khamenei had a policy of developing the ability to build a nuclear weapon, while holding off on actually doing so.

Khamenei’s threshold nuclear strategy was designed to pose a deterrent to US and Israeli attacks, while staying true to his 2005 religious ban on nuclear weapons.

The scheme didn’t save Iran from crippling US sanctions imposed by both Democratic and Republican administrations, but until last year’s 12-Day War, Tehran avoided paying a kinetic price.

Unmoved by the massive damage inflicted on his country’s three main nuclear sites last June, Khamenei directed his negotiators to continue insisting that Iran retain the right to enrich uranium in talks with the US last month.

For US President Donald Trump, a deal with Iran offered the opportunity to block Tehran’s path to a nuclear weapon. But the sanctions relief Washington needed to give in exchange would have strengthened a destabilizing regime when it was at its weakest.

Untrusting of Iran’s intentions, Trump authorized the launch of Operation Epic Fury, rather than allow his top aides to convene for another round of talks.

The past two weeks have seen a relentless US-Israeli bombing campaign that has shaken the foundations of the entire region, with countries in the Gulf and beyond finding themselves the targets of much of Iran’s retaliation.

While the US and Israel are hoping this war strips Iran of the capability to obtain a nuclear weapon — let alone the ability to use it — a former top Iran analyst for the Israel Defense Forces argues that it may have an opposite effect, as the preemptive US-Israeli strikes once and for all proved Khamenei’s threshold strategy ineffective.

So now, Iran is left with two choices: abandon its nuclear program entirely or rush to a bomb.

Danny Citrinowicz, who headed the Iran branch of the Israeli Military Intelligence’s Research and Analysis Division, maintains that a threatened Iran is more likely to choose option two, particularly given that it is now led by Khamenei’s son Mojtaba, who is determined to avenge the deaths of his family members killed along with his father in the war’s opening strike.

Regime change would solve this most fateful of crises, and while Israel has been unambiguous about that being a primary goal, the US has stopped short of following suit.

Trump, for his part, has said he would like to pick Iran’s next leader and has urged the Iranian people to rise up against the regime once the bombing stops, but he is also insisting that the war will soon wrap up.

“The likelihood of success in toppling the regime is slim, and by taking kinetic action, you’re pushing the Iranians to cross the Rubicon on the nuclear file,” Citrinowicz said in an interview this week with The Times of Israel.

“This is what I’m afraid of — that this war will not prevent Iran from getting a bomb, but actually accelerate its plans to do so,” he added.

In the lengthy interview, Citrinowicz explained why each side’s misunderstanding of the other doomed the nuclear talks to fail. He also stressed the importance and difficulty of recovering Iran’s stockpiles of highly enriched uranium now that the war is being waged.

The former IDF analyst cautioned against assumptions that Trump will be able to unilaterally declare victory to end the conflict, while suggesting that further military achievement will not translate to an improvement in Israel’s strategic position in the region.

‘Dialogue of the deaf’

Citrinowicz characterized the February negotiations that preceded the war as a “dialogue of the deaf,” with the US convinced that Iran would capitulate completely if pressured enough.

While Iran, in the talks, continued to insist on maintaining the right to enrich uranium, mediating Omani Foreign Minister Badr al-Busaidi said Tehran had agreed not to stockpile the uranium it was enriching.

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“That was an important development because it meant that Iran was only seeking to maintain its enrichment project as a means of saving face,” maintained Citrinowicz, who is currently a senior fellow at the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies.

“If you wanted to prevent Iran from building a bomb, and that is really what the Iranians have offered, then this kind of an agreement wasn’t a bad option,” he said, noting that it would also include an inspections regime, so nothing would have come down to simply trusting the Islamic Republic.

“The problem is that an agreement prevents the Iranians from reaching a bomb, but strengthens the regime, while [a military strike] weakens the regime, but strengthens its [resolve] to reach a bomb,” Citrinowicz said, suggesting that the US effectively chose the latter option.

Asked if a way could be found around that dilemma, the INSS scholar acknowledged the difficulty in doing so when trust between the sides is so low.

An agreement prevents Iranians from reaching a bomb, but strengthens the regime,” Citrinowicz said. A strike “weakens the regime, but strengthens its [resolve] to reach a bomb.

An agreement prevents Iranians from reaching a bomb, but strengthens the regime,” Citrinowicz said. A strike “weakens the regime, but strengthens its [resolve] to reach a bomb.

“In the Iranian view, they agreed to negotiate twice, and both times the US and Israel attacked. So I don’t think we’ll see the Omani-mediated process being discussed anytime soon,” Citrinowicz said, referring to the 2025 US-Iranian talks that preceded the war in June.

‘Victory’ requires seizing highly enriched uranium

Citrinowicz speculated that Netanyahu will declare victory regardless of the outcome, recalling the premier’s claim after the 12-Day War just nine months ago that the blows struck to Iran’s missile and nuclear programs would “abide for generations.”

“We now understand that there may have been achievements, but definitely not strategic ones,” argued Citrinowicz.

“If the war ends tomorrow, we will again have operational achievements to point to, but they will be eroded in the future because this regime — if it remains, and I assume it will, unfortunately — will rebuild its nuclear capacities,” he said.

But even the operational achievements would be limited, he cautioned, if they do not include the recovery of the 440 kilograms of highly enriched uranium that Iran is believed to be storing deep underground at the Isfahan site.

“If the war is about preventing Iran from building a bomb and that 440 kilograms isn’t seized, then you definitely cannot speak of strategic gains,” Citrinowicz said, given that Tehran would still be left in control of uranium that has undergone most of the work needed to reach weapons-grade status.

If the war is about preventing Iran from building a bomb and that 440 kilograms [of enriched uranium] isn’t seized, then you definitely cannot speak of strategic gains.

If the war is about preventing Iran from building a bomb and that 440 kilograms [of enriched uranium] isn’t seized, then you definitely cannot speak of strategic gains.

The US and Israel have an undeniable military advantage over Iran, but recovering that uranium will take more than a small team of skilled commandos. A massive unit would likely be needed to first conquer the area surrounding the nuclear site to give American or Israeli soldiers time to reach the stockpile deep underground and load the steel cylinders onto a truck. Troops would have a hard time catching the Iranians off guard, given that Tehran knows that the highly enriched uranium is a target.

While Netanyahu has claimed Israel knows where the material is located, there are also reports that Iran has dispersed it to several locations.

Recovering the enriched uranium would indeed set Iran back from building a nuclear weapon, but Tehran still would be left with uranium enriched at lower levels, the know-how to enrich it further, and a potential newfound drive to rush toward a weapon, even if it takes longer to get there, Citrinowicz said.

Mojtaba is no Venezuela’s Delcy Rodriguez

The determination not to cave under US and Israeli pressure was demonstrated by the election of Khamenei’s son Mojtaba as the next supreme leader on the eighth day of the war, even after Trump warned against such a decision.

Citrinowicz maintained that Mojtaba would not have been chosen by the regime’s clerical Assembly of Experts — in an election reportedly orchestrated by Iran’s hardline Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — had his father not been killed. The elder Khamenei, Citrinowicz said, “was against” the idea of Mojtaba taking his place, “and a lot of people in the regime were against it as well.”

“Iran is not a monarchy. But when you kill [Ali] and when President Trump threatens [against picking Mojtaba], then you’re pressuring those people who want to show defiance toward the US to elect him,” he said.

Citrinowicz suggested that Israel may have been better off with the elder Khamenei still at the helm.

“[Ali] Khamenei was a fierce adversary of Israel and the US, and I’m not shedding a tear over the fact that he’s gone. But he did have his advantages,” he said, arguing that Khamenei was easier to predict and had clear red lines.

Ali Khamenei was committed to a weaponized enrichment program until 2003, when Iran agreed to halt the military track in favor of just a civilian one, amid fears of a strike by the US following its invasion of neighboring Iraq. After Trump abandoned the nuclear deal Washington signed with Tehran in 2015, Khamenei approved the acceleration of Iran’s enrichment to 60 percent purity, a level with no civilian application, while still stopping just short of weapons-grade.

“We are now getting an ‘upgraded’ version of [Ali Khamenei] — someone who is extreme, someone who wants to avenge the deaths of his family members.”

“I don’t know if Mojtaba will live to see the day after the war, and Iran will have a mountain to climb in terms of its domestic problems, regardless,” Citrinowicz said. “But [Ali] Khamenei was a balancer between the IRGC and the more moderate forces within the regime. Now we have someone who is controlled by the IRGC, and I think that will manifest in Iran’s nuclear strategy moving forward.”

Citrinowicz rejected the idea that Iran would respond to the ongoing war by deciding to forgo its nuclear program completely. “The regime would see that as a capitulation and a betrayal of its legacy and of everything that Khamenei led in Iran.”

While Israel or the US could well kill Mojtaba as they did his father, doing so would likely be more difficult in the middle of a war, with the new supreme leader yet to show his face.

Regardless, Trump should not expect developments in Iran to unfold as they did in Venezuela, Citrinowicz noted.

“There is no Delcy Rodriguez in Iran,” he said, referring to the Venezuelan vice president who has agreed to work with the Trump administration after the US captured her country’s leader Nicolás Maduro. “With this [Iranian] regime, working with the US gets you shot, especially after the killing of Khamenei.”

This is why ending the war will be so problematic, he went on, as there is no way to ensure the current Iranian regime won’t return to enriching uranium.

“You can threaten to come back and bomb them again if necessary, but you’ll have to bring the aircraft carriers back, and it’s unclear whether you’d have the same willingness from both countries to act again,” Citrinowicz argued. “So Iran will wait for a certain number of months, pull out their uranium and begin enriching again.”

Is Israel actually interested in regime change?

It is likely these issues that have led Israel to conclude that the only solution is to topple the regime entirely, but Citrinowicz expressed heavy skepticism that doing so is possible.

It would require the Iranian people to return to the streets, knowing that those who did so before them were mowed down in their tens of thousands during the weeks leading up to the war. Even if the protesters do come out after the bombing stops, “the regime will still be in the fight for its life. [Iranian forces will be] obligated to Mojtaba and will be very violent toward anyone who takes to the streets,” Citrinowicz asserted.

And while there is widespread domestic opposition to the regime, it is unclear whether those dissidents would be willing to follow the orders of the countries currently attacking Iran, telling them that the time has come for them to oust the Islamic Republic from within.

Citrinowicz contended that Israel would have been better served by allowing “nature to take its course,” arguing that another wave of protests would have eventually gathered force since the regime remains fundamentally incapable of providing for its citizens.

He also called into question whether Israel is genuinely committed to bringing down the Islamic Republic, as opposed to less drastically removing the current iteration of the regime, arguing that if it were, it would not have targeted Iran’s fuel facilities in Tehran, inflicting harm that extends beyond the ruling elite.

“For Netanyahu, the main issue is preventing Iran from being a strategic threat to the state of Israel, and if, to achieve that, you need to have chaos or civil war in Iran, so be it. He sees anything as better than the current [version of the] regime,” Citrinowicz maintained. “Netanyahu is not planning on continuing the war until [the son of Iran’s last shah Reza] Pahlavi has been installed to take care of the Iranian people.”

For Netanyahu, the main issue is preventing Iran from being a strategic threat to the state of Israel, and if, in order to achieve that, you need to have chaos or civil war in Iran, so be it.

For Netanyahu, the main issue is preventing Iran from being a strategic threat to the state of Israel, and if, in order to achieve that, you need to have chaos or civil war in Iran, so be it.

Who gets the last word?

Citrinowicz acknowledged that it is difficult to predict how the war will unfold, but he said the most likely scenario — absent another dramatic development — would be for Trump to try and unilaterally declare victory.

But while the US would be able to say it significantly degraded Iran’s nuclear and missile capacity, that’s not the same as irreversibly destroying those two programs.

“You can’t really call this a war of winners,” Citrinowicz maintained.

The Iran expert also expressed significant skepticism that Tehran and its proxies would immediately agree to a ceasefire, as they did when Trump declared one nine months ago.

“The Iranians understand that nothing good comes out of a unilateral ceasefire. That’s what they had in June. They want different conditions: [They’ll seek] a non-aggression pact or [warn otherwise that] they’ll continue firing, or that their proxies will continue launching missiles, or that they can carry out terror attacks,” Citrinowicz said.

“It’s not that the Iranians want an endless war. But they want to create a new reality that will prevent Israel and the US from attacking them every eight months,” he clarified.

“We should think long and hard about whether we can mow the lawn in Iran every few months, given all the prices we are paying. Maybe it’s time to think about a different solution, and not only the kinetic one,” Citrinowicz argued.

Asked whether that makes him a pacifist, he responded, “Go and topple the regime. I’m in favor of the idea [in theory]. It would be a positive earthquake for the region.”

“It won’t solve Israel’s problems in terms of the Palestinian issue or normalization with its neighbors, but it would definitely allow the region to prosper. I just don’t think the chances for success are very high,” Citrinowicz explained.

“Changing the regime takes time. We can find someone from the opposition, we can arm the opposition, we can do many things, but I’m not sure they will help in the foreseeable future,” he said. “We came to this war with no strategic plan whatsoever.”

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