[Salon] Why everything Israelis think they know about Iran is wrong

The fantasy that an Iranian opposition will seize this moment to overthrow the regime and free the country from the Ayatollahs’ grip is also gaining traction in Israeli public discourse, as can be heard in nearly every TV panel discussion. But for Professor Lior Sternfeld, who teaches the modern history of Iran at Penn State University, this is a complete delusion, resting on the distorted Israeli perception of the political relevance of the Iranian opposition in the diaspora.

“In Israel, the voices being amplified are those of Reza Pahlavi [the exiled Iranian crown prince] and his supporters — people with no real credibility or influence inside Iran,” he told +972 Magazine in an interview. “In the past 10 years, a lot of money has been invested in building up his image, and suddenly he’s gone from being seen as a sixty-something slacker to a crown prince with a whole kingdom behind him.

“This is a reality that exists only in ‘Tehrangeles’ [a nickname for parts of Los Angeles with a large Iranian exile community] and in the margins of the current U.S. administration,” Sternfeld added. “And it’s the only one Israelis are hearing.”

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Members of the Iranian jewish community demonstrate in support of the uprising in Iran sparked by rising fuel costs, in Holon, Israel, November 20, 2019. (Flash90)

The crown prince’s April 2023 visit to Israel — as a guest of the Intelligence Ministry, no less — did not exactly paint him as an Iranian patriot.

Exactly. It was immediately clear to me that he was trying to gain the support of Israel and the United States, not of the Iranian people. In this context, it’s worth mentioning his wife’s recent nasty post [with graffiti in English reading: “Hit them, Israel. Iranians are behind you”].

I think the official Israeli narrative with regard to Iran was summed up by [right-wing Israeli academic] Mordechai Kedar, who asserted that Iran is a fragile coalition of tribes waiting to fall apart. But anyone with even a basic knowledge of Iranian history knows that this is nonsense. There are Kurdish and Baluchi underground movements, but do they represent a broader sentiment? Absolutely not.

This type of wishful thinking is dominant among the Iranian diaspora that is still haunted by the 1979 revolution. Just as the revolution supposedly came from outside in the form of Khomeini [returning from exile], now the counter-revolution is imagined to arrive from the outside in the form of Pahlavi.

Reza Pahlavi, founder and leader of the self-styled National Council of Iran, an exiled opposition group, and then-Israeli Intelligence Gila Gamliel, at an event in Ramat Gan, April 19, 2023. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

But while there are undoubtedly people in Iran who are happy to see the [Israeli] attacks, and regime officials being exposed, in reality, this position has no foothold in the population. Just look at Iranian opposition figures who were tortured by the regime, who sat in Evin prison, and are now speaking out, saying: “We are against this attack, our country is under assault.” These are people who hate the mullahs, but right now, the enemy is Israel.

Moreover, there is currently no organized opposition in Iran capable of taking on power centers in a way that wouldn’t lead to total chaos — something I believe Iranians wish to avoid at all costs. The regime has a solid support base far beyond its security apparatus.

The Israeli attack tapped into Iran’s deepest political traumas — namely, Western attempts to overthrow its regime. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve seen the name Mossadegh [Iran’s prime minister overthrown in 1953 in a coup orchestrated by the UK and the United States] mentioned in Iranian media over the past few days.

There have also been constant references to the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. People are saying, ‘We will not be Iraq!’ — a country that sank into civil war and ultimately gave rise to ISIS. For Iranians, there’s a kind of hierarchy of tragedies. Even if they think the Islamic Republic is bad, it’s still better than ISIS.

Israeli Home Front command forces at the scene where a ballistic missile fired from Iran hit and caused damage in Bat Yam, south of Tel Aviv, June 15, 2025. (Oren Ziv)

This brings to mind the beginning of the Iran-Iraq War, which broke out right after the major political purges that followed the revolution, when all the pilots who had been imprisoned by the new regime were released and reported for duty to fight against Iraq. They fought for the country, not for the regime.

At the start of the Iran-Iraq War, one of the key factors that helped consolidate the Islamic Republic was that all the opposition organizations essentially dissolved themselves. That’s what allowed the Khomeinist faction to come out on top. But once the war began, the opposition, led by the Tudeh [the Iranian Communist Party], announced they were ceasing operations, because now the homeland had to be defended.

Back then, one of Saddam Hussein’s explicit goals was to overthrow the Iranian regime. He said so openly. And even then, they used the exact same language we’re hearing today from the Israeli leadership: “The Iranian regime is weak, it will collapse in two weeks.”

Still, Israel’s attack clearly cast the Iranian regime in a poor light. The fact that the Mossad was able to penetrate so deeply into Iran’s most sensitive sites, to establish a drone base inside the country, to assassinate scientists — alongside images of crowds fleeing Tehran like we haven’t seen since the Iran-Iraq War — doesn’t all of this suggest a deeper instability within the regime?

I don’t know how many people in Iran were genuinely shocked by that. For most, it just reinforced their existing criticisms of the regime; that the Mossad could penetrate the country in such a fashion is proof that there are corrupt collaborators within the regime. I’ve seen Iranians writing: “What nerve the regime has to allow Iran to reach a point where we are so vulnerable.”

Could this catastrophic failure lead to the regime’s fall? Maybe. The conditions are there, but it has to be organic, from within. The critical question is: What could replace it? And right now, that remains very unclear. At this moment, all energy is focused on resisting Israel’s attack.

In your analysis of Iran, your basic assumption has always been that it’s a rational regime. We also saw the recent statement by Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who said that Iran doesn’t want to escalate, and if Israel stops its attacks, Iran will, too. Would it be fair to say that right now, the regime’s need to rehabilitate its image — especially in the eyes of the Iranian public — might outweigh its desire to maintain a measured policy toward the world?

Last April, when Iran launched drone strikes on Israel, it acted with restraint. Yet almost nobody in the media pointed out that Iran went to considerable lengths to warn of the attack and coordinate its timing. When it interpreted the Israeli attack as targeting military and IRGC facilities, its response was similarly directed at Israeli military sites.

Israeli anti-missile system fires interception missiles as drones and missiles fired from Iran, over the West Bank city of Hebron, April 14, 2024. (Wisam Hashlamoun/Flash90)

But we’re not in that place anymore. This time, Iran’s sense of security, and its pride, has been shaken. Once Israel began striking deep inside Tehran, in residential areas, we started seeing Iran also targeting population centers.

Israel’s defense capabilities are still far superior, and Iran understands this. But Iran also has more patience, and it’s still signalling a willingness to de-escalate, which is more than can be said of Israel.

What we’re seeing now is an attempt by Tehran to send a message to the region: that it will no longer play the role of the side that absorbs blows without retaliation. Unlike after the attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, or on its military bases in Isfahan, when there was no public demand to respond, this time, Iranians are actually demanding action. Their message to the regime is: “Show us you’re worth something. Defend the homeland.”

Will this carry a diplomatic price, for example with regard to the nuclear deal, which is so important to Iran?

The nuclear deal is very important to Iran, but right now Iran feels betrayed by the United States. It’s important to note that many members of Iran’s nuclear negotiation team have been assassinated [during Israel’s most recent attack]. This led to conspiracy theories accusing the United States of orchestrating a set-up.

Even before former President Rouhani was given approval by the Supreme Leader in 2013 to begin negotiations over a nuclear deal, Khamenei said that an agreement with the Americans would be worthless, because the West doesn’t know how to keep its word. In the end, he was proven right.

Ali Khamenei and head officials of the Government of Iran, Dec. 29, 2015 (Official website of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei/via Wikimedia)

Later, when President Raisi restarted negotiations in the summer of 2023 with the United States over unfreezing assets, prisoner swaps, and more, Khamenei said, “Go ahead — but you’ll see there’s no point in dealing with the West.” And again, he was proven right.

And this was also the case with the current president, Pezeshkian. He was again elected despite Khamenei and the establishment’s wishes, and Khamenei gave him approval to start negotiations — and once more, he ended up being right. So while the reality of 2023 is not the same as in 2025, somehow, Khamenei always ends up being correct.

So given all this, would Iran even be interested in returning to nuclear negotiations? In the long run, I think Pezeshkian and Araghchi will make an effort to resume talks. But for now, it’s doubtful the Iranian public would support such a move without serious confidence-building measures from the other side. And frankly, it’s unclear whether a Trump administration would even be capable of taking those steps.

We’re entering territory that I don’t feel so confident in. We may be dependent on the goodwill of [Russian President] Putin and [Chinese President] Xi in their role as mediators. And who knows where that could lead.

Do you believe there has been a fundamental shift in Iran’s position, from preferring to be a nuclear-threshold state to becoming a full nuclear power?

Intuitively, I would say yes. Iran has always claimed that its [nuclear project] is for defensive purposes. Now it’s gotten its proof that it needs that defense.

Iranian missiles on display in front of the National Museum of the Islamic Revolution and Holy Defense in Tehran, May 31, 2024. (Creative Commons)

And here, again, I want to distinguish between Iran and the regime: the regime sees that the only way to ensure its survival is to become fully and openly nuclear. This is part of a discourse that’s been ongoing in Iran for 20 years, according to which if Saddam Hussein had had nuclear weapons, the United States wouldn’t have actually invaded Iraq in 2003. So in that sense, going nuclear is the way to guarantee the regime’s survival.

There’s a very narrow window of opportunity now to return to intensive negotiations toward a nuclear deal, contingent on confidence-building measures, in order to keep Iran as a nuclear-threshold state. But if Iran now decides to break out and go fully nuclear, who wouldn’t be able to understand the logic behind that decision? After all, it was attacked — in Tehran, in Isfahan, in Natanz — by an [alleged] nuclear power.

In September last year, you took part in a much-discussed meeting with President Pezeshkian. If you met him today, what would you say to him?

That’s an excellent question, and I don’t have an answer to it. I can say that today, as then, I’m convinced that a different Middle East is within reach. And I’m still convinced that there will not be, in the foreseeable future, a more suitable government to make that transition than Pezeshkian’s.

It’s important to note that there are elections coming up soon in Iran. When the Iranian public feels disappointed with reformist presidents, they tend to stay home. That’s how [hardline former President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad was elected; after eight years of [the reformist Mohammad] Khatami, all they ended up with was more sanctions. But when people have a genuine sense of hope that things can be different, the reformists win, because they try to offer some kind of outline for a better future, even if the conditions seem impossible.

The bottom line is that Israel needs to let go of the illusion that a better future in the Middle East is possible without a final agreement with the Palestinians. If that were to happen, I’m certain we’ll be able to visit Tehran in our lifetime.

A version of this article was first published in Hebrew on Local Call. Read it here.

[Salon] Why everything Israelis think they know about Iran is wrong

Why everything Israelis think they know about Iran is wrong

For Lior Sternfeld, a historian of modern Iran, Israel's regime change fantasies ignore realities inside the Islamic Republic and risk repeating historic mistakes.