Will Iranians revolt?

Hours after launching a devastating wave of air strikes against their country, Benjamin Netanyahu urged Iranians to "rise up" and topple the "evil and oppressive regime" in Tehran.

It is a "tall order" to foment a revolution from abroad, said Mark Almond in the Daily Mail, but the Israeli PM "can smell the air – and Iran reeks of weakness". Its 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is ailing. Its nuclear programme has been "knee-capped" by this assault, and its "Axis of Resistance" is in tatters. The result is that, for the first time since the mullahs were swept to power in the Islamic Revolution of 1979, "the collapse of Iran's tyrannical regime is a realistic prospect".

Daring to dream

The chasm between Iran's rulers and their subjects is "as great now as it was when Iranians toppled the Shah", said The Economist. On social media, some Iranians marked the assassination of their generals by sharing emojis of barbecued meat and deriding them as "enemies of the people" – a reference to their brutal suppression of the 2022 "Woman, Life, Freedom" protests. "A few people draped themselves in the Israeli flag, passing around celebratory cakes."

Israel's attacks have laid bare an "open secret" in Iran, said Rana Rahimpour in The Observer: "the lavish lifestyles" of the country's elite. Many of the assassinated commanders lived in luxurious highrise blocks in northern Tehran. For Iranians who had been told for years to tighten their belts in a sanctions-hit economy, there is a sense of poetic justice about their fate. Now, "after decades of failed protests", some of Iran's roughly 90 million people are daring to dream that regime change might actually come about.

Opposition 'bitterly divided'

Even so, Netanyahu's pleas for Iranians to revolt will "fall on deaf ears", said K. Ghorbanpour in Haaretz. Yes, the mullahs are "deeply unpopular", especially among the intelligentsia. But right now, most Iranians are focused on their own survival; few will be of a mind to cooperate with the country that is destroying their cities with air strikes.

Chances are that as civilian casualties mount, Iranians will "rally around the flag", said Adrian Blomfield in The Daily Telegraph. But even if the public did rise up, Iran's opposition is "bitterly divided", and there is no obvious figure to unite behind. Meanwhile, for the mullahs, holding onto power is a life and death matter, said Michael Day in The Independent. Many are "hanging judges" who've condemned dissidents to death in kangaroo courts. Regime change "could see them hanging from lampposts".

The regime has powerful cheerleaders abroad, said Roger Boyes in The Times. But Russia and China might yet turn on Khamenei. They've backed him thus far, but they may also be alarmed by the idea of his regime becoming a nuclear power.

We have to hope that the Israelis have thought about what might follow regime change, said Nahal Toosi on Politico. As the West learnt with Iraq, leaderless failed states can become fertile breeding grounds "for all sorts of new problems".