Israel needs to worry about its interests and not get involved in internal Iranian affairs.
There is definitely a very strong movement on social media to promote the son of the late Shah. There are many who take it for granted that should the mullahs’ thugocracy collapse, then the son of the last leader of Iran whose name did not start with a "K" should return to take the reins of leadership. There are a couple of issues that need to be clarified in regards to what happens the day after, should the Islamic regime actually collapse in light of Israel’s massive bombing spree.
Let’s start with a look at the late Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. He was installed during World War II via an Anglo-Soviet invasion to remove his father. Pahlavi ruled with an iron fist, and his secret police, the Savak, was feared by Iranians through and through. One of the reasons Ayatollah Komeini could make inroads in Iran was the dissatisfaction of many Iranians with the Shah’s iron-fisted rule. Communists, businessmen and others coalesced around Khomeini, who then turned on them after the Shah fled. Khomeini came to power, and we have suffered forty-six years of Islamic terrorism from Iran and its many satellite terror organizations.
I have no idea how Pahlavi, Jr. would rule. I also have no idea what the Iranian people actually want. I assume that there is a majority that wants to get rid of the Islamic government, based on previous election results and the violent government response to protests over outcomes. But do they want to return to the rule of the Shah’s family? Maybe the Shah’s son could be a transitional figure, providing some level of stability and legitimacy after the present leadership is fully killed or flees the country. But in the end, the Iranian people need to set up political parties and vote for whom they want. Maybe they won’t want relations with Israel, however much the present political earthquake is a direct outcome of Israel’s relentless attacks on Iran’s nuclear and military sites. The U.S.-backed Iraqi government post-Saddam wrote off any relations with the Jewish state though the U.S. brought it into being.
Israel should focus on its goals of removing any nuclear, missile, and terror threat from Iran and its associates. As we have seen in Iraq and elsewhere, regime change often comes with mixed to terrible results. Israel would ostensibly benefit from the end of the Islamic republic, but only the Iranian people can muster the will and force a decisive change in government. Israel can certainly help by weakening the present rulers, but the Iranian people have to decide that the risks of rising up and fighting the army and Revolutionary Guard are worth the potential outcome of victory and freedom. Syrians had to face Assad’s army in order to remove the dictator and neuter his rule. Israel cannot do Iranians’ work.
The U.S. has been in the regime change business for over a century. Throwing out a leader and installing another oftentimes was for business concerns, like in the “banana republics.” At other times, the focus has been political or military. The U.S. pulled out all stops for Italy’s first post-war elections to make sure that the communists would not win. I remember seeing a woman weeping as she recounted how the Pope—who was recruited by the U.S. for the fight—forbade any communist from wearing white for her wedding. Regime change is not new, but the results have been mixed.
In our household, we have a rule: you can’t want something for somebody more than he wants it himself. For a long time my wife wanted a close friend to marry. The latter was not so interested, and as such, there was no way to get her to make an effort beyond her tepid interest. I imagine that the Iranian people want change, that they want freedoms denied them for so many years. They are the ones who have to go out and get them. The US, Israel and others can certainly supply weapons and support—but the fighting and effort needs to come from the locals. The problems we have in Ukraine come in part from Victoria Nuland’s $5 billion rent-a-riots and the installation of a government not of the people.
One of the biggest challenges of the American foreign affairs apparatus is that the U.S. was never a colonial power. The Brits, having conquered and lived in India, the Middle east, and elsewhere, began to learn the ways of the locals. Colonial governments worked directly with the people and could begin to understand how they think, what they eat, and what their values were. The Americans were never like the European powers and as such oftentimes are clueless as to the ways of other people. They believed Yasir Arafat when he signed the Oslo Accords, though all of the information coming from the field showed that he planned to continue his terror attacks against Israelis. We often do not understand the locals and when trying to play kingmaker, we simply blow it. There are factions in Iran and we don’t understand their balance or their ability to work together. Only the Iranians can figure out their future, though Israel, the U.S. and the West should be at the ready to help with finances, logistics, and the like. But don’t choose winners and don’t force a leader on the people. They have to make choices and live with them.
Many here in Israel remember the glory days of strong relations between Israel and Iran. There's a joke that for 46 years there have been no flights to Iran and now all of the planes only go to Iran. I was once on a flight with an Iranian Jew living in New York. He told me that he had been a teenage heartthrob in the 1970s and like so many others fled to save his life. Jews in Iran had a beautiful life and Israel with the Shah had deep economic and military relations. Those days are long gone. If a new government comes into being, it may officially not want relations with Israel. That’s okay. The goal has to be like with Syria: get the new leadership out of the anti-Israel/anti-Jewish terror business. Hezbollah losing land routes through Syria for Iranian weapons was an enormous loss for them. If a new Iranian government stops funding Islamic terror networks, they will dry up. The world can then focus its attention on Qatar and ending its global support for branches of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose activities have harmed Western governments and universities.
Iran is definitely getting a good whacking by Israel’s air force and the Mossad. The death of so many top figures and the routing of the armed forces may precipitate regime change. That would be amazing. But let the Iranians choose whom they want and set up a government that reflects their will. Sure, we want Iran on our side and not a satellite of Russia or China. Fine. But let the people express their will and then offer support and friendship. Don’t install the Shah’s son unless the people explicitly want him.