Before the start of the war against Iran in Washington and Jerusalem, as reported on March 22, 2026, by The New York Times, there was a calculation not only for military pressure but also for a quick internal collapse of the regime. It was assumed that strikes on the top of the system, intelligence operations, and destabilization of the repressive apparatus could push Iranian society to revolt. Three weeks later, it became clear: this scenario did not work, and the war took a heavier and more dangerous trajectory.
What exactly was the bet before the war
According to The New York Times, the head of Mossad, David Barnea, presented Benjamin Netanyahu with a scenario before the war, in which Israeli intelligence could activate the Iranian opposition, push protests, and create conditions for the regime’s fall in the first days after the strikes began. Later, Barnea conveyed this idea to representatives of Donald Trump’s administration in Washington. The Times of Israel, recounting the NYT publication, writes that Netanyahu used these assessments as one of the arguments in his conversation with Trump about the realism of the scenario of regime change in Tehran.
In the logic of this plan, everything looked tempting. A quick decapitation of the regime, weakening of the power structures, a series of pinpoint operations — and then an internal explosion that would shorten the war and spare Israel and the US from entering a much longer and more expensive conflict. That is why the theme of “uprising” was not a side fantasy but part of the overall optimism of the first weeks.
But even then, there were doubts within the American system and part of the Israeli military community. According to NYT retellings, American officials and AMAN military intelligence analysts were initially skeptical of the idea of a mass uprising under bombardment. Their argument was simple and harsh: people who can be shot by security forces do not take to the streets just because the country is being bombed.
Why this idea seemed politically convenient
For Jerusalem and Washington, such a scenario looked almost ideal. It allowed hope that the war would not only be a military campaign but also an accelerator of the internal collapse of the Islamic Republic. And that means the cost of the conflict for allies, markets, and the region could be lower than with a protracted escalation.
This is where the main nerve of this story lies. If you believe the NYT publication, it was not just about hoping for “if we’re lucky.” The bet on an internal explosion was built into the political explanation of the war. And when it didn’t work, it became clear that the conflict had entered a worse phase: the regime was weakened but not broken; the street was intimidated; retaliatory strikes continued.
Why the uprising did not happen
Three weeks after the start of the war, a large-scale rebellion in Iran did not occur. As NYT and other publications recount, both American and Israeli assessments ultimately agreed on one thing: the regime lost some capabilities but retained control, and the fear of the army, police, and security apparatus remained too strong. Donald Trump himself admitted on March 12 on Fox News Radio that Iranian security forces “shoot people with machine guns” if they try to protest, calling it a serious obstacle for the unarmed population.
This was likely the key miscalculation. An external strike does not necessarily turn into an internal revolution. Sometimes the opposite happens: the regime, instead of collapsing, consolidates on fear, repression, and the image of an external siege. According to Reuters reports, this is exactly what happened: the war entered its fourth week, Iran did not abandon escalation, continued to threaten regional infrastructure, and bet on blackmail through the Strait of Hormuz and energy.
A separate detail from this story is the Kurdish factor. According to NYT, one of the discussed options involved the possible advance of Iranian Kurdish formations from northern Iraq. But Washington later cooled to this idea, and Trump publicly stated on March 7 that he did not want the Kurds to enter Iran. This was another sign that there was no full agreement within the American-Israeli alliance on what exactly the “ground component” of pressure on the regime should look like.
The mistake was not only intelligence but also political
If you put it all together, it wasn’t just one Mossad forecast that failed. A broader idea failed, that the combination of strikes from above and covert pushing from below would quickly collapse the system. In the conditions of Iran, this looked too straightforward.
People can hate the regime and still not take to the streets. They can wait for its weakening and at the same time not want to die under bullets or find themselves between the repressive machine and war. In this sense, the conclusion that follows from the story is unpleasant but important for the Israeli audience: the weakness of the regime and the readiness of society for an uprising are not the same thing.
For readers of NAnews — Israel News | Nikk.Agency, there is a fundamental point here. In Israel today, it is natural to want to see the weakening of Tehran as a chance for a strategic breakthrough. But the NYT publication reminds us: hope for an internal uprising cannot replace sober calculation. If the strategy is partly based on the idea that Iranians themselves will bring the process to the regime’s fall, and this does not happen, the cost of the mistake quickly becomes regional.
What this changes for Israel now
First of all, the horizon of the war. If the quick internal collapse of Iran did not happen, then the illusion of a short campaign with a politically convenient finale disappears. And in its place appears a heavier reality: strikes on infrastructure, retaliatory attacks on Israel, the risk of expanding the conflict to Gulf countries, and constant pressure through Hormuz. Reuters and AP over the past two days describe exactly this picture: Trump threatens to destroy Iranian power plants, Tehran promises to block Hormuz and hit US and allied energy facilities, and the war is already directly affecting prices, transportation, and the security of the entire region.
Secondly, the question of political goals changes. When the bet on an uprising does not work, the old and uncomfortable choice remains: either go into a longer campaign of attrition or find a new formula of pressure without turning the war into an endless exchange of blows. That is why Netanyahu’s words that “revolutions are not made from the air” and that a ground component is needed sound not like an abstract theory but as a signal of the search for the next stage. This was written about in NYT retellings and Israeli media.
And finally, there is a third level — trust in assessments. If before the war an optimistic scenario was presented as realistic, and then it quickly became clear that the regime does not fall and the street does not rise, then inevitably the question arises not only about intelligence data but also about how the political leadership chose what to believe. This is a painful topic for any country at war. Especially for Israel, which has already paid too dearly for mistakes in assessing the intentions of the enemy and the strength of systems around it.
Final conclusion
The story that The New York Times writes about is important not as a backstage drama between Mossad, the White House, and Netanyahu’s cabinet. It is important because it shows: in this war, one of the key bets was not only on bombs, missiles, and special operations but also on the psychological collapse of the regime from within. And this bet has not yet played out.
For Israel, this means one thing: it will have to rely not on a beautiful scenario of Tehran’s quick collapse, but on a much heavier and longer reality. And in such a reality, the price of self-deception is always higher than the price of unpleasant truth.