Following Friday’s spectacular opening act in Israel’s “Rising Lion” operation against Iran’s eliminationist weapons, will Israel and America push the Islamic Republic to collapse under its own weight?

“Certain Iranian hardliners spoke bravely, but they didn’t know what was about to happen. They are all DEAD now, and it will only get worse!” President Trump wrote on Truth Social early Friday. “Iran must make a deal, before there is nothing left, and save what was once known as the Iranian Empire.”

While he never explicitly said so, Mr. Trump’s reference to Persia’s past glory could be interpreted by some as a prompt for opponents of the “hardliners” to rebel against the leadership of the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. Regime change could resolve some of the Mideast’s thorniest problems.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke directly Friday to the Iranian people about the possibility of ending the ayatollahs’ rule.

“As we achieve our objectives, we’re also clearing the path for you to achieve your objective, which is freedom,” Mr. Netanyahu said.

“The nation of Iran and the nation of Israel have been true friends since the days of Cyrus the Great, and the time has come for you to unite around your flag and your historic legacy by standing up for your freedom from an evil and oppressive regime, it has never been weaker,” the prime minister added.

Michael Oren, the former Israeli ambassador to Washington, said he couldn’t see how the Iranian regime could survive the current assault.

“They have proven to be not just a paper tiger, but a tissue tiger, and they have plenty of opposition within the country,” he said. “It’s a despised regime by a large part of the Iranian population.” 

In a separate interview, Oren added, “Trump could get the Nobel Prize if he makes peace with Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and, even eventually, Iran.”

For now, the Tehran leadership, or what is left of it after Israel eliminated key military commanders, is threatening a major retaliation. “Israel will regret its foolish act,” the Iranian president, Massoud Pezeshkian, said Friday. 

As of this writing Iran had launched more than 100 slow-moving killer drones at Israel. Most were intercepted and none had caused damage. Yet, Israeli officials are urging citizens to stay as close as possible to sheltered rooms, and stress they anticipate a barrage of cruise and ballistic missiles. 

“If Iran gets nuclear weapons, we simply will not be here,” Mr. Netanyahu said Friday in explaining the preemptive strike’s timing. Beyond atomic weapons, he added, Iran has expedited the pace of its missile production, so it could manufacture 300 ballistic missiles a month. “In three years they’ll have 10,000 missiles, and in six years 20,000 — each one with a one-ton payload,” he said. That is “a bus full of explosives that could hit Israeli cities, which is an existential threat.”  

Key military planners were killed in precision hits during the first hour of “Rising Lion.” One top mission for the more than 200 Israel Defense Force jets involved was striking a large number of Iranian missile launching sites. Israeli officials, though, are making clear that the Iranian arsenal is far from eliminated. 

Yet, a rising star in the Iranian war machine, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ aerospace commander, Amir Ali Hajizadeh, was killed Friday morning, the IDF confirms. Hajizadeh was the chief planner of the country’s missile and drone operations. His absence could explain Iran’s inability to retaliate immediately.

While Israel detractors rush to condemn the targeted killings, opponents of the Iranian regime seem to be rejoicing over the demise of leaders with a history of hangings, torture, and imprisonment of protesters. 

“I’ve received countless messages from Iranians celebrating the reported death” of Hajizadeh and other key regime leaders, a New York-based Iranian American journalist and activist with a large following in her homeland, Masih Alinejad, writes on X. 

These men “were sanctioned by Canada, the U.S. and EU for their key role in crushing the peaceful protests and for human rights violations against peaceful civilians,” Ms. Alinejad writes. “Removing a terrorist is not a tragedy, it is a step toward justice for all the innocent lives they destroyed.”

Another anti-regime leader, Reza Pahlavi, the son of the late Shah, was calling on Iranians to use the opportunity to overthrow the regime. “In their reckless pursuit of nuclear weapons, Ali Khamenei and his incompetent and criminal thugs have dragged Iran into a war and put the Iranian people in harm’s way,” he writes. “But the regime is weak and divided. It could fall. As I have told my compatriots: Iran is yours and yours to reclaim.”

Rising Lion is a translation of the Hebrew “Am Ke-lavi,” or “a people like a lion.” While it refers to a biblical prophecy, the lion was a key feature of the Persian flag before the 1980 Islamist revolution. Perhaps the IDF is hinting that beyond removing the Islamic Republic’s existential threats, one of its goals is to end the regime itself.