Thanks for your insightful questions. I'll try to answer them.
- Support in Iran for regime change. This is a difficult one to answer. There are 3 metrics I look at:
a) there were very large numbers of protestors earlier this year;
b) Mossad & IDF has a huge amount of help from Iranians inside Iran both over the years and especially now with information being called in that is allowing almost real time hits on regime figures & thugs; and
c) the Iranian diaspora is very supportive of regime change & installation of Pavli (although this is a self selecting sample).
There is certainly substantial support. Whether it is majority or even needs to be is unknown. Plenty of revolutions are carried out by only a small minority of people. Most are passive.
2 & 3) Iran was a fairly free country before 1979. It is not some Arab dictatorship. The Persian People have a 3000 year old history (& close relationship with the Jewish People). Put simply and a bit crudely, the Iranians are smart, civilised and sophisticated people, quite unlike what the US was mostly dealing with in Iraq & Afghanistan (stupid, ignorant, inbred tribalist goat-fuckers).
Also, the US has been very clear that this is not a "nation building" exercise. This is about breaking things & taking out the bad guys until someone half decent arises.
A land invasion would be "to enter Tehran, overthrow the Islamist regime and install a friendly regime and then leave."
No democracy or nation building. Just making sure the bad guys are dead and someone rational (not a crazy Twelver Shia Islamist) takes charge.
Thank you for your in-depth response. I have one remaining clarifying question, after reading this:
Being very familiar with the Book of Esther and the Jewish celebration of Purim, I have no question of this statement historically. However ... The arrival of one man (amazing how many times in history a single individual dramatically changes it), Mohammad, presumably permanently altered that.
Is it the position of the Jewish people that even after Islam began to spread the Persian people still had a close relationship with them? Perhaps, as a related question, which branch of the Islamic faithful do they believe are more accepting / accommodating of the Jewish people - the Sunni or the Shia branch?
Israel had a close relationship with Iran before 1979.
While the Book of Esther is one source of historical closeness, the more important one is Cyrus The Great allowing Jews who had been exiled to Babylon (which had been conquered by Persia) to return and rebuild the Temple.
This is considered a historical debt which Israel is repaying today destroying the terrorist Islamic regime that has enslaved the Iranian People.
Bibi has spoken of this directly many times, in Hebrew and Farsi and it is taken seriously by most Israelis.
Very good. Thank you for this enlightening response. I am familiar with the additional history cited.
I hope, for the sake of Israel, that there are a sufficient number of Iranians alive today who are also well aware of it. Sufficient in number to make the decisive difference, when their opportunity comes.