(Jewish Policy Center) Dr. Dan Diker and Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser interviewed by Shoshana Bryen - Kuperwasser: The Iranian regime's perception of itself and also the perception of the Iranian people of their regime is in shambles because it was proven that it cannot cause the kind of damage to Israel it proclaimed it could. It cannot defend itself and cannot defend its most strategic assets, including the nuclear program. It was further proven that the Ring of Fire [of Iranian proxy forces] that it has built around Israel is falling apart. It was not built well enough to withstand the Israeli reaction to an attack by one of the members - Hamas. And its economic situation is terrible, and Donald Trump is coming, and "maximum pressure" is going to be imposed again. And the people of Iran can't stand the regime anymore anyhow because of the economic difficulties which mostly have to do with the corruption and the ineffectiveness of the regime. Diker: Israel has always maintained very strong relations with various leaders within the 88 million Iranians, 90% of whom have rejected the regime since the early to mid-1980s. Now is an ideal time because many of the tentacles of the Iranian octopus have been cut off. It leaves a great opportunity for the Iranian people, and they know the Israeli people are aligned in support of the need to change the regime. The challenge is to get the Americans on board. The major frustration of the Iranian opposition is that American governments all have done more to stabilize the regime than they have to destabilize the regime. Oct. 7 proved beyond any shadow of a doubt that the conflict we face is religiously and ideologically driven. This is not a territorial conflict. We are not witnessing a conflict over borders and territory. We are really facing jihad; we are facing Holy War, as Iran has reminded us time and again since 1979. There's really very little difference strategically between the commitment of the PLO and its Hamas opponents to rid the Middle East of Israel. Kuperwasser: The people in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza learn about hating Israel every day. These are people highly motivated to execute terrible attacks against the Jews. Look at the famous phone call that the guy from Hamas made to his parents on Oct. 7, how he boasts about killing the Jews. He thinks he did an excellent, very admirable deed. These are the people we live next to. We Israelis learned the lesson. We are not going to go back - we are going to change the situation in Gaza. We're going to change the situation in Lebanon, and we are going to change our security doctrine. We are going to have many more soldiers deployed along the border in order to face any eventuality. Dr. Dan Diker is President of the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs. Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, former head of the Research Division of IDF Military Intelligence, is Director, National Security and Middle East Affairs at the Jerusalem Center.
2025-01-05 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive