By Amer Al Sabaileh
With the shift toward systematic assassinations, the Israeli-American effort is gradually entering a new phase: Operating inside Iran in a qualitative and unconventional manner. Repeated assassinations are not merely the result of intelligence work, surveillance and long-term penetration, but of a structural and continuous breach sustained by active intelligence operations around the clock.
Their core effect lies in transferring doubt and mutual suspicion into the regime’s own corridors and institutions, creating a hesitant operational reality, increasing exposure, and striking directly at the regime’s decision-making mechanism. In parallel, Israel and the United States are moving toward complex strikes targeting the Iranian regime’s internal infrastructure, most notably its military capabilities and military-industrial facilities.
At the same time, they are also striking the regime’s internal pillars, namely its internal security capabilities and personnel. This means that the Basij, as a central instrument of internal control, has effectively become a primary target at this stage, alongside the Revolutionary Guard. This points to a practical translation of what President Trump had previously said about creating internal conditions for change from within.
At the same time, the intensive targeting of the regime’s military assets along the western and southern coastal areas appears to be preparation for something larger. The targeting of military infrastructure, bases, headquarters, as well as Iranian ports and naval craft, points to one objective: preparing the ground for qualitative operations ahead. This is likely what the American administration needs in order to demonstrate a tangible achievement on the ground and move toward a strategy of controlling strategic Iranian areas.
Such a move could be carried out through special forces operations with clearly defined missions: abduction, liquidation, or seizure of strategic areas after ensuring full security and containing any threat to an American presence, particularly on the Iranian islands, most importantly Kharg Island.
This qualitative shift may reflect the evolutionary path of gradual American operations built in stages, beginning with striking the head of the regime, then its infrastructure, and eventually reaching the assassination of its leaders and the targeting of its internal bases. This may represent the most important step in translating this strategy, especially with the parallel suggestion of activating internal components in the border regions, whether Kurdish, Azerbaijani, or Arab in Ahvaz.
From the Iranian side, Tehran has demonstrated an ability to sustain attacks using missiles and drones, and to diversify its strikes in a way that preserves the impression that it remains capable of targeting the Israeli interior on the one hand, and threatening the Gulf states and energy centers on the other, especially in light of the notable evolution in the targeting of energy sites in Qatar, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.
Iran’s strategy of maximizing the war’s global impact has pushed it toward a propaganda discourse built around threat. This includes threatening places linked to financial stability and the energy market, such as the UAE, while trying to display the capability to strike these states and simultaneously directing internal messaging calling for distancing from ports and installations. This reflects the Iranian need to preserve the image of a regime still capable of threatening, acting, and disrupting regional stability whenever it chooses.
The Iranian approach, based on linking the war to dangerous international repercussions, begins with threatening the Gulf states and magnifying the danger to energy markets and international navigation. It also extends to nuclear leak scenarios and to highlighting Iran’s ability to launch long-range missiles, such as those fired toward Diego Garcia.
After the third week of the war, the United States appears to be deepening its strikes inside Iran, targeting the regime’s structure, instruments, and military facilities in their entirety. The acceleration of this process suggests a desire to move into a phase in which these strikes are translated into steps on the ground, preserving acceptance of the American settlement as the only option left for any internal Iranian actor. At the same time, a new Iranian reality is being created, one in which it becomes difficult for any future regime to return to the form in which the current one ends.
Neutralizing Iran, ending its threat, eliminating its military capabilities, and confining any Iranian future to reconstruction and internal recovery detached from regional policies now appears to be the clearest objective of this phase.
By Amer Al Sabaileh is a columnist in The Jordan Times.
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