In his eve-of-war prediction to the Israeli cabinet, Mossad Director David Barnea predicted the regime change in Iran was most likely to take a year, The Jerusalem Post has learned.
There were multiple scenarios and time periods, such as several months, but one year was the most likely estimate.
In recent days, there have been not-so-veiled attacks on Barnea by nameless sources, seemingly accusing him of misleading both the Israeli and US governments about the likelihood of regime change in Iran.
These anonymous leaks obscure Barnea's highly complex position on the issue, and seem intent on tarring him and the Mossad with the growing likelihood that efforts to topple the regime will fail, or take a very long time, the Post has learned.
Some of the sources behind the Channel 12 Uvda report and the New York Times report on the issue may be from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's or US President Donald Trump's entourages, and some may even be from the Israeli military, to shift any blame.
All three offices have been fielding constant daily questions about why they have not yet succeeded in even seeming to get close to a process of generating regime change.
Barnea’s cautious, qualified war predictions
In fact, anyone familiar with Barnea and his major calls during the last few years of war would know that he consistently presents predictions with many qualifications and rarely talks about a sea change event being inevitable, the Post understands.
Further, while Barnea is a creative thinker, he is also a company man, preparing policies and presentations under order from Netanyahu, and not seeking to push the prime minister into any more aggressive approach to war than Netanyahu himself would want.
Moreover, any presentation that Barnea would have made to Trump administration officials during his widely reported trip to the US in mid-January or during other conversations would also have been tightly controlled by Netanyahu, and not on some kind of independent crusade.
In fact, the Post has learned that during prior years of Barnea's term, there have been significant points where in theory, Netanyahu might have wanted the Mossad to undertake some kind of operation, and Barnea explained that it was unrealistic, despite pressure on him to approve.
When Uvda reported that on the eve of war, Barnea presented before Netanyahu his prediction that toppling the Iranian regime was possible, it only later in the article details some of the conditions which Barnea would have put on such a prediction.
The report eventually vaguely noted that the Mossad chief "had reservations regarding a developing real-time situation and regarding the amount of time that it was likely to take."
Likewise, the New York Times report said Barnea told Netanyahu that "Within days of the war's beginning…his service would likely be able to galvanize the Iranian opposition – igniting riots and other acts of rebellion that could even lead to the collapse of Iran's government," saying the spymaster made the same pitch to the Trump administration in mid-January.
The report then blames Netanyahu and Trump for taking an overly optimistic approach to the Iran war, leading to regime change against predictions by US officials, and some other officials in other Israeli intelligence agencies."
Next, the report goes on to portray Netanyahu as being impatient with the Mossad being unable to bring about regime change in the early days of the war, at the risk of losing support from Trump.
Once again, there is no evidence, regardless of attacks by anonymous sources which may have a political agenda, that the Mossad expressed an opinion different than what the IDF has said publicly, that military force can at most create the conditions for a post-war later regime change process.
Finally, the report noted one element of Mossad plans "included supporting an invasion by Iranian Kurdish militia groups based in northern Iraq."
However, Trump himself has been publicly dismissive of such a move, which the reports seem to claim Barnea convinced him of.
There are also questions surrounding how influential Barnea was during his mid-January visit to the US.
It is possible that Barnea was very influential regarding whatever his nuanced presentation of competing opportunities and risks might have involved.
But given that Netanyahu rushed to the US for an emergency visit on February 11, almost a month later, and that Trump continued negotiations with Iran right up to around 24 hours before the war started, it would be hard for anyone to argue that Barnea had set the entire agenda by mid-January.
Barnea also has a track record of tempering his aggressiveness with patience regarding Iran.
Prior to Netanyahu's current term, which began in December 2022, Barnea worked under former prime minister Naftali Bennett, with whom the two officials co-designed a "death by a thousand cuts" strategy to bring down the Islamic regime over a long period of time.
In early January, Twitter statements attributed to the Mossad were issued as Iran protests spiked over the collapse of Iran's Rial currency and a spike in fuel prices, as well as the crisis regarding the supply of water nationwide.
Regarding the water supply, in an outgoing interview in 2022 in the book "Target Tehran," former prime minister Naftali Bennett said that an extensive policy review he undertook when he became prime minister taught him that the regime was “profoundly corrupt and fairly incompetent right now. Large swaths of land don’t get water. You turn on the faucets, and you get mud. You have all these demonstrations, and people are very frustrated with the IRGC.”
There were opportunities, he felt, to take advantage of the regime's weaknesses, but according to one account, he also impressed on Barnea that the agency needed to be more creative about being more aggressive. Bennett wanted to make his mark on the new office and would encourage Barnea’s aggressive instincts.
Bennett also conveyed his views about bringing down Iran's regime in a "Death by a Thousand Cuts" strategy parallel to the US's Cold War strategy against the USSR, which went far beyond classical military conflict.
According to a parallel narrative, those instincts were not only well developed, but it was Barnea who pressed Bennett to be even more daring and alter the rules of the game with Iran more in Israel’s favor.
In fact, Barnea gave Bennett a book by Peter Schweitzer, called "Victory: The Reagan Administration's Secret Strategy That Hastened the Collapse of the Soviet Union," a description of dozens of non-military techniques designed by the US to take advantage of the inherent weaknesses of an authoritarian regime to get the USSR to fall over time.
Critically, none of the reports have discussed the impact of the US and Israel failing to step in to protect one million Iranian protesters being oppressed on January 8-9, with 5,000-30,000 of them being killed.
Also, none of the reports have addressed Netanyahu's reported call to Trump to dissuade him from initiating the war with Iran around the US president's January 14 tweet that "help is on the way."
Neither the PMO nor the Mossad had chosen to respond by press time.
