Israel’s war against Iran may prove to have been such a successful decapitation action that it goes down in the annals as one of the shortest wars in history. I say this because there are reports that Iran’s leadership class is fleeing en masse. There’s also reason to believe that Israel fought this war not to conquer Iran but simply to oust the mullahs, allowing the Iranian people to choose a better government, so Israel had no interest in leveling the country. If the leadership class abdicates, let’s hope the Iranian people choose wisely this time around.

Here’s the latest information about the leadership class getting out while it still can:

JUST IN: ???????????????? Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu says senior Iranian military leaders are fleeing the country.

"They sense what's coming." pic.twitter.com/cB7J31AgCP

— BRICS News (@BRICSinfo) June 14, 2025

Family of Iranian Leaders fleeing the country..pic.twitter.com/nl3lhbhJxH

— Dailynews Viral (@dailynewsceo) June 14, 2025

Of course, the war is a long way from over. Iran’s military class is threatening to rain 2,000 missiles on Israel (and, unlike Israel, which aims at military targets, Iran aims at civilians).

'Our next missile launch on Israel will be around 2,000 missiles. It will be 20 times more intense than previous attacks,' an Iranian military spokesman reportedly told arab media. https://t.co/6hZeawEExu

— The Jerusalem Post (@Jerusalem_Post) June 14, 2025

However, the Israeli military does not seem too worried:

According to Israeli Israeli intelligence, Iran still has around 2,000 ballistic missiles.

Iran fired about 200 ballistic missiles at Israel last night.

— Aviva Klompas (@AvivaKlompas) June 14, 2025

UPDATE: Since I published the post, Iran has launched a massive barrage of missiles against Israel. Keep Israel in your prayers:

It began pic.twitter.com/HBriAQJXBp

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) June 14, 2025

And now back to the original post.

What’s been clear from the beginning, as I said above, is that Israel does not intend to level Iran. [UPDATE: If Iran is going to try to destroy Israel, Israel will be forced to respond in kind.] That would take enormous resources and turn Israel into the kind of evil empire the left likes to say it is. More than that, Israel knows that the Iranian people hate their government.

Indeed, Daily Wire’s Hank Berrien writes that there’s a theory that the very name of Israel’s action against Iran—“Rising Lion”—is a covert message to the Iranian people to take their country back from Islamic extremism and become a Persian kingdom once again:

The Israelis named the mission “Operation Rising Lion,” derived from Numbers 23:24, in which the prophet Balaam — who was hired by King Balak of Moab to curse Israel, but was directed by God to bless Israel instead — declaimed of the Jewish people, “Behold! The people will arise like a lion cub and raise itself like a lion.”

But the imagery of a lion rising may also have tremendous significance for the people of Iran — the flag of Iran for four centuries before the Islamic regime took over in 1979 was a lion with the sun rising on the stripes of green, white, and red. The Islamic regime replaced the lion with a stylized version of Allah and the phrase “Allahu Akbar” along the edges of the green and red stripes.

Image by Matt Hrkac. CC BY 2.0.

The big question, given that the regime is on the run and Nature abhors a vacuum, is who will fill that vacuum. The parties that have been the most vocal governments in exile are the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (MEK) and Reza Pahlavi, the eldest son of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran. The former group is communist, and Pahlavi, obviously, is a monarchist, the heir to a monarchy that allowed a level of liberty inconsistent with the Mullah’s religious fanaticism.

It's an interesting tug-of-war: Communist, monarchists, or a continuation of Islamism, only with different leaders. The Iranian people will definitely have a say in this.

My guess—and this is only a guess—is that they’ve had a snootful of religious fanaticism. They’re not going back to a theocracy anytime soon.

If they’re wise, they’ll avoid communism. That leaves a return to the monarchy or a different path altogether, one that tries to thread the needle between a secular government and a Muslim population.

At the very least, the Iranian future is going to be interesting.

Oh, and while this has nothing to do with future events in Iran, this is fascinating:

???? Breaking: Iran's ???????? IRGC Quds Force commander Gen. Esmail Qaani is confirmed safe in Israel ????????

It can now be revealed that he was an Israeli asset, providing intelligence that led to elimination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, and Hezbollah leaders Nasrallah and Safieddine. pic.twitter.com/OreGNi8Rnc

— Dr. Eli David (@DrEliDavid) June 13, 2025

As I said to friends, it’s awesome when Israelis manage to do this to help destroy Iran from within. It’s way less awesome to know that, because of decades of carelessness and collaboration, America’s geopolitical enemies have been doing the same to us.