Last week, I attended the Herzliya Security Conference. The presentations on related topics provided insight into where the state of Israel stands after almost nine months of war. The overall picture was troubling. One presenter compared the intelligence failures of 1973 and 2023, noting their similarity. He explained that in 1973, we faced armies larger than ours, and within three weeks, they effectively ceased to exist. In contrast, in 2023-2024, after almost nine months, we have only destroyed 40 percent of Hamas's forces, which represents only about 7 to 8 percent of all the forces arrayed against us.

It's clear that our true enemy in this conflict is Iran, which crossed a significant threshold in April when it fired over 300 projectiles at Israel. Our bitter history with Iran dates back to the early days of the Islamic Revolution. Their revolutionary rhetoric was transformed into financial and material support for all those who oppose Israel and the United States in the Middle East. One of the main motivations that drove Rabin into the Oslo process and the agreements with the PLO was his concern about the dangers that Iran posed to Israel.

One of the key factors that led to the deterioration of the Oslo process was Hamas, which began suicide bombings as the peace negotiations progressed. However, Hamas was not alone; it was joined by Hezbollah in Lebanon, whose main patron has been Iran, and was responsible for the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing that killed 241 U.S. Marines in Lebanon. Their shared goal has always been to stop any peace agreement between Israel and its neighbors. Hafez Assad, then President of Syria, told Dennis Ross in December 1985 that Hezbollah "not only lacked an interest in peace, they oppose it."

The common thread in these regional tensions is Iran's role, which has operated behind the scenes to maintain the state of war between Israel and its neighbors. Today, Iran no longer operates covertly, and directs a ring of fire around Israel.

More troubling is that despite the pledges of Netanyahu and Biden that Iran will not acquire nuclear weapons, it is on the brink of achieving this capability. Recently, Israeli press reported that the committee tasked with developing a strategy to deal with Iran is meeting for the first time in a year and a half. Meanwhile, the Biden administration, which came into office hoping to restore the JCPOA agreement that the Trump Administration had abandoned, never developed a "Plan B" when it became clear that Iran was not interested in rejoining the agreement.

As a result, Iran is now a nuclear threshold state.They are unlikely to use such weapons since Israel possesses both an effective defense system and a reported second-strike capability. But possessing nuclear weapons will provide a multiplier effect on Iran's conventional capabilities and embolden it to take action in the Middle East without fear of retribution.

So what now? At the conference, Elliott Abrams made an insightful observation:

Having a massive number of nuclear weapons did not save the USSR; they collapsed internally. The Iranian regime is very unpopular, and we are not doing anything to bring it down. That is what we should be working on. We should not assume that the regime is eternal; otherwise, it will be.

Abrams' comments go to the heart of the matter and highlight the path not taken. We have all been waging a losing battle to try to stop the Iranians from getting the bomb. By all accounts, the Iranian government is wildly unpopular among its people. Additionally, its actions in spreading chaos throughout the Middle East and beyond have come at the expense of its own citizens. Instead of trying to stop the bomb, it's time we shift our focus on changing the regime.

What is needed— and what should have been initiated earlier—is a coordinated, quiet campaign by Israel, the U.S., and whichever other allies are willing to undermine and ultimately bring down the regime of the Ayatollahs in Iran.

Now that Iran has unequivocally aligned itself with Russia and other enemies of the West, it's long past time to believe that the current regime in Iran can be a constructive member of the world community. Iran boasts a relatively modern economy with an educated population. This makes it vulnerable to many levers—be they cyber, financial, or other, that can be quietly deployed against the regime in Tehran and undermine it.

After the American fiascos in Iraq and Afghanistan, the term "regime change" is not very popular. But in a country like Iran, filled with people longing to be free, it is a good term.

Moreover, it is the only effective way to end the threat that this regime poses, not only to Israel but to all nations that strive to be part of the Western world.

Marc Schulman is a multimedia historian.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own.