New Delhi: Israel sought to support a Kurdish-led ground operation by the Kurdish forces to topple the Iranian regime, however, the operation was vetoed by US President Donald J. Trump, according to a report by Israeli daily The Jerusalem Post.
Writing about the end of David Barnea’s five-year term as chief of the Mossad last week, the daily pointed out that the outgoing spymaster was a keen supporter of the plan to equip Kurdish forces in Iraq and Iran to carry out ground operations to topple the current administration in Tehran.
According to the sources, cited in The Jerusalem Post, both Iranian and Iraqi Kurds, were sufficiently trained and had significant fighting capabilities and utilising them in the 2026 war would have saved the US from deploying and endangering its own ground forces.
Tel Aviv would have provided aerial support for any Kurdish ground operation, offering them the ability to get past any counter-operation by Iranian ground forces. However, the operation never materialised, as, according to the report, US President Trump ultimately vetoed the proposal.
Israeli sources pointed the finger at US Vice President J.D. Vance for leaking the Kurdish plan to Ankara, just in time for either US officials or Turkish President Erdogan to convince Trump to drop the operation.
Vance is known to have consistently raised questions internally over the US administration’s path to war against Iran. The conflict launched by joint US-Israeli strikes on the last day of February continued for forty-days until Washington and Tehran agreed to a ceasefire brokered by Pakistan that came into effect on 8 April.
Barnea, as the chief of Mossad, firmly believed that the Iranian government led by then Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei could be overthrown within a year after the conclusion of the war. The outgoing spymaster estimated that the joint strike would shake the very foundations of the revolutionary government in Tehran.
Barnea also believed the involvement of eight million Kurds, Sunnis and Baluchis could have triggered an avalanche of internal collapses in Iran, leading eventually to regime change across the West Asian nation.
Furthermore, Barnea firmly believes that regime change was possible as long as Trump does not ease the ongoing economic pressure against Iran. If sanctions relief is given to Tehran, any plan for regime change in Iran would become more “complex”.
“In that case, the Islamic regime will be flooded with new funds and will grow stronger again. This will also flow down to the greater civilian population within one to two years, which could reduce the internal pressure on Iranians to topple the regime,” the Israeli newspaper noted.
The report also shed light on broader debates within Israeli security circles. While Barnea pushed for aggressive covert action and support for internal opposition movements, other intelligence and military officials questioned whether regime change in Iran was a realistic objective.
Nishtha Modgil is an alum of ThePrint School of Journalism, currently interning with ThePrint.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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