True Change In The Mideast Could Hinge On Regime Change In Iran

I'm Trey Gowdy. I'm Shannon Bream. I'm Stuart Varney, and this is the Fox News Rundown.

Wednesday, March 18, 2026, I'm Evan Brown. As the U.S. war against Iran continues, so does Israel's. And the Israelis are looking not just to beat the Iranian regime, but to make a permanent, lasting change. Time. To build their murderous machine. They will not have this time. They will be pursued every day until they have no capabilities. Intentions, we cannot change their hearts. But capabilities is something that we can measure, it's something that we can see.

And after the 7th of October, we decided no more. This is the Fox News rundown, Operation Epic Fury. The US calls its war against Iran Operation Epic Fury. We've borrowed that for the subtitle of this podcast for now, but the Israelis call it Operation Roaring Lion. A reference to the emblematic lion of the Persian people, and that seems to be a goal for the Israelis to see the Persian people empowered and ridding themselves of their Islamist rulers after nearly five decades.

a half century that has brought bloodshed to many and societal ruin to Iran. Though that is not Israel's main goal, that remains to put a permanent end to the threat that Iran's Islamist rulers so proudly and boisterously make. To annihilate Israel the state, to annihilate Jews worldwide, and to end American influence and supplant it with their own.

So far the Israelis are claiming a quick success. We look at the big picture, so Danny Ayolon is a former Israeli ambassador to the United States, a former member of Israel's parliament and former deputy foreign minister. He is now chairman of the Silver Road Capital Group. Regarding the the Israeli objectives in terms of uh taking out their uh uh capabilities, you know, their nuclear capabilities, their uh ballistic missile scapabilities.

And also is equally important uh their capability to support their uh nefarious proxies, be it the Kizbalah or the Houthis or or Hamas. And um at uh this point I think that the Israeli um superior technology and intelligence have also shown that we took out uh a lot of their command and control and of course the leaders.

which are terrorists and um and and this is why they are uh targeted because they are not only responsible for murders and uh taking lives, not only the Iranians, of course, lately, but also of many, many around the world uh in the last 47 years of this uh

uh terror and uh and horror regime. Let's talk about those objectives uh by Yeah, eliminating certain command and control personalities, uh leadership personalities. It's one thing to to mark them off the list, so to speak, and to say, Hey, we got these guys. But that translates into a real goal accomplished from a military perspective.

uh to the to the idea of how to weaken that regime and to begin to eliminate the threat that Israel and really the rest of the world has been facing for, as you've mentioned, forty seven years. So how does one target translate to a real world objective like that, other than just the we got this guy, uh you know, uh goal? Yes. Well, Evan, well said, it's not just a matter of uh military success, it has to be uh supp supplemented or uh complemented with uh uh political.

uh manoeuvres. And here of course it's much more difficult, much more intricate and very much depends on the will of the Iranian people. We know um empirically that eighty percent of Iranians would like to rid themselves of this uh terror regime. About twenty percent are those who are their cronies, those who are actually live off

uh the salaries of this regime and and the families. So this eighty percent, um the the the the challenge is how to um empower them. Not in terms of motivation. They do have the motivation, but uh the wherewithal. And um this could take a long time and um maybe even months. And I believe that uh the operation, the military operation, will not need

to take all this time. But once the operation is um is over And again, here the um uh the the benchmarks would be that uh we know that they don't have the four hundred and forty kilograms of enriched uranium, sixty percent uh uh grade, which is very close to weapon grade. uh when this is out of uh Iran, when we know that uh most of their ballistic missiles are um eliminated and the same as the launchers, uh their production.

lines for all these ballistic missiles are taken, then I believe uh we can uh pretty much um pull out from this uh operation. and let the Iranians do whatever they can. It may take a few months. Um, if we go back to the Twelve Days War, even um last year, uh after that, um it took about six to seven months until the Iranians took out to the streets. Uh I'm not sure this will be as long as that.

But uh we will have to wait and um another possibility here which we do not uh um discard is that there will be some accomplices. uh that would cooperate with us from within the uh the regime, understanding that the only way for them to spare their lives is to actually Turn against. Uh, they are murderous uh bosses. And if this happens, and uh I think the candidates would be from the army.

uh the um regular army of Iran is less dogmatic and uh not uh in the grips of this uh uh Ayatollahs like the besieged of the IRGC. So this is also an option. We'll have to wait and see.

I I think much of the world knows at this point that when Israel decides to engage in for lack of a better term, a war uh that it it has its goals and it has its techniques and it has its capabilities and and it's very well trained uh military and and uh no stones are left unturned. Israel strikes and it strikes hard.

But in previous wars against different factions, whether it's been Hamas or Hezbollah uh throughout, you know, the years and and one can remember the Hezbollah war in in two thousand six Sometimes those goals don't necessarily get realized and at some point Israel says, All right, well we've we've we've set back the enemy a certain amount of of of distance, both physically and metaphysically, but it's never an eliminated threat. There seems to be a different

motivation or a different feeling this time that this is not seeking to just push back the enemy. Yes, and and the difference is what made all this difference is the uh seventh of October. This uh massacre by uh Hamas of um twelve hundred civilians, Israelis, you know, babies and and and women at their homes and uh whole families.

And at that time we realized that it's not enough just to wait for the enemy to attack first, then you really lose the advantage, but to preempt. And uh here the um the the the difference in in the um I would say in the entire policy is not just to monitor the uh in the uh capabilities of your uh enemies but also their in intentions. and believe in what they say. When Hamas said we want to kill Israelis, we want to eliminate Israel, we should have believed it that they are actually working.

Very, very hard. to to bring it into uh reality, which they tried on the seventh of October. The same is with uh Hezbollah, you mentioned two thousand and six. Also they made the first move by uh killing Israeli uh soldiers and kidnapping and all that. Um and Iran. So uh they have said all along that they want to eliminate Israel. Uh they even bragged by saying that Israel is a one bomb country. That means because we are so small territorially, then one atom bomb will suffice.

And uh until the seventh of October we were most in the um um defensive mode. But this does not work. And this is the the the difference. So once you initiate, like uh we did in uh Lebanon this time or in Iran, you see a major, major um capabilities and successes that also should bring the the message home to all those um terror uh regimes and terrorist organizations that they will not be spared and they should not be um uh relaxing and uh having their

own time to build their murderous machine. They will not have this time. They will be pursued. every day until they have no capabilities. Intentions, we cannot change their hearts, but capabilities is something that we can measure, it's something that we can see.

And after the seventh of October we decided no more, we're going to let it uh their own uh will to decide when to attack us. This change of policy or call it attitude um requires a lot of buy-in from the Israeli military as a whole, from the Israeli people in general. Um uh up until October seventh there had been, you know, political disputes uh that have to do with the Prime Minister and other things and s and and uh things having to do with Israeli life.

There was a sea change after October seventh. And how how well has that cohesion held up? I mean, we we've seen the You know, especially when there were still hostages being held in Gaza, there were protests, there were demonstrations, so on. But there's a cohesion that I don't think gets enough attention. There's there's how is that cohesion holding up socially? Okay. So uh I would say that uh on the sphere of uh let's say uh social disagreements, political disagreements,

Uh Israel is a very, very um vibrant country. It's a vibrant democracy, and there's not uh any agreement almost on anything. Uh we have very biting press. And we have seen this all along. And uh but when there is a threat which is existential, you know, even we are a small country. If you look at the entire Middle East. Uh Israel, if you look at the Middle East, it's just a a very small um like a pinhead.

And uh we have like less than one third of one percent of the entire territory of the Middle East. We are one Jewish state surrounded by twenty two uh Arab countries, which possess ninety nine point Seven percent of the territory.

On a side note, the the conflict between us and the Palestinians is not a matter of uh territory. They have all the territories, we have uh offered them even more. But what I'm trying to say here is that uh we are um Oh al me always very alert and uh when we see a threat.

And uh certainly the seventh of October was an existential one. Like many in in the past, um we we get together and we leave all the differences, political differences and others aside. We have to get rid of the of the threat and after this is done we go back to our old ways of uh bickering and shouting at each other in a political way.

Our guest is former Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Danny Ayalani is now the chairman of Silver Road Capital Group, but he's also been a member of Parliament in Israel and he's a former deputy foreign minister. And we are discussing the progress of Israel's war against Iran, as they call it Operation Rising Lion. Here on the Fox News rundown, Operation Epic Fury. Please like, subscribe, and share this podcast. We'll have more straight ahead.

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One of the other C changes that I think is incredibly noticeable and certainly noteworthy has been the same. attitude taken and what has been said and perhaps what has not been said by the Arab neighbors of the Middle East in in this particular conflict these past couple of weeks. Um it is very noteworthy that the Iranian regime has fired at the Arab nations. They have even fired at Qatar

which has perhaps been the least friendliest to Israel and has been accused of duplicity in in its dealings with the West and and whether or not it's helpful to the West or whether or not it's more helpful to the Islamic rulers of of Iran. Um And uh th often we've seen in other conflicts these these very long worded and and far reaching condemnations of Israel.

before anything's ever gotten really off the ground. We even saw that immediately on October seventh, that Israel was the first to be condemned uh condemned by by many of the Arab countries. That hasn't happened this time. Uh there have been calls for mediation, for political solutions. But there hasn't been this outright condemnation of Israel. I'm gonna ask what sounds like an eas like a an obvious question, but I really wanna hear you expound on it. What's different?

Well what's uh different now is that it's uh what has uh surfaced now is that the the convergence of interest. of the Arab Sunni countries, the more moderate countries, and Israel vis-a-vis the extremists. And uh now the extremists where are they? They are in Tehran, uh they are in uh with Hezbollah, with Hamas, with the Houthis. And um the the Arab um let's say regimes in the in the region are very much happy to do business with Israel. Mostly under the table. It's not just a matter of defense.

which they very much rely on our deterrence capabilities, but it's also when it comes to the future of the Middle East, you know, a a country which uh or a a region. which is dry, no water, uh, food security is an issue, water availability, affordable energy, all these things they very much rely and um expect Israeli technology and and we are doing that.

So we have to uh this is a a given that they are on our side from a strategic geopolitical way. They do have an issue with their own uh population. uh with the sentiment and solidarity of the people with the Palestinians, and this is because an ongoing incitement by the Palestinians and their uh um uh par partners and accomplices. Iran is one of them.

To actually poison uh public opinions in these countries. So this is why these regimes are walking a fine line, condemning Israel for anything that uh we did or didn't do. But now when they were attacked directly, I don't think that um even their own uh self respect um cannot allow them not to to react and basically I think the Iranians uh in a in a very panicky um uh move uh have turned the conflict here uh back to Sunna and Shia.

Because who are they attacking? They are attacking all the Sunni countries around them. And at the end of the day, it's uh almost like a suicidal uh uh attitude that they have. And if I have to compare uh to history, the Ayatollah's regime is no different than the Hitler regime. uh in World War Two. Also, he had a bunker mentality. The the last days of Hitler, he knew. that he was losing, but he kept fighting. Because for him it was till the end with this uh uh really uh inexplicable uh hatred.

all the way to his suicide in his bunker. This is the same attitude that this Shiai cleric and ayatollahs that also poison the uh hearts and minds of uh uh the um the establishment, the I IRGC. And and for them it's uh do or die. They have their megalomaniac, uh hegemonic, um Uh wishes They would like to see

a Shiite uh dominance in the region and throughout the Islamic world. And this is why they took this opportunity also to attack all their neighbors. They thought maybe that uh the neighbors, the uh like Qatar and Saudi Arabia maybe will push. on the United States or on Israel to stop. But uh I think it backlashed and he just um had uh

uh a a contrary um um let's say uh consequence and ramification than what they thought. Wha why do you think they proceeded d in in that regard? Did they really um just think that they had more influence than what they ended up having? Did they think they were more powerful? Did they

the the American expression is did they buy into their own hype? Um y y y they they must have known at some part that they're you know, this is not a a undeveloped country, this is a r rather advanced, at least from from a technological and military perspective. They must have known they they would have been outgunned at some point. Well, first of all, their their hatred and ambitions uh pretty much clouded uh reason. But it's not only that, they have been for the last forty seven years.

uh subtract eight years of Iraq Iran war. from 80 to 88 but let's say for the last four years they have been very studiously very methodically being a building and uh an apparatus, building a machine, uh with the nuclear capabilities, with the missiles, delivery systems. And uh they really thought Uh and they do have uh the the numbers. And they really thought so far nothing happened. They were immune. The start in 1979, even when they took the American uh embassy and American uh hostages.

For over a year. Nothing happened to them. A few years later, in 83 in Lebanon, they killed 241 Marines. Nothing happened to them. And in between, there are so many others. They have uh actually joined all the uh the terror organizations against the US in Afghanistan and in Iraq. And uh they're um

uh instructions and their uh material uh caused thousands of American death and nothing has happened to them. They thought that um the power of uh their oil or the power of blocking the Hormuz traits uh in order to uh really uh um I would say frustrate the uh energy markets giving them immunity. And this is why they were doing what they were doing, probably until now. And again, it's just like Hitler.

Just like Hitler who thought he can take the entire world. It's the same mentality, it's the same methods, it's the same danger, and uh they have to be taken out uh as early as possible in order to uh prevent much, much um uh bigger uh

wars and and death all over the world. Ambassador Danny Ayalan, you're the former Israeli ambassador to the United States. You were also uh in the Knesset and a former Uh, Deputy Foreign Minister, thank you so much for being with us on the Fox News rundown. My pleasure, Avon. You've been listening to the Fox News Rundown, and now stay up to date by subscribing to this.

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