Israel is rapidly killing Iran’s top leaders. Experts warn the strategy could backfire

Israel killed top Iranian leaders one after another in the air strikes he wanted to carry out overthrow the Islamic Republic. But past experience in targeting high-level militants shows that the strategy has its limits and can sometimes backfire.

Israel kills Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Group still burning rockets.

eliminated Hamas top brass. The group still controls half of Gaza and has not laid down arms.

Targeted killing as a strategy has rarely been used against a state. It can provide tangible successes that leaders can mark as victories, especially in wars. without a clear endgame — Rarely addresses the underlying grievances that fuel conflict.

The impact of targeted killings generally diminishes over time, said Jon Alterman, director of Global Security and Geostrategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

He noted that Iran’s government and military consist of many overlapping institutions that have so far survived punishing waves of attacks from the United States and Israel. “Even dictators need to trust the entire network that supports them,” he said.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei He was killed in the opening salvo of the battle. replaced him his son Müjtaba, who is seen as even less accommodating. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard continued to fire waves of missiles at Israel and neighboring Gulf states, effectively overwhelming them. Strait of Hormuz – after top commanders were killed or driven underground.

A very old tactic

Israel has carried out dozens of targeted killings throughout its history, but Palestinian and Lebanese militant groups have often managed to hold on and grow stronger after the loss of senior leaders.

Take Hezbollah for example. In 1992, he killed Israel’s then leader Abbas Mousavi in ​​an airstrike in Southern Lebanon. Under his charismatic successor Nasrallah, Hezbollah became the region’s most powerful armed group, fighting Israel to a bloody stalemate in 2006.

Almost all of Nasrallah and his aides were killed in the war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2024. The Iran-backed group suffered other major losses that year, but resumed missile and drone attacks on Israel days after the start of the current war.

Hamas lost one leader after another. Israel killed its founder and spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yasin in an air strike in 2004. Almost all of the architects of the group’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 were killed.

Both groups continued on their way by getting stronger decades of grievances It stems from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The US has also resorted to targeted killings against Al Qaeda and the Islamic State group; He eliminated Osama bin Laden and the founder of ISIS in a raid in Pakistan in 2011. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi Both groups were greatly reduced, but only after years of wars involving ground forces.

Rarely used against states with mixed results

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the killing of Iranian leaders was aimed at weakening the government so that Iranians could rise up and overthrow it, ideally replacing it with a friendly government in the mold of the pro-Western monarchy that was overthrown in 1979.

Following Iranian authorities there have been no signs of such an uprising since the start of the war. Mass protests suppressed in January.

US President Donald Trump has occasionally suggested that the war was aimed at increasing tensions. a more moderate leader But the outcome could be more radical, or complete chaos in the event of state collapse.

It is rare in the modern era for one nation to assassinate another nation’s leaders.

Prime Minister of Congo Patrice Lumumba He was overthrown and killed in 1961 as a result of a conspiracy supported by the CIA and Belgium. The African country continued to experience decades of authoritarian rule, civil war and instability.

NATO’s intervention in Libya in 2011 paved the way for rebels to capture and kill long-time dictator Muammar Gaddafi. After more than a decade of war and instability, this country still divided. Iraq was plunged into similar chaos in 2003 when the US-led invasion dissolved Saddam Hussein’s government, leading to his arrest and eventual hanging.

The real question is who will come next?

Yossi Kuperwasser, the former head of Israel’s military intelligence research department, said targeted killings can be an effective tool but are not a “cure for all problems.”

“These operations alone do not significantly change the ability of these organizations to cause harm and carry out attacks,” he said. “But it is important for Israel to weaken its enemies.”

He noted that Israel has permanently reshaped its leadership structure by eliminating dozens of people in Gaza, Lebanon and now Iran. “Maybe there has not been a ‘regime change’ in Iran yet, but there is a ‘regime change’. The people are not the same people,” he said.

A senior Israeli intelligence official told The Associated Press that Israeli beheading attacks in Iran have weakened political leaders’ ability to give orders to the military, formulate policy and make decisions. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential assessments.

But killing leaders can also backfire. radicalizing their followers, elevating more extreme successors or transforming slain leaders into martyrs of lasting influence.

Max Abrahms, a political scientist at Northeastern University, said data from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Israel and the Palestinian territories show that violence against civilians increases after targeted killings.

“Decapitating the leadership is risky,” he said. “When you remove a leader who favors some degree of restraint and influence over his subordinates, there’s a good chance you’ll encounter even more extreme tactics upon that person’s death.”

Mohanad Hage Ali, deputy director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, said targeted killings can create leadership vacuums and the potential for change, but only when combined with a coherent political strategy.

“You can behead an organization or defeat it militarily, but if you don’t move forward politically it won’t work. And it’s hard to see how this will go any further,” he said.

___

Associated Press writer Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed.