The Iranian regime is a “messianic, jihadistic death cult” whose DNA is fueled by an end-of-days scenario requiring world disorder and even Armageddon—and its destruction is essential to the future of Western civilization. So argued Dan Diker, president of the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs (JCFA) and director of its counter–political warfare project, in a Jewish Policy Center webinar on March 26.
Diker, the former secretary general of the World Jewish Congress and a research fellow at the International Institute on Counterterrorism at Reichman University, told the JPC audience that the United States and Israel are more closely integrated in the current conflict than at any point since the reestablishment of the Jewish state in 1948. Prime Minister Netanyahu has visited President Trump seven times in 13 months—“unprecedented in American foreign policy, in Israeli foreign policy, and international U.S.-Israel relations.” When Trump speaks of “unconditional surrender,” he noted, he sounds like General MacArthur; when Netanyahu speaks of “total victory,” he echoes Churchill.
Both leaders have been careful to say that regime change is ultimately the decision of the Iranian people, Diker observed, but both clearly regard the current regime as unable to stand. He stressed that between 80 and 90 percent of Iranians oppose the Islamic Republic, which has massacred tens of thousands of its own citizens and wounded perhaps half a million more. Israeli intelligence had assessed that Tehran was within weeks of being able to retrofit a nuclear warhead with its 480 kilograms of uranium enriched to 62 percent—intelligence the CIA vetted and that brought Trump and Netanyahu into their close wartime partnership.
Diker pushed back sharply against the narrative, prevalent in Washington media circles, that Israel has dragged the United States into a war fought on Jerusalem’s behalf. The Iranian regime has waged an asymmetrical assault on the United States for 47 years, he said, and the charge that this is Israel’s war reflects “a metastasis of classic anti-Semitism in a new wrapper”—one that casts the Jewish state, rather than individual Jews, as the purveyor of an international conspiracy.
Paradoxically, Israel’s standing in the Middle East has never been stronger. Since the 2024 beeper operation against Hezbollah and the wider campaign following the October 7th invasion, Gulf states now view Israel as what the great Lee Smith called “the strong horse.” Diker pointed to a remarkable development in the preceding 24 hours: Arab states publicly condemned the Iranian regime at the United Nations without even mentioning Israel—“the biggest compliment those Arab states can give.”
Turning to the military campaign, Diker reported that Iranian missile capacity has been degraded by between 65 and 90 percent, but cautioned that even the high end leaves hundreds of ballistic missiles, killer drones, suicide boats, and naval mines still in play—with China and Russia continuing to supply parts to Tehran’s war machine. He estimated another two weeks might be needed to reach 90 to 95 percent degradation across all weapons systems. The deeper problem, he added, is that “it’s the regime behind the weaponry that has to be taken out,” and regime change “doesn’t happen overnight.”
Turkey poses a parallel challenge. Diker described the Erdogan government as a dangerous actor that exploits NATO membership for legitimacy while pursuing neo-Ottoman ambitions across the Middle East. Once the Iranian regime falls, Turkey will seek to fill the resulting power vacuum, he warned, and the West “cannot afford to allow” that to fester. NATO membership does provide one silver lining: it has kept Ankara from attacking Israel militarily.
On Gaza, Diker was blunt. Hamas has been quiet during the Iran campaign but has used the lull to resupply and re-arm. The Trump 20-point peace plan, whose first two conditions require disarming and demilitarizing Hamas, is at a stalemate. The only realistic path, he argued, is an Israeli re-occupation of Gaza and forced disarmament of the Iranian-backed organization by the IDF, since no other force is willing or able to do it.
Diker described Israeli society after two and a half years of war as “resolute, frustrated, determined, and resilient”—perhaps the most resilient society in the world. A country of 10 million fields a reserve army of men and women in their 20s through 50s, while millions of civilians scatter into safe rooms under missile barrages. The lesson of October 7th, he said, is that Israel’s enemies have been waging a long war since 1948, and Israel has finally internalized the reality. “Israel is in it to win it,” Diker declared, adding that the Jewish state’s experience of national resilience on the home front will become a case study for any free society fighting for its survival.
