A man claiming to be a retired colonel in the Iranian Air Force is urging Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to strike the residence of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, saying that such an attack could pave the way for a military-led coup against the regime. The former officer, speaking under the pseudonym “Arash”, gave an exclusive interview to Israel’s Channel 12 while inside Iran, a remarkable breach of the Islamic Republic’s strict censorship and surveillance apparatus. “Netanyahu needs to order an attack on Khamenei’s home,” Arash stated bluntly. “And we, the military, can take over sensitive political centers and officially announce Iran’s freedom and friendship with Israel,” he added. The interview is an extraordinary sign of growing dissent within Iran’s armed forces, which have long been viewed as reluctant enforcers of the regime’s hardline policies. Unlike the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which is fiercely loyal to Khamenei, Iran’s conventional military—the Artesh—has historically been sidelined and underfunded. According to Arash, discontent among Iran’s military personnel is at an all-time high, and an Israeli strike on key regime targets could provide the final push needed for an uprising. In a claim that directly contradicts Tehran’s anti-Israel propaganda, Arash insisted that an overwhelming majority of Iranians secretly supported Israel’s retaliatory strikes on Iranian military targets in April and October. “The regime has taken us, the people, hostage,” he said. “We have this wish that Israel will go further, so that the nation will be emboldened and take to the streets,” he continued. “The people will tear the roots of the regime out of the country themselves.” This sentiment was echoed by another Iranian defector, “Javad”, a former IRGC cleric, who also called on Israel to strike the regime and aid the Iranian people in toppling their oppressors. Arash revealed that he had been forced to resign from Iran’s military after he refused to train Hamas operatives in guerrilla warfare. His remarks suggest deep fractures within Iran’s armed forces over the regime’s aggressive foreign policies. “All the soldiers in the military feel estranged from the IRGC,” Arash asserted. “I can even say that 60% of IRGC soldiers hate the organization,” he added, a shocking claim given that the IRGC has long been viewed as Khamenei’s most loyal force. Javad, the former IRGC mullah, reinforced these claims, saying that Iran’s regular military is largely made up of lower-class recruits, many of whom resent the corruption and privileges enjoyed by IRGC elites. “Compared to the IRGC, the regular military despises the regime even more,” he said. Arash praised Israel’s recent operations against Iran’s terror proxies, including assassinations of top Hamas leaders and the precision strike that eliminated Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah. “Israel has hurt the leaders of the resistance movements,” he said. He claimed that Iran’s air defenses are in complete disarray, especially following Israel’s devastating late-October strike on Iran’s S-300 anti-aircraft missile silos and drone sites. “The computer systems that launch missiles at enemy planes? They’re completely offline.” He described Iran’s current air defense capabilities as “primitive”, saying, “They have nothing but the same old weapons we used in the Iran-Iraq War.” Javad revealed that Israel’s assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran had shocked the IRGC leadership, which was unable to respond effectively. “You can see the IRGC didn’t put out a statement,” […]