How Iran Defeated the US-Israel Regime Change OP | Hugh Miles

## Anatomy of the "Hybrid War" Attack The recent upheaval in Tehran was not, as many headlines suggested, a spontaneous uprising of an emboldened domestic opposition; it was a layered, meticulously planned “hybrid war” designed to collapse the Iranian state from within. The conversation with Hugh Miles lays out the components of that operation: economic pressure to produce societal stress, an information and social-media offensive to manufacture consent and outrage, covert logistical support to enable coordinated violence, and the prospect of kinetic intervention if the internal campaign reached sufficient intensity. Seeing these elements as parts of a single strategy helps explain the strange simultaneity of a collapsing currency, waves of social media footage, reports of tens of thousands of Starlink terminals, and public statements from foreign political actors seemingly cheering the chaos on. At the center of the hybrid-warfare model is intentional ambiguity. The operation was calibrated to produce plausible deniability while creating the appearance of a popular, leaderless revolt. Jamming the airwaves of legitimate dissent with a deluge of curated videos, the Western media and sympathetic diaspora voices amplified a narrative of domestic genocide and regime brutality. That narrative did two things: it sought to delegitimize Iran’s government in the eyes of external audiences and to provide a pretext for external actors to claim humanitarian or strategic justification for intervention. Simultaneously, the physical side of the campaign — the movement of equipment, communications terminals, and, allegedly, weapons — aimed to shift the balance on the streets, enabling small armed cells to sustain prolonged, decentralized operations. The claims of logistical capacity—most notably the assertion that tens of thousands of satellite internet terminals had been smuggled into Iran—are central to the operation’s plausibility. Such hardware would be critical to coordination under conditions of internet shutdowns and domestic surveillance. But the logistics of getting 50,000 Starlink units into a heavily sanctioned state strains credulity without state-level facilitation or deep clandestine networks. The very implausibility of those claims, however, may have been part of the plan: the spectacle of advanced hardware “in the hands of grassroots resistors” serves the narrative regardless of how many terminals were actually in play. The hybrid approach blends theater with material effects; the video clips and alleged technologies are both evidence and instrument of influence. What made this episode archetypal was the synchronization of economic and information warfare. Economic sanctions and diplomatic pressure had already weakened the rial and strained supply chains. That economic squeeze arrived like oil on a smoldering embers of political discontent. A targeted narrative push then fanned those embers into conflagration, while the promise — real or propagated — of external technical support offered a mechanism for escalation. But the success of such an operation depends on a final, decisive stage: the ability of external actors to translate domestic unrest into a political rupture through either direct military action or decisive internal defections. That final stage did not materialize, and understanding why takes us to the next section. ## Why the Military Coup Failed If this hybrid campaign carried echoes of historical covert actions—1953 Iran, Chile 1973, Maidan in Ukraine—the outcome in Tehran diverged because several foundational conditions that previously allowed external powers to succeed were absent or reversed. The conversation highlights three interlocking reasons: the diminishing global authority of Western powers, robust internal countermeasures by the Iranian security apparatus, and miscalculation about domestic willingness to defect. First, the international context has changed. For decades, U.S. and allied interventions rode on a perception of Western moral and political ascendancy. That aura matters; it makes the notion of aligning with Western-backed forces more attractive for some domestic actors who calculate that backing the external power will yield payoff. Today, the spectacle of Western complicity in contentious wars, visible hypocrisy in human-rights rhetoric, and an overtly polarizing U.S. presidency have dulled that attractiveness. In the face of that diminished soft power, fewer actors are willing to become visible collaborators, reducing the pool of viable local proxies. Second, the Iranian state executed technical and security countermeasures effectively. The internet blackout was decisive. By shutting down conventional channels of coordination and—with reported technical assistance from Russia—locating and confiscating many satellite terminals, Iranian security forces disrupted the networked capability that the operation relied upon. Without reliable communications, decentralized cells cannot sustain coordination, and the social media narrative loses traction among those actually on the ground. Arrests of operatives and seizures of equipment broke nascent command-and-control structures before they could catalyze a political rupture. Third, the assumption that sizable elements of the military or security services would flip proved optimistic. In prior coups, even modest defections produced tipping points; here, that did not occur. The regime’s base, while bruised economically, demonstrated resilience. Large pro-government demonstrations followed the initial violence—public displays that undercut the claim of a unified domestic revolt and reasserted the state’s capacity to mobilize. That popular support, whether genuine in all its reported magnitude or not, combined with the security services’ containment operations to buy the regime critical breathing room. Finally, the international military dimension—air strikes, decapitation attempts, or substantial external intervention—was curtailed by political calculation. Full-scale invasion was off the table politically for the United States, constrained both by public aversion to new ground wars and by uncertainties about strategic gain versus cost. The balance of risk, the conversation suggests, ultimately dissuaded decision-makers from the kind of kinetic escalation that might have tipped a precarious operation into success. ## US Withdrawal from Syria Parallel to developments in Iran, the U.S. posture in Syria signals an incremental recalibration of priorities and capabilities across the region. Longstanding American support for Kurdish forces and control of certain northeastern zones reflected a strategy of containment and leverage against both Damascus and extremist groups. But recent troop movements indicate a pullback from some of these positions, a decision that carries profound implications. The removal of U.S. presence in Kurdish-held areas exposes long-term partners to renewed pressure—from Damascus, pro-Iranian militias, and resurgent extremist groups. Allies who relied on American security guarantees now face a painful geopolitical reality: the United States will not indefinitely underwrite local balances when domestic appetite for foreign entanglement is low. The immediate effect is chaotic: vacuums are filled by actors with local axes and histories rather than by stabilizing international institutions. Reports of renewed clashes and reassertion of regime-aligned forces are predictable consequences. This withdrawal also reflects a more systemic shift: the United States is compelled to triage its commitments as strategic competition with other powers and domestic constraints deepen. In practice, that means fewer boots on the ground, more reliance on proxies, and a willingness to accept regional bargains that prioritize short-term tactical interests over long-term stabilization. The political cost of abandoning partners—perceived betrayal by local Kurdish force

How Iran Defeated the US-Israel Regime Change OP | Hugh Miles How does a "ragtag" opposition manage to smuggle 50,000 Starlink terminals into a heavily sanctioned fortress? The recent chaos in Tehran was not a genuine uprising but a US-Israeli orchestrated regime change operation. Its failure means a whole lot for US hegemony in the region. To deconstruct this fog of war, I sat down with investigative journalist and award-winning author Hugh Miles. As the founder of ArabDigest.org, Hugh has been tracking the pulse of the Middle East for decades, and his latest analysis offers a piercing look at how Tehran survived the onslaught and what this historic failure signals for the collapsing Zionist project. Links: ArabDigest article: https://arabdigest.org/arab-digest-newsletter/surviving-the-hybrid-war-how-iran-thwarted-a-western- israeli-regime-change-attack/ Neutrality Studies substack: https://pascallottaz.substack.com (Opt in for Academic Section from your profile settings: https://pascallottaz.substack.com/s/academic) Merch & Donations: https://neutralitystudies-shop.fourthwall.com Timestamps: 00:00:00 Introduction: Iran Regime Change Attempt 00:00:39 Anatomy of the "Hybrid War" Attack 00:10:19 Social Media Propaganda & Narrative Shaping 00:14:55 Why the Military Coup Failed 00:18:26 Did Trump Sabotage the Neocons? 00:22:20 US Withdrawal from Syria 00:26:15 Future Attacks on Iran & Eastern Alliances 00:29:39 Israel's Situation & The "Board of Peace" 00:33:00 The Strategic Decline of Israel 00:48:51 Conclusion #Pascal Welcome back to Neutrality Studies. Today I'm joined by Hugh Miles, an award-winning author and investigative journalist specializing in the Middle East and North Africa. Hugh recently wrote an illuminating article for the online outlet ArabDigest.org. The piece was titled *Surviving the Hybrid War: How Iran Thwarted a Western-Israeli Regime Change Attack.* That’s what we want to discuss today. So, Hugh, welcome. #Hugh Miles Thank you for having me on the show. #Pascal Hugh, this was a very interesting article in which you point out how, on many levels, this was a very coordinated attack on Iran. Can you lay out your interpretation of how this attack unfolded and what the different stages were? #Hugh Miles -- 1 of 15 -- Okay, sure. So, to understand what’s happened in Iran over the last few weeks, you really have to look back at what happened last year, in 2025, when Donald Trump said he was going to step up his maximum pressure campaign on Iran. In July, there was the two-week war with Israel, so the situation was already very tense. After that, the economic pressure on Iran increased further. Trump imposed more sanctions on Chinese oil refineries that buy Iranian oil, and this added to the already huge economic strain that had been building for years—ever since the end of the JCPOA, really, and even before that. So the pressure kept mounting, and finally, it all came to a head around New Year. If you remember, at New Year, Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu met and spent the holiday together. Soon after that, there was a complete collapse of the Iranian rial—it lost about 30 or 40 percent of its value. This was celebrated by American officials as a success of the maximum pressure campaign, and it triggered protests in Iran, as you’d expect. At the beginning of January, the protests were initially peaceful. But after about three days, they suddenly exploded into a rampage of violence. We saw a deluge of videos coming out of Iran showing people fighting, many being killed, people firing machine guns, fighting with machetes, setting fire to mosques—complete chaos across the country. And at the same time, the Western media began this tsunami of propaganda, if you like, saying that the plucky Iranian pro-democracy demonstrators were being brutalized by the regime and that the West had to do something. So the case for war was being very quickly established, in a way that was really reminiscent of what happened in Germany—if you remember, before the invasion of Iraq, when they talked about Kuwaiti babies being pulled out of incubators, and so on. There was a lot of talk about atrocities and human rights abuses. At the same time, the Western media also reported that there were thousands and thousands of these Starlink terminals. The New York Times said there were 50,000 Starlink terminals in Iran, and that this ragtag group of pro-democracy... #Pascal They used that term—“ragtag.” It was in the New York Times. A ragtag group, like a loose collective of opposition figures who somehow managed to get 50,000. #Hugh Miles Well, I mean, exactly. And clearly, this begs the question—how on earth could ragtag pro-democracy demonstrators get tens of millions of dollars’ worth of high-tech equipment into an embargoed, heavily sanctioned country? It doesn’t make any sense. #Pascal Because, like, getting these Starlink panels into Iran is not only against how Iran runs the show, but also against U.S. sanctions, right? It would be a violation of U.S. law to export that to Iran, right? -- 2 of 15 -- #Hugh Miles Indeed. So, you know, there are multiple logistical, financial, practical reasons why all of this is just totally unimaginable. And at the same time, American politicians, Israeli politicians, leaders— including the Israeli Mossad themselves—were taking responsibility for these demonstrations. Israeli media said that Mossad was on the ground in Tehran. Mossad itself put out tweets in Farsi saying they were supporting, you know, the riots or the protests, or whatever you want to call them. At New Year, Mike Pompeo, the former CIA director, said that there were Mossad agents walking around the streets in Iran preparing. So, yeah, they were very open about it. You know, the Israelis were very proud of it. There was talk on Israeli talk shows, on Channel 14, where Israeli journalists said that Mossad was driving the protests in Iran and that they were killing people on the ground—killing security forces—and that they were bringing in weapons. The Iranians showed thousands, tens of thousands of weapons on Iranian media, saying they had found and confiscated them, that they were being smuggled in to the protesters. So, I mean, all in all, it looked very clear that this was not an organic, natural protest against the Iranian authorities, as it was being presented in the West. But rather, it looked very much like the familiar CIA–MI6 playbook that we’ve seen many times before in many countries, including Iran in 1953. What happened then was very similar to what’s happening now: you collapse the economy—which, you know, Western countries are obviously well placed to do. They did it in 1953 by stopping Iranian oil exports. And then there are protests. The next step is that when there are natural protests, you pay agitators, distribute weapons, and encourage them to create chaos. And then the regime cracks down and there’s blood in the streets. You use this either to pressure the regime to stand down, as happened in 1953, or—as appeared to be the plan in this case—to intervene militarily and take some kind of action to finish the job and get rid of the regime. That seemed to be the plan. But the Iranians managed to stymie it, because after a few days of total chaos in Iran, when we saw so many videos of violence and destruction, they switched off the Internet. With help from the Russians—who are very experienced in handling Starlink technology, since they know it from Ukraine, where Starlink is used to maneuver drones—the Russians knew exactly how to switch it off and locate the terminals. And apparently, that’s what the Iranian security services did. And there were lots of arrests, and the terminals were confiscated. Once the agitators could no longer coordinate, the protests immediately stopped. Then what happened was that there were vast pro-government demonstrations in Iran—certainly tens of thousands of people. I mean, obviously, it’ s very difficult to know; the Iranian regime claimed there were millions. I don’t think that’s very likely, but the videos showed what looked like tens of thousands of Iranians on the streets supporting the government. Which, you know, obviously they didn’t have to do—they didn’t have to come out if they didn’t want to. So there were these mass pro-government demonstrations, a kind of -- 3 of 15 -- rallying around the flag, and many videos of Iranians saying they were supporting their government and so on. And, of course, none of this was reported in the Western media at all. I mean, the Western media was, you know, once again, totally misleading in its coverage. It peddled this line that was apparently aimed at paving the way for foreign intervention. Which, of course, is what we've come to expect from Western media. We know that Western media is pathologically anti-Iranian and does not represent the Israel-Iran conflict fairly. So that’s what we saw. #Pascal Hey, very brief intermission because I was recently banned from YouTube. And although I'm back, this could happen again at any time. So please consider subscribing not only here but also to my mailing list on Substack—that’s pascallottaz.substack.com. The link’s in the description below. And now, back to the video. So, even social media was flooded, right? Especially Twitter, or X. I think I’ ve never seen that many—well, I have seen that many in the context of the genocide—but with Iran, it’s just amazing. Like, how many accounts started posting videos they claimed were anti–uh, government protests, that later turned out to be clearly labeled as either pro–Iranian government protests or, uh, nothing to do with Iran at all? There were so many pictures that actually showed protests in the U.S.—you know, on U.S. streets with stop signs—yet some accounts seriously claimed, “Look, they’re attacking with gas,” when what was used was some kind of pepper spray or whatever, and clearly from the United States. I mean, there was a massive, massive online social media attack—or, you know, an attempt at narrative shaping. Just massive. #Hugh Miles It was phenomenal. I mean, The Guardian, for example—one week, I counted seventy-four articles. Seventy-four! Seventy-four articles published on Iran in a single week. I mean, it’s absolutely extraordinary. You know, this tsunami—all, of course, essentially saying the same thing. Like you said, there was a lot of misrepresentation of the videos. BBC Newsnight misrepresented pro- government demonstrations as anti-regime demonstrations. The BBC also misquoted the Supreme Leader when he said that thousands of people had been killed by Mossad-backed agitators, and they didn’t report his full statement. They just said thousands of people had died, without giving the necessary context—that he was saying this was done by Mossad- and CIA-armed agitators. That was his full statement, but they omitted that. And, of course, you know, there was also this very famous performance by an Iranian dissident, this émigré lady called Masih Alinejad, who appeared at the United Nations. She cried and talked about millions of Iranians being killed. This was reported by Reuters and broadcast all around the world. They didn’t mention the fact that this lady, according to WikiLeaks in 2009, was a U.S. intelligence -- 4 of 15 -- asset. Right? She’s in WikiLeaks, and it says her identity had to be protected. They also didn’t mention that, according to public U.S. government information, she’s been paid over 800,000 U.S. dollars to make propaganda against Iran while she’s been in exile in the West. And, of course, Reza Pahlavi, the son of the Shah, you know, lives in Maryland and obviously can’t go to Iran. He was front and center there. So, you know, all the opposition groups—we’re talking about the monarchists, the Kurds, the MEK, which is this weird cult that fought with Saddam Hussein against Iran in the Iran–Iraq War—you know, they’re all given airtime. And so it was, you kn