JERUSALEM, Israel — Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz said Sunday evening that it was time for “regime change” in Iran, due to the threat that the Iranian government posed to the Middle East and the world.
Dershowitz appeared on Breitbart News Sunday on SiriusXM Patriot 125, during a special broadcast from northern Israel, just hours after the Israeli military and its allies had intercepted a massive Iranian missile and drone attack.
“This will just be repeated over and over again, unless there’s regime change in Iran,” Dershowitz said, noting that Iran has exported war with impunity for decades. “And this is the perfect opportunity — legally, morally, politically, and diplomatically, for Israel and the United States to bring about regime change. And it should be done. And it will require, obviously, some degree of military action.”
He noted missed opportunities to depose Hitler in Nazi Germany.
Dershowitz had opposed regime change in Iraq during the Iraq War, and reiterated that stance on Sunday, saying that it had been “none of our business” how Saddam Hussain treated his own people.
But the Iranian regime was different, he said. “The big difference is Iran is exporting terrorism, and attacking the United States.”
He said that regime change in Iran would be applauded by the Iranian people, citing the Iranian crown prince, Reza Pahlavi, who has encouraged protests against the regime.
Regime change in Iran would benefit the entire region — and it would be legally justified, he said, after Iran’s attack on Israel last weekend. If it wanted to, he said, Israel could legally destroy the entire Iranian military in response.
Dershowitz, who has been critical of President Joe Biden’s policies in the Middle East, said he is considering voting Republican in 2024 for the first time in decades, as are many other pro-Israel voters in the Jewish community, many of whom had been reliable Democratic Party voters — until now.
Though Biden is focused on the danger of defections from Arab- and Muslim-American voters in Michigan, Jewish and pro-Israel voters could also play a role elsewhere.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the recent e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.