Israel's Real Goal Is Not a Ceasefire — It's the Complete Collapse of the Iranian Regime. And Washington May Not Have Agreed to That.
While Trump talks about ceasefire negotiations and Iran says it wants the war to end permanently, a former senior Israeli negotiator just said the quiet part out loud: Israel is not trying to stop this war. Israel is trying to burn every possible off-ramp so the war cannot stop — until the Islamic Republic no longer exists.
By NowCastDaily World Desk | March 20, 2026 | World News · Analysis | 9 min read
On Day 20, former Israeli negotiator Daniel Levy said something that should have dominated every front page in the world: Israel's stated goal in this war is "regime collapse and state collapse" in Iran. Not a nuclear deal. Not a ceasefire. Not a security guarantee. The complete implosion of the Islamic Republic as a functioning state. Levy, who was part of the team that negotiated the 2000 Camp David summit, described Israel's recent escalatory moves as "calculated moves intended to burn off-ramps and deliberately prevent the US from backing out of the conflict."
Read that again. Israel is not just fighting Iran. Israel is deliberately maneuvering to prevent the United States from finding an exit. And the question that nobody in Washington is willing to ask publicly — but that the entire world is asking privately — is: did the Trump administration agree to that?
The Evidence That Israel Is Burning Off-Ramps
The pattern is undeniable once you see it. Every time a diplomatic opening appears, an Israeli action closes it. On February 27 — one day before the war began — Oman's Foreign Minister announced a breakthrough: Iran had agreed to never stockpile enriched uranium and to full IAEA verification. Peace was "within reach." The next day, bombs fell. The ceasefire door was shut before it could open.
On Day 20, as ceasefire talk intensified and multiple regional mediators were making calls, Israel struck Iran's South Pars gas field — the one asset so strategically important that even the Trump administration said it didn't know about it in advance. The strike guaranteed Iranian retaliation, guaranteed Qatar's Ras Laffan would be hit, and guaranteed that any diplomatic momentum would be shattered. Whether that was a deliberate calculation or a fortunate byproduct of military operations, the effect was the same: another off-ramp, burned.
What the US Signed Up For vs. What Israel Is Doing
The Trump administration's stated justification for Operation Epic Fury was to eliminate Iran's nuclear capability and degrade its ballistic missile program. That is a defined, achievable military objective with a foreseeable end state — you destroy the facilities, you verify the destruction, you negotiate a new framework, you go home. Regime collapse is a completely different mission. It has no defined endpoint. It has no verification mechanism. It requires either a US-backed ground invasion and occupation — something no American president would commit to — or a sustained aerial campaign of indefinite duration until the regime collapses on its own. That could take months. It could take years. It might never happen.
This divergence between Israeli and American war goals is already surfacing in Trump's public statements — he publicly rebuked Israel for the South Pars strike without warning, a rare moment of visible friction between the two allies. That friction will only grow as the cost of the war rises and the US finds itself committed to an objective it may not have consciously chosen.
Tulsi Gabbard's Senate Testimony — and the Lie Behind the War's Justification
Adding fuel to the growing credibility crisis around the war's origins, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has been accused of altering her Senate testimony on Iran — specifically, of omitting intelligence details that contradicted President Trump's claims that Tehran posed an imminent threat. If the accusation is accurate, it means the war was launched on a distorted intelligence picture — not unlike the 2003 Iraq War, which was also justified by intelligence that turned out to be selectively presented to Congress and the public.
📊 NCD Analysis: America Is Being Led by Its Ally — Not Leading
The most disturbing aspect of the US-Israel dynamic in this war is not that Israel wants regime collapse. That is a rational Israeli strategic interest — the Islamic Republic has vowed to destroy Israel for 45 years, and from Israel's perspective, no nuclear deal or temporary agreement changes that fundamental hostility. What is disturbing is that the United States — the most powerful military in human history — appears to be following its ally's escalatory timeline rather than setting its own. Trump publicly states Iran wants to negotiate, then strikes that prevent negotiation keep happening. The US declared it didn't approve the South Pars strike. Yet no meaningful pressure was applied to prevent the next escalation. When the smaller partner in an alliance is consistently driving the larger partner's strategic behavior, the larger partner is no longer in control of its own war. That is where America appears to be today — and it is a dangerous place to be at $118 oil and a rising recession risk at home.
🔮 Three Scenarios From Here
🔴 Scenario 1 — Israel Gets What It Wants (Regime Collapse): If Nowruz protests inside Iran expand, the IRGC fractures under sustained military pressure, and Mojtaba Khamenei's leadership collapses, the Islamic Republic could begin an internal disintegration. This is the best possible outcome for Israel — and the most chaotic possible outcome for the region, as a collapsed Iranian state could create a vacuum worse than post-2003 Iraq.
🟡 Scenario 2 — US Forces a Ceasefire Over Israeli Objections: If oil reaches $130 and US economic pain becomes politically unsustainable for Trump domestically, the administration could use its leverage to force a pause — cutting off some weapon supplies, threatening to pull back naval assets, or directly pressuring Netanyahu. Israel cannot sustain a full-scale war against Iran without active US support. This is a scenario in which the US reasserts control of its own foreign policy.
🟢 Scenario 3 — The War Drags On Without Resolution: Neither collapse nor ceasefire, but a grinding, costly, open-ended conflict that slowly destroys Iran's military capability while steadily damaging the global economy. This is currently the most likely scenario — and in many ways the worst, because it is the one in which nobody wins and everybody pays.
📌 Key Facts
- Daniel Levy — Former Israeli negotiator, Camp David 2000 team; stated Israel's goal is regime and state collapse
- "Burn off-ramps" — Levy's description of Israel's deliberate strategy to prevent ceasefire exits
- February 27 — Day before war began; Oman announced a nuclear breakthrough. The next day, bombs fell.
- Tulsi Gabbard — US DNI accused of omitting intelligence contradicting Trump's imminent threat claim
- South Pars — Israel struck it without telling the US; Trump publicly rebuked Israel — a rare allied friction
⚡ NCD Bottom Line: The United States and Israel went into this war as allies with the same enemy. Twenty-one days later, it is becoming clear they may not have the same goal. That divergence — if it is real and if it widens — is the single most important factor that will determine whether this war ends in weeks or continues for months. Watch for the moment Trump stops publicly rebuking Israel and starts privately pressuring it. That moment has not arrived yet. When it does, the war's trajectory will change.
Sources: Al Jazeera — Day 21 · Al Jazeera — Day 20 · Jerusalem Post — Revolution in Waiting
Strategic analysis of the US-Iran war and global power dynamics. NowCastDaily.com