As the naysayers are so fond of reminding us, never has regime change been achieved from the air. Never, however, has it been attempted with the ability to hack traffic cameras or blow up pagers, and the courageous Israeli-American alliance seems to be gambling that in the digital age, miracles are possible.

In his book War In 140 Characters, the foreign correspondent David Patrikarakos coined the term “homo digitalis” to describe the evolved human whose mobile phone grants him agency to shape the world. From Gaza to the Donbas, every strike has produced a blizzard of social media posts which have had a direct influence on the geopolitical reality and global economy.

Israel and Ukraine – the two countries on the frontlines of the struggle for the West – have been at the forefront of developing military tech. It was their homo digitalis who adapted cheap, off-the-shelf kit to stop Russian-Iranian drones in Ukraine. Kyiv’s air-defence experts are now protecting American bases in the Gulf. In Israel, meanwhile, the campaign against Hamas saw an “innovation surge”, as homo digitalis fast-tracked advances in artificial intelligence, drones, robotics, sensors, battlefield coordination apps and open-source analysis.

Thus runs the long history of warfare: the stirrup, the longbow, gunpowder, the tank, aircraft, radar and precision-guided munitions all belonged to the realm of science fiction until they changed the reality on the battlefield. Which brings us back to Iran.

Regime change from the air? There may be an app for that. On the outbreak of war, Mossad asked Iranians to share their pictures and videos with Israeli spymasters as if they were using Facebook. Another innovation: intelligence gathering in the social media era.

This week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Jerusalem had gone one step further. In a string of strikes on Wednesday night, an Israeli Hermes drone destroyed checkpoints used by the Basij militia to keep people under the jackboot. In the aftermath, security positions began vanishing, moving, or breaking up into inefficient mobile patrols around Tehran, creating the space for activists to muster.

According to the report, targeting information had been provided by Iranian activists on the ground. It is early days, of course, and, as the saying goes, the enemy always has a vote. But if homo digitalis develops a taste for calling in drone strikes, we may be looking at the first-ever popular uprising with air cover.

Such is the scope of allied ambitions in this campaign. Having destroyed Iran’s air defences, decapitated its leadership, targeted nuclear facilities and depleted missile stockpiles and launchers, attention now turns to the infernal apparatus of oppression. Make no mistake, this is about regime change. There is no alternative. Nothing is more dangerous than an enemy you failed to kill.

In a video speech last week, Benjamin Netanyahu disclosed that the IDF had “many surprises” in store for the regime. According to insiders, these have been delayed by Israeli infighting over which agency will take the credit. But they are on their way.

These surprises, thought to number about four or five, are unlikely to feature anything on the scale of the pager operation that castrated Hezbollah in September 2024. Instead, we are likely to see a sequence of creative subversions of the foundations of the Islamic Republic.

“With one hand, we grip the regime’s throat with force,” a security official said, referring to the conventional air campaign. “With the other hand, we shake it unexpectedly, again and again and again, until its neck snaps.” The objectives are clear. If all goes well, Israeli surprises will both demoralise the regime’s troops, tempting them to desert, and embolden the Iranian people to overthrow them.

But what about boots on the ground? Never before, etc. Well, keep your eyes on the Artesh, Iran’s regular armed forces which, unlike the fanatical Revolutionary Guards, descend from the time of the Shah. These troops tend to be of a nationalistic temperament, not an Islamist one, and they have largely held back from the fighting.

If the humiliation of the regime reaches a tipping point, the Artesh may revolt. This would resemble a traditional coup, empowered by homo digitalis and the Mossad. Another first. As if by magic, the Iranian people would find themselves with a great many boots on the ground.

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. None of this is guaranteed and, as Netanyahu pointed out this week, “you can lead someone to water, but you cannot make him drink”. Donald Trump echoed these sentiments, telling Fox News on Friday that an uprising was “a big hurdle to climb for people that don’t have weapons”. He added: “It’ll happen, but it probably will be maybe not immediately.” Post-2003 Iraq always lurks around the corner.

But what was the alternative? Diplomacy had failed. Sanctions had failed. Covert action had slowed Tehran’s progress towards a bomb, but was powerless to stop it. Even after the hammering it received in June, the regime immediately began building back its missile stockpiles and proxies, like zombies knowing only death, and went on to butcher more than 30,000 people in two days, not to mention the atrocities it plots on our shores.

Seen from our rainy isles of appeasement, Mossad and homo digitalis stand like greyhounds in the slips. With or without our support, the game’s afoot. They will follow their spirit, and upon the charge, cry: “God for America, Israel and Iran!”