‘An organization like Mossad must think big’

Earlier this month, Mossad Director Roman Gofman reportedly removed two of the intelligence agency’s key officials who were closely involved in developing an unsuccessful plan to topple the Iranian regime.

According to Channel 12 News, the two officials were the head of the Mossad’s Intelligence Directorate, who had held the position only since December 2025, and the head of the agency’s Iran Division. Both have the option of remaining in Mossad in other roles.

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Maj. (res.) Alexander Grinberg, an Iran expert at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security and a former member of the Israel Defense Forces Military Intelligence Research Department, told JNS that the controversy surrounding Gofman exposes a deeper structural weakness in Israeli intelligence.

“I think this exposes the main problem of the Mossad, and Israeli intelligence in general,” said Grinberg. “Its strength lies in building the target bank and everything derived from it,” yet an understanding of the strategic landscape in enemy states and political systems appears to have been at a significantly lower level, he argued.

“The understanding of the strategic situation and so on is lacking, and it seems this involves something that could have been known and wasn’t factored in, though that doesn’t mean the plan itself was flawed. It simply didn’t materialize because of several factors that could have been prevented,” he said.

“They took on a complicated political operation requiring the involvement of many actors, intrigues, and knowledge of who stands against whom, as if it were a kinetic special operation,” he continued.

According to a May New York Times report, a failed joint U.S.-Israeli operation, reportedly known as “Operation Puss in Boots,” sought to recruit former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as an intelligence asset and supposedly install him as a new leader following the planned overthrow of the Iranian regime. Other reports claimed plans to destabilize the regime also involved funneling weapons to Iranian Kurdish militias in western Iran in the hopes of sparking an armed rebellion in the area.

Yossi Amrusi, a senior fellow at the Misgav Institute and a former senior Israeli Security Agency (Shin Bet) official, told JNS that the reported dismissals should not be read as a verdict on the broader intelligence campaign against Iran, which he described as historically unprecedented in its achievements. “What I can say from my experience is that the Mossad’s activity in Iran in recent years, and especially leading up to and during the recent rounds of fighting, was astonishing. Mossad personnel, the organization’s employees and operatives, managed to obtain quality, deep and precise intelligence that assisted the air force and the defense establishment in the most impressive way. In certain respects, these are intelligence achievements the likes of which we haven’t seen before,” said Amrusi.

He cautioned against conflating that record with the outcome of the ostensible regime-change plan. “The current discussion must not create the impression that the entire intelligence campaign against Iran was a failure. To the contrary. There were extraordinary achievements here,” said Amrusi, adding that any lessons to be drawn belong at the level of decision-making, risk assessment and strategic planning, not operational execution.

Amrusi said he could not speak to Gofman’s actual motives for ending the two officials’ tenures, adding, “If it’s a matter of lack of trust, chemistry that didn’t form, or conflicting professional approaches, that is the Mossad chief’s right, and even his duty, to build the team he believes can lead the organization.”

But he drew a sharp distinction at dismissals as potential punishment for failures not stemming from negligence.

“If this is a dismissal over an operational failure that did not stem from negligence or lack of professionalism, then I think great caution is warranted here,” he said. He warned that punishing boldness itself would corrode Mossad’s core strength. “In the world of intelligence, uncertainty is a built-in part of the game. You expect Mossad personnel to be daring, creative, to think outside the box and try things others wouldn’t even conceive of. And if every time an operation or an idea fails, you cut off the heads of those who dared propose and carry it out, you risk creating exactly the opposite of what an intelligence organization needs,” he added.

The chilling effect would be immediate and corrosive, he warned. “People will start thinking: maybe it’s better not to propose too daring an idea, maybe it’s better to play it safe, because if I fail, my career will end. That is very dangerous,” said Amrusi.

“Of course every failure needs to be examined, learned from, to understand what didn’t work and ensure the organization improves. But a clear distinction must be made between failure resulting from negligence or lack of professionalism, and the failure of a bold, professional idea that was tested against reality and didn’t succeed. A Mossad that punishes people for the very fact of their daring risks losing precisely the quality that made it one of the best intelligence organizations in the world,” he added.

“In my view, the very fact that the Mossad set itself the strategic objective of creating the conditions to topple the Iranian regime was correct. From the start of the war until today, I personally believe this should be the war’s objective, and that it is attainable,” he continued. “One can debate the plan, the assessments, the timing and the chances of success. But an organization like Mossad must think big. It must examine even possibilities that look almost impossible at the outset, including creating the conditions for regime change through local forces, influencing populations, generating processes from within, and years-long covert activity.”

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