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Ambassador Leiter: The strikes will continue until the Iranian regime falls

On 23 March 2026, Israel National News, also known as Arutz Sheva, published Ambassador Leiter: The strikes will continue until the Iranian regime falls. The byline is the outlet itself. The page reports an interview that Israeli Ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter (also called Michael Leiter) gave CNN's Dana Bash. An American family should care because "boots on the ground" is the phrase people use for sending soldiers into a country. Leiter's answer, as this page quotes it, is that those boots should be Iranian, meaning an uprising, not foreign troops.

Background for new readers: On 28 February 2026 the United States and Israel began a joint air war on Iran. The Pentagon calls its part Operation Epic Fury; Israel calls its part Operation Roaring Lion. It came eight months after a shorter war in June 2025, when US bombers hit Iran's nuclear sites at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. The question running through this section is whether the air war turns into American soldiers fighting on Iranian soil. This article is filed under Israeli Leaders on a Ground War; the full article index lists every article on this shelf.

Evidence rating: MODERATE. A named ambassador's words appear here as a direct quotation from his CNN interview, as Israel National News reported it. The rating covers that reported quotation.

What the article says​

Israel National News says Leiter declared on Sunday that the Iranian people must rise up and overthrow the Islamic Republic. It says he told Dana Bash, on CNN's "State of the Union," that the war should go on until Tehran no longer threatens the region.

I think that we need boots on the ground, but they have got to be Iranian boots, and I think they're coming.

Those are Leiter's words, as Israel National News quotes them on 23 March 2026. The subheading shortens the same line. He is speaking as Israel's ambassador.

The article says he compared that hope to other collapses. He said nobody knew when the Soviet Union would fall, or when Romanians would turn their guns on their government, but that it happened. He said that if the regime is degraded enough, Iranians will say they have had enough and want a different government. He said a change of heart inside the current regime was hard to imagine. He said the more likely path was an uprising, and he said Iranian forces had brutally put down protesters earlier that year.

He also said, according to the page, that Israel's answer to Iranian missiles would be to continue the campaign "until we bring this regime to its knees." He said Israel cannot live with a state that declares it will destroy Israel and that is firing ballistic missiles at its neighbors.

What other reporting adds​

He said the same two weeks earlier. On CBS's Face the Nation on 8 March, Leiter declined to rule out boots on the ground and said: "If that includes putting boots on the ground — our preference is for the boots on the ground to be those of the Iranians. … They need to put their boots on the ground and ensure their future and the future of the region." He added: "This has to be finished. This is a terror-sponsoring state that has to be brought down." (Politico, 8 March 2026; research capture: twitter/t13__v145.md). The day before that, Israeli President Isaac Herzog told Fox News that bringing down the regime "doesn't require troops on the ground," as Politico reported.

Other Israeli voices went further. Three days before this interview, Prime Minister Netanyahu said "there has to be a ground component, as well," without saying whose (Just the News, 20 March 2026; research capture: twitter/t13__v147.md).

An Iranian opposition figure agreed with Leiter. Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran's last shah, told Fox News in September: "Not asking for American boots on the ground. The boots on the ground are the people of Iran themselves." (@urgentintel on X, 23 September 2026; research capture: twitter/t13__v145.md). By then, six months after "I think they're coming," no general uprising had toppled the government.

What it shows​

Israel's ambassador in Washington said "we need boots on the ground," and that he wanted them to be Iranian, and on CBS two weeks earlier declined to rule out boots on the ground at all. He also said the strikes would go on "until we bring this regime to its knees." Six months later, the Iranian uprising he predicted had not come, while the Pentagon had drawn up ground plans for American troops and sent the Marines and paratroopers to carry them out. When the boots Israel hopes for do not come, and Israel's own infantry stays home, the ground component falls to Americans. See Israeli Leaders on a Ground War and Pentagon Ground Plans 2026.

Check it yourself​

Status: Yechiel Leiter is alive. This page quotes his interview. It does not accuse him of a crime.

Last Updated: 2026-09-26

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