JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered on a career-long ambition to topple Iran’s leadership, but his lockstep alignment with US President Donald Trump faces a test as their joint military campaign threatens to drag on, with its goals potentially shifting in the coming weeks.
At the outset of the bombing campaign on Saturday (March 4), both Trump and Netanyahu said regime change was the goal.
But in remarks at the White House on Monday, two days after Israeli air strikes killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and much of his leadership, Trump did not mention overthrowing Iran’s government as his top priority.
The US goal, he said, was to destroy Iran’s missiles and navy, and to stop it from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
His Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth said at a press conference that same day that the operation was not a “so-called regime-change war”.
Netanyahu, by contrast, has called on Iran’s citizens to take to the streets and overthrow their rulers as recently as Monday night.
“We’re going to create the conditions, first, for the Iranian people to get control of their destiny,” he told Fox News.
Asked about the US and Israeli goals, a US official familiar with the White House’s objectives told Reuters that the two countries’ military campaigns have different objectives.
“Regime change is one of theirs,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. https://www.asiaone.com/world/netanyahus-war-alliance-trump-faces-test-iran-crisis-widens
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