Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on June 15 that Iran could undergo a regime change as a result of Israel’s recent strikes on the country and nuclear facility.
Israel launched “Operation Rising Lion” with a surprise attack on the morning of June 13, taking out top Iranian generals and scientists while damaging some of Iran’s nuclear facilities. In response, Iran has said that it would continue to launch its own strikes on Israel.
Israeli officials have said the current goal of the campaign is not a change in the Iranian regime, which was established under a revolution in the late 1970s, but the dismantling of Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
But Netanyahu told Fox News’s Bret Baier on June 15 that regime change “could certainly be the result because the Iran regime is very weak.”
“We’re geared to do whatever is necessary to achieve our dual aim, to remove … two existential threats—the nuclear threat and the ballistic missile threat,” Netanyahu told Baier, adding that Israel is trying to “protect the world from this incendiary regime.”
Israel and Iran launched fresh attacks on each other overnight into June 15, killing scores of people and raising fears of a wider conflict. U.S. President Donald Trump said the conflict could be ended easily and signaled that he still wants a peace deal, while warning Tehran not to strike any U.S. targets or assets.
Also in the interview, Netanyahu was asked about reports, citing anonymous officials, that Trump vetoed an Israeli plan for a strike targeting Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
“There’s so many false reports of conversations that never happened, and I’m not going to get into that,” the Israeli prime minister said. “But I can tell you, I think that we do what we need to do.”
Netanyahu also reiterated claims that Iran was working on a clandestine program to enrich uranium to be used for nuclear weapons, which necessitated the need for strikes.
“It was absolutely clear that they were working on a secret plan to weaponize the uranium. They were marching very quickly,“ he said. ”They would achieve a test device and possibly an initial device within months and certainly less than a year. That was the intel we shared with the United States.”
Trump has repeatedly said Iran could end the war by agreeing to tough restrictions on its nuclear program, which Iran says is for peaceful purposes but Western countries say could be used to make a bomb.
The latest round of nuclear negotiations between Iran and the United States, which were set to be held on June 15, was scrapped after Tehran said it would not negotiate while under Israeli attack.
In an interview with ABC News on June 15, Trump said that the U.S. military could get involved but isn’t at the moment. He also said that he spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin and that he’d be open to having the Russian leader be a mediator in the conflict.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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