Israel’s Conflict With Iran Is Simmering Ominously |
As 2025 draws to a close, Israel’s volatile conflict with its arch enemy, Iran, is simmering ominously and threatening to boil over again in another war.
Six months after Operation Rising Lion, its 12-day war with Iran, Israel is increasingly concerned that the Iranian regime is expanding its stocks of ballistic missiles and rebuilding its nuclear program, both of which were heavily damaged by Israeli and U.S. air strikes during the last war in June.
On the eve of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting with President Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on December 29, their sixth since last January, NBC News reported that the Israeli prime minister would present plans to the U.S. president for a renewed offensive against Iran.
It is unclear what Netanyahu told Trump and how he responded. But at a press conference in the wake of their talks, Trump echoed Netanyahu’s warnings. He said that Iran would face severe consequences from both Israel and the United States should it seek to replenish its arsenal of ballistic missiles or restart its nuclear program.
“I hope they are not trying to build up again, because if they are, we’re going to have no choice but very quickly to eradicate that build up,” said Trump, who had boasted that U.S. and Israel bombardments had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear facilities.
He added that he would “absolutely” support Israeli strikes on Iran’s arsenal of ballistic missiles and that he would “immediately” resume bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities if Iran rebuilt them. “We’ll knock them down,” he said. “We’ll knock the hell out of them.”
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian was quick to respond, writing on X that Iran’s reply would be harsh.
A few days earlier, he announced that Iran is at “total war” with the United States, Israel and Europe. “They want to bring our country to its knees,” he claimed, adding that Iran’s conflict with the West is worse than its war with Iraq, which lasted from 1980 to 1988.
Ali Shamkhani, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, wrote on X that “”any aggression........