Israel, Arab nations said to urge US to wait to strike Iran until regime further weakened |
Israeli and Arab officials have suggested the Trump administration hold off on striking Iran for now, believing that the Islamic Republic may not be sufficiently weakened in order for a US attack to topple it, NBC News reported Tuesday.
The report came as US President Donald Trump told reporters that he has not yet decided what course of action he will take in response to Iran’s killing of protesters.
Protests have taken place across all of Iran’s 31 provinces, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency. It said Wednesday that at least 2,571 people had been killed and more than 18,100 had been arrested in the more than two weeks of protests. The Mossad is said to believe the death toll is more than twice as high.
NBC said that Israeli and Arab officials prefer the US wait to strike until the Iranian regime is further stretched, and that this message was relayed in talks held the past few days involving US political and military leaders. The report cited a US official, an-ex US official briefed on the matter, a person familiar with Israeli leaders’ thinking, and two Arab officials.
According to the report, Israeli officials told their American interlocutors that they strongly support regime change and US efforts to bring it about, but are worried that foreign military action may not be enough.
They also reportedly suggested the US act in other ways to destabilize the regime and support the protesters, who may be able to do more to undermine the Islamic Republic before strikes play a decisive role.
Among the actions that NBC said Israel proposed were assisting Iranians to get around the communications shutdown, toughening economic sanctions, engaging in a cyberattack, or launching targeted strikes against specific senior leaders in Iran that could help spur the regime’s demise.
One of the Arab officials quoted in the report said there........