Israel Escalates in Iran, Drives Toward Regime Change as US Considers Bombing
Trump leaves G-7 summit early to return to Washington. 'We're going to be doing something'.
Israel’s military assault against Iran’s nuclear program expanded beyond counterproliferation objectives to an open pursuit of regime change and the United States reportedly is considering using bunker-buster bombs on Iran’s underground nuclear sites.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in an interview with ABC News on Monday, refused to rule out targeting Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as part of Israel’s assassinations of Iran’s leadership. ‘We are doing what we need to do,’ Netanyahu said. Asked whether such an attack would escalate hostilities, the Israeli Prime Minister asserted: ‘It’s not going to escalate the conflict, it’s going to end the conflict.’
‘The regime is very weak,’ Netanyahu added.
President Donald Trump left the G7 summit in Canada a day early to return to Washington. ‘They want to make a deal, and as soon as I leave here, we’re going to be doing something,’ Trump said on 16 June in Kananaskis, Alberta, appearing to hint at intensified US military engagement. Trump has been repeatedly urged by Israel to use the US military’s largest bunker-buster bomb against Iran’s underground nuclear facility at Fordo, according to The New York Times.
Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and Trump ally, said on CBS on Sunday that ‘if diplomacy is not successful’ he would ‘urge President Trump to go all in to make sure that, when this operation is over, there’s nothing left standing in Iran regarding their nuclear program. If that means providing bombs, provide bombs.’
The aircraft carrier USS Nimitz was heading to the Middle East from southeast Asia and the US moved refueling aircraft to Europe to provide options to Trump in the Middle East conflict, US officials told Reuters.
Israeli Strikes
Israel appeared to have established air dominance over parts of Iran as Israeli jets and missiles struck targets in and around Tehran including airports, the Revolutionary Guard Corps’ headquarters, police headquarters, state television headquarters, an oil refinery, a hospital and several residential complexes in addition to nuclear sites elsewhere in the country.
In a series of public comments and posts on social media, Trump reiterated the Israeli and US demand that Iran abandon its nuclear program. ‘IRAN CAN NOT HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON,’ he wrote. ‘Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!’ Israel warned 300,000 people to evacuate Iran’s capital.
Videos circulating online showed long lines at Tehran gas stations and highways crammed with cars, suggesting a mass exodus from the capital. Iranian civilians fleeing Tehran described smoke-filled roads and chaotic scenes reminiscent of past wartime evacuations.
Overnight, Iran launched another barrage of missiles at Israel and air raid sirens where heard in Tel Aviv and south. Police and emergency services said there were no reports of injuries, according to Haaretz. In five days of missile exchanges so far, Iranian ballistic missiles have damaged buildings in and around Tel Aviv and Haifa, according to the Associated Press.
How to Rally Iranians
Washington Post columnist David Ignatius wrote that Israel’s bombing and assassinations campaign was unlikely to produce change in Iran. ‘A campaign of bombing of the kind Tehran is experiencing makes people hunker down, turn inward and often fight harder,’ Ignatius wrote.
‘Talking with Iran experts, I heard one consistent theme: The best way to rally Iranians is to help them build a wealthier, more advanced and integrated country. So often in the past, Israeli and American intelligence planners did the opposite,’ he said.
Middle East analyst Hassan Mneimneh observed the Trump administration appeared to be pushing Iran to ‘return to the negotiations’ while holding out prospect the US would attack Iran if it does not.
Trump is ‘applauding what Israel is doing and preparing, it seems, for an action on the part of the US,’ Mneimneh told Al Jazeera.
“The ongoing war does not seem to be able to stop unless there is some sort of US intervention – or a diplomatic one,’ Mneimneh said.