Israel hails success of Iran strikes, but strategic aims still elusive

But even as Israeli officials celebrated their masterstroke at the operational level, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not appear any closer to realizing his strategic goal of a denuclearized Iran, analysts said. Instead, they said, Netanyahu risked pushing the Middle East into a protracted war, further antagonizing Arab neighbors, including some he has courted, and scuttling the chances of President Donald Trump’s ongoing nuclear talks with Iran that Israeli officials have conceded would be necessary to achieve a lasting solution.

In an interview with Israeli television, Netanyahu’s national security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi, said Friday that Iran’s nuclear program “cannot be destroyed through kinetic means,” but Israel at least delayed Iran’s nuclear progress.

“You can’t destroy with bombs the will to recover and once again pursue the goal of destroying Israel,” Hanegbi told Channel 12’s “Meet the Press” program. “Only the Americans can make that happen. Only President Trump can bring what is called ‘a good deal’ — one in which Iran willingly dismantles its nuclear weapons program, pays a heavy price, but also gains significant benefits.” Iran has insisted its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

On Friday, Trump said on his social media platform, Truth Social, that he also hoped Iran would return to the table for a nuclear deal before it suffered more Israeli attacks and “there is nothing left.” Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, who before Israel carried out its attack was scheduled to fly to Oman on Sunday to meet with his Iranian counterparts, has not changed his travel plans, U.S. officials said.

But Tehran announced it would suspend talks indefinitely and blamed the United States for its role in the “coordination and authorization” of the Israeli attack. On Friday evening, Iran launched a barrage of missiles toward Israel, including Tel Aviv.

Ellie Geranmayeh, deputy program director for the Middle East at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said the idea that Israeli military pressure would strengthen U.S. leverage in negotiations was a “misreading of the Iranian leadership psyche.”

Netanayhu and other Israeli officials appeared to convince Trump “that he can get Iran to accept zero enrichment,” Geranmayeh said, while Trump’s hawkish political allies also convinced him that Iran would capitulate under military pressure. But those flawed assumptions would “boomerang,” she warned, in the same way that Trump’s maximum pressure campaign during his first term failed to make Iran more compliant.

“Iran’s nuclear program playbook suggests that if it’s cornered, it will choose to gain more cards as leverage for negotiations, rather than fold,” Geranmayeh said. Judging by Iran’s early statements at least, it appeared that Tehran did “not want to directly engage the U.S.” in any retaliation, which would be “playing into Netanyahu’s trap,” she added.

It’s not immediately clear the degree to which Trump, who had initially expressed reluctance to use military force and favored trying negotiations with Iran first, supported Friday’s strike.

As recently as Monday, Netanyahu argued during a phone call with Trump that Israel had reached a do-or-die moment, but the U.S. president was still skeptical, said an Israeli official briefed on the call.

Two Israeli officials said that in the two days before the strike, Trump was informed that Israel would carry one out and allowed it to proceed. But these officials dismissed the notion — reported in some Israeli media outlets — that Trump was eager for Israel to carry out a strike or agreed to help lull Iran into a false sense of security by publicly pretending to oppose it. The Israeli officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

In an address early Friday, as 200 Israeli jets pounded Iranian targets 1,200 miles away, Netanyahu framed the attack not as a risky gambit but as a necessity to protect Israel, the Arab world and the West.

But within hours, Netanyahu was met with a flurry of criticism from Arab states and other would-be partners. Saudi Arabia, a country closely aligned with Trump and with whom Netanyahu has hoped to normalize relations, condemned “the blatant Israeli aggression against the sisterly Islamic Republic of Iran.” Another Trump ally, Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, said in a social media post that “Israel’s reckless actions continue to destroy any chances for peace and endanger our peoples as well as global security and stability.”

Despite their assiduous, years-long effort aimed at de-escalating tensions with Iran, Arab countries in the Gulf are finding that “Israel is sabotaging all of this,” said Yasmine Farouk, the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula Project direct at the International Crisis Group.

Oded Ailam, a former Israeli intelligence official, said Israel was not opposed to the United States continuing its negotiations with Iran, if possible, and hoped the Israeli attacks would compel the Iranian leadership to agree to a stringent deal halting all uranium enrichment inside the country. Iranian officials have insisted they be allowed to continue enrichment at low levels for civilian purposes.

But Ailam said the Israeli government may also be hoping that its military campaign leads to the collapse of the Iranian regime. Israeli intelligence officials think that if Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s regime were overthrown, domestic opposition forces would likely agree to dismantling Iran’s nuclear program, he said.

Ohad Tal, a member of the Foreign Affairs and Security Committee in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, said he hoped Washington would come to agree with Israel’s view that “the only way to really get rid of the nuclear plan is by taking down the Iranian regime.”

“We understand that, so I don’t expect this military campaign to end in the next couple days. We will see more of it happening, until hopefully we see the regime fall,” Tal said.

Netanyahu appeared to confirm that aim in a speech addressed to Iranians later Friday. “The objective of Israel’s operation is to thwart the Islamic regime’s nuclear and ballistic missile threat to us,” he said. “As we achieve our objective, we are also clearing the path for you to achieve your freedom.”

It was unlikely that Trump’s closest Gulf allies — Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — “were at all supportive” of the Israeli strikes, given their proximity to the conflict and the threat of regional repercussions, Geranmayeh said. While a weakened Iran was not necessarily bad for its Gulf rivals, they would be unnerved by the possibility of a large-scale Iranian retaliation that could trigger a regionwide conflict.

Some Arab governments took pains Friday to assure Iran they were playing no role in the Israeli attacks, while imploring Tehran not to involve them. “Jordan will not be a battleground for anyone, and will use all its capabilities to confront any violation of its airspace,” Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said in a phone call Friday with his Iranian counterpart, according to an official readout.

Before Friday’s strikes, some Gulf countries had been encouraging the U.S. not to push Iran too hard, including in the nuclear negotiations, because these countries worried that Tehran would “feel a sense of defeat and give up on a nuclear deal and regional détente,” said Farouk of ICG. After the strikes, the worry is that Israel is “adamant on threatening the survival” of Iran’s regime, leading Tehran to place less stock in warming relations with Gulf countries.

“When it comes to survival, Iran might not care about ‘who is issuing statements of support,’ she said.

Shira Rubin in Tel Aviv and Claire Parker in Washington contributed to this report.