Netanyahu says Iran war goals achieved ‘beyond halfway point’
WASHINGTON — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that the war on Iran had achieved more than half its aims, without putting a timeline on when it would end.
“It’s definitely beyond the halfway point. But I don’t want to put a schedule on it,” Netanyahu told the conservative US broadcaster Newsmax.
He added that he meant the war was more than halfway “in terms of missions, not necessarily in terms of time.”
READ: Iran fires at Israel after Netanyahu boasts of war gains
President Donald Trump, who launched the war with Netanyahu on February 28, initially said the operation would last for four to six weeks.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday that the war would last “weeks” further instead of months, amid wide US public opposition to a conflict that has sent oil prices soaring.
Netanyahu said the war had achieved goals including killing “thousands” of members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
Israel and the United States are also “close to finishing their arms industry,” he added.
READ: Iran Guards vow to ‘pursue and kill’ Israeli premier Netanyahu
“Just the whole industrial base — wiping out all, you know, just plants, entire plants, and the nuclear program itself,” he said.
Netanyahu and Trump have repeatedly alleged that Iran was close to building a nuclear weapon, a claim not supported by the UN nuclear watchdog and that comes despite Trump saying he “obliterated” key sites in attacks last year.
Netanyahu also voiced confidence that Iran’s Islamic republic would fall, though he said again that this was not the goal.
“I think this regime will collapse internally. But at the moment, right now, what we’re doing is just degrading their military capacity, degrading their missile capacity, degrading their nuclear capacity and also weakening them from the inside,” Netanyahu said.
The war came weeks after Iranian authorities clamped down on major anti-government demonstrations, killing thousands of people.
Trump in recent days has said the war has effectively achieved “regime change” by empowering other figures within the cleric-run state who Trump says may be more accommodating. /dl
