As the region appeared to be heading for uncontrolled escalation after the US joined Israel in attacking Iran, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed the possibility of an end to hostilities, albeit with major caveats and no timeline.
In a statement delivered on Sunday evening, the Prime Minister said Israel was close to achieving its goals in Iran and promised his country would not be dragged into a “war of attrition”.
“We won’t pursue our actions beyond what is needed to achieve [objectives] but we also won’t finish too soon. When the objectives are achieved, then the operation is complete and the fighting will stop,” Mr Netanyahu said.
“We embarked on this operation to eliminate the two concrete threats to our existence: the nuclear threat and the ballistic missile threat. We are moving step by step towards achieving these goals. We are very, very close to completing them.”
The confident assessment came after the US carried out overnight strikes on three key Iranian nuclear sites, including dropping "bunker bombs" on underground uranium enrichment facilities at Fordow and Natanz. US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said those sites had been “obliterated”. Mr Netanyahu said the US attack had inflicted "very serious damage" at Fordow.
With Iran escalating its rhetoric after the attack and continuing major strikes on Israel, the urgent question now is whether the US and Israel are truly willing to work towards a diplomatic solution.
Israel responded on Monday by attacking "regime targets and government repression bodies in the heart of Tehran with unprecedented force”, including the internal security base of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the headquarters of the affiliated Basij volunteer militia, and Evin jail, where political prisoners are held, Defence Minister Israel Katz said.
"Israel's endgame isn't straightforward," a senior regional security official told The National. "The security assessment in some Arab capitals is that Netanyahu's government of extremists feels emboldened by the US strikes and will continue the war with the help of the US and European countries until a dramatic change happens in Iran.
"It's very hard to see him stopping the war now. This isn't about nuclear sites any more. It's about Netanyahu's legacy."
Despite Mr Netanyahu long being accused by his many opponents in Israel of being willing to place the country in dangerous situations to ensure his political survival, there has been little such criticism over the attack on Iran, indicating widespread belief among Jewish Israelis that Iran is an existential threat.
All but the most left-wing opposition politicians have had nothing but praise for the way the campaign against Iran has proceeded, especially the US decision to become involved.
Yair Lapid, leader of the opposition and one of Mr Netanyahu’s highest-profile critics, said only: “Thank you President Trump for your historic decision. Israel, the Middle East and the world are now safer.” Democrat leader Yair Golan, who heads arguably the most dynamic party on Israel’s beleaguered and dwindling left, described the US strikes as “impressive, important and justified”.
Israeli pollster Dahlia Scheindlin told The National that Israel’s plans for the war with Iran seem far clearer than its war against Hamas in Gaza, now in its 21st month. “There was clearly not only a bank of [Iranian] targets but also a bank of achievable aims that Israel will have decided once they are achieved, the war can be over in Iran”.
Ms Scheindlin said she was “watching very closely to see if [Mr Netanyahu’s] language changes in that regard”.
“If I piece together what he has said and done, the plan was to define a clear set of achievable aims, with measures of how those are to be assessed. This is consistent with the longer-term history of him wanting to destroy these two [nuclear and missile] programmes and preferring short, definitive wars over ones that are dragged out, of the kind he got dragged into on October 7.”
She added that, for now, Mr Netanyahu’s campaign has vast support among Jewish Israelis: “There's nothing clouding the sense of moral purity around the need to counter Iran. There's no occupation to spoil it and it doesn't tie into deep internal ideological divisions among the Israeli public, like Gaza does.”
