Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dismissed suggestions that the conflict in the Middle East is heading towards an "endless war", declaring that military operations will lead to "an era of peace" and, according to him, democracy for Iran.
In an interview with Fox News, Netanyahu said: “This is not an endless war. In fact, this is something that will bring about an era of peace that we have never even dreamed of.”
He repeated the claim that the intervention was necessary to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, although he did not present concrete evidence that Tehran was close to achieving this objective.
“The reason we had to act now is because, after we hit their nuclear facilities and their ballistic missile program… they started building new facilities… underground bunkers that would make their ballistic missile program and their atomic bomb program immune to interference within a few months,” the Israeli prime minister said. “If we didn’t act now, we wouldn’t be able to act in the future,” he added.
Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump's stance contradicts US intelligence assessments, according to which Iran is about a decade away from developing a "military viable" intercontinental ballistic missile.
In an interview with CNN, Trump said he did not want the conflict to last long and had predicted a four-week duration. "We are a little ahead of schedule," he said, adding that the "big wave" of the US attack on Iran had not yet arrived.
He stressed that the US objectives are: destroying Iran's missile capabilities, neutralizing its navy, stopping its nuclear ambitions and cutting off the supply of weapons to militant groups. Trump did not rule out the possibility of sending ground forces.