Trump shot down Netanyahu’s proposal to jointly call for an Iranian uprising — report

US President Donald Trump rejected a proposal last week by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to jointly call on the Iranian public to take to the streets and topple the regime during the war against Iran, senior American officials and an Israeli source familiar with the details tell Channel 12 news.

The discussion reportedly took place last Tuesday, following Israel’s assassinations of top Iranian officials Ali Larijani, former secretary of Iran’s National Security Council, and Gholamreza Soleimani, former head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Basij Force.

Netanyahu told Trump over the phone that the Iranian regime “was in a state of chaos,” according to the report, arguing that this was the time to further destabilize it by issuing the joint call.

Trump, however, expressed concern that such a call could lead to mass bloodshed as the IRGC would likely suppress the protesters, two American officials tell Channel 12.

The two leaders instead agreed to reassess developments the following day, when Iranians celebrated the Persian Fire Festival, a holiday often marked by large public gatherings. They decided that if significant protests emerged, they would proceed with the joint call, but in the end, no mass demonstrations materialized.

Israeli and American officials therefore concluded that the Iranian public remained too fearful to take to the streets after the regime’s deadly crackdown on protests earlier this year.