Trump said to veto Khamenei assassination; Netanyahu: Conflict may result in regime change

Israel had a window of opportunity on Friday to assassinate Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, but US President Donald Trump vetoed the move, several major news outlets reported Sunday, while Israeli officials cast the series of reports as “fake news.”

At the same time, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — who himself refused to comment one way or another about the vetoed assassination reports — told Fox News on Sunday that regime change in Iran “could certainly be the result” of Israel’s ongoing military campaign, though he did not say it was the goal and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar denied outright on Sunday that this was the goal.

Israeli officials have said repeatedly since launching the intensive waves of airstrikes on Iran early Friday that the campaign is preemptive and was initiated to stave off the imminent, existential threat of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon and growing its ballistic missile arsenal.

Officials have also said, however, that if Iran crosses enough red lines — specifically through attacking civilian population centers, as it has in numerous missile attacks since Friday — anything could be on the table.

Reuters reported Sunday, citing two US officials, that Israel had an opportunity to kill Khamenei but Trump “waved off the plan.” Shortly thereafter, the Associated Press (AP), Axios, and Israel’s Channel 13 said they’d received confirmation of similar details from American officials.

According to AP, Jerusalem informed the Trump administration in recent days that it had developed a credible plan to kill Khamenei. After being briefed on the plan, the White House made clear to Israeli officials that Trump was opposed to Israel making the move, according to a US official.

To Axios, a US official said: “We communicated to the Israelis that President Trump is opposed to that. The Iranians haven’t killed an American, and discussion of killing political leaders should not be on the table.”

In Israel, National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi denied the Reuters report, calling it “fake news.” Netanyahu’s spokesman Omer Dostri also called it “fake.”

Speaking to CNN on Sunday, Sa’ar said: “The goal [of the campaign] is not regime change. That’s for the Iranian people to decide.”

But when Netanyahu himself was asked by Fox News’s Bret Baier about the report, the premier demurred, saying: “There are a lot of false reports about conversations that didn’t take place, but I don’t want to get into that.”

“But I can tell you, I think that we do what we need to do, we’ll do what we need to do. And I think the United States knows what is good for the United States,” the premier added.

Netanyahu did not specify that regime change in Iran was a goal of Israel’s ongoing military campaign, but said that “could certainly be the result because the Iran regime is very weak.”

Whisked away

Despite the numerous reports of Trump’s veto, details about the proposed assassination itself were scarce, and the reports didn’t say whether Israel had actively sought to carry out the plan.

Iran International, a UK-based outlet critical of the Islamic Republic, cited a diplomatic source in the Middle East who said Israel could have assassinated Khamenei on the first night of the operation Thursday-Friday, but chose not to, in order to give the 86-year-old cleric one last chance to commit to completely dismantle his country’s uranium enrichment program.

The outlet also reported, citing two informed sources inside Iran, that Khamenei was whisked away that night to an underground bunker in northeastern Tehran’s Lavizan, where he is now holed up alongside his family.

The diplomatic source added that Israel’s strike Sunday on an Iranian refueling plane in the city of Mashhad — some 2,300 kilometers (1,430 miles) from Israel — was a warning to Khamenei that there is no part of the country in which he is safe.

Israeli official to WSJ: Khamenei ‘not off limits’

While Jerusalem continued Sunday to avoid declaring a goal of regime change, some officials — both openly and anonymously — said that killing Khamenei and acting to topple the Islamic Republic altogether was not outside the realm of possibility.

Israeli Ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter told ABC: “I think it’s fair to say that nobody who’s threatening the destruction of Israel should be off the target list.”

Channel 12 quoted an Israeli political source as saying: “Israel is not ruling out the possibility of eliminating Ali Khamenei, but it depends on many things.”

The remarks echoed a comment to The Wall Street Journal by an unnamed Israeli official on Saturday, who said the Iranian supreme leader was “not off limits” as a target.

The official told the newspaper that “the war would only end either with Iran voluntarily dismantling its nuclear program or Israel making it impossible for Tehran to reconstitute it.”

The comments came amid ambiguity about what role the US may yet play in the ongoing conflict. While aiding in defending Israel from missile attacks, Washington has not taken part in the strikes on Iran itself.

Trump stressed Sunday that the US was “not at this moment” involved in Israel’s attacks, but added: “It’s possible we could get involved.”

Experts say the US military’s bunker buster bombs would be needed to eliminate all of Iran’s nuclear facilities, some of which are located deep underground. At the same time, the US has troops across the Middle East who could be targeted by Iran and its allies.

Trump’s administration had, for the last two months, been engaging Iran in talks over its nuclear program, with the goal of reaching a diplomatic accord to stop the Islamic Republic from getting nuclear weapons, while avoiding a war.

Dismantle the nuclear program

Netanyahu told Fox that Israel is willing to call off its campaign if Iran accepts US demands to dismantle its nuclear program.

“The issue here is stopping those things that will threaten our survival. And we’re committed to stopping them. And I think we can achieve them,” he said. “Now, if they are willing to accept President [Donald] Trump’s terms, that’s another matter.”

Otherwise, he said, “it’ll end when we remove those capacities, and we will.”

(Trump has stated that “Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon” and “can’t have enrichment.” He also said last month that Iran’s leaders had two options as regards their nuclear facilities: “blow them up nicely [themselves] or have the US “blow them up viciously.”)

Netanyahu said Israel shared intelligence with the US that Iran was building nuclear weapons: “It was absolutely clear that they were working on a secret plan to weaponize the uranium. They were marching very quickly. They would achieve a test device and possibly an initial device within months, and certainly less than a year. That was the intel we shared with the United States.”

He also accused Iran of developing plans to give nuclear weapons to the Houthis in Yemen.

Israel and the US are “fully coordinated,” Netanyahu also said. “I’ve been in constant contact with President Trump,” he stated. “We’ve known each other for many years. And obviously, we informed our American friends and President Trump, our great friend, ahead of time. We did.”

Netanyahu called Trump the “enemy number one” for Iran. “He’s a decisive leader,” he said. “He never took the path that others took to try to bargain with them in a way that is weak, giving them basically a pathway to enrich uranium, which means a pathway to the bomb, padding it with billions and billions of dollars. He took up this fake agreement and basically tore it up. He killed [IRGC chief] Qassem Soleimani.”

Asked whether Israel has the capacity to take out Iranian sites deep underground, Netanyahu said, “We’ve certainly done quite a bit. We’ve destroyed the main facility in Natanz. That’s the main enrichment facility. And if we need to, we’ll add whatever is needed. But yes, we’re committed to achieving both goals. I’m not going to get into all of our objectives. I don’t want to get into specific operational plans.”

“We have quite a few startups, too, and quite a few rabbits up our sleeve,” he said.

Netanyahu said the Iranians “were completely surprised” by Israel’s operation. “So we have a free highway to Tehran, and we can now pick off the targets that we need in Tehran and other places without having our plane shot down,” said Netanyahu.

The Islamic Republic, which vows to destroy Israel, says its nuclear program is for civilian purposes. However, it enriches uranium up to 60 percent — a level that has no civilian purpose and is close to the 90% threshold needed for a nuclear warhead — and has obstructed international inspectors from checking its nuclear facilities.

In a post to his Truth Social platform Sunday, Trump said Israel and Iran “should make a deal,” and predicted: “We will have PEACE, soon, between Israel and Iran!”

Later, speaking to reporters, he said he hoped Israel and Iran can reach a deal, but “sometimes they have to fight it out.”

“But we’re going to see what happens. I think there’s a good chance there will be a deal,” he said.