Israel was preparing a final wave of attacks aimed at toppling Iran’s ruling system when US President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire, The Washington Post reported, citing Israeli and American officials involved in the operation.
“When Trump declared a ceasefire, Israel was moving into a final phase of attacks intended to topple the regime,” said David Ignatius in an opinion piece published by The Washington Post on Friday evening.
The final phase, which Israeli planners believed could bring down the Islamic Republic, was halted when Trump intervened.
The ceasefire announced by Trump on June 23 ended a 12-day conflict between Israel and Iran that was capped off by US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites.
The United States had signaled it would join only if the campaign was going well, officials were quoted by the Post as saying.
At the height of the conflict, both Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump hinted at favoring Iranian regime change.
"It’s not politically correct to use the term, 'Regime Change,' but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!!" Trump said in a post on Truth Social in late June.
According to the Washington Post, Israel’s 12-day assault dealt such severe damage to Iran’s nuclear and military infrastructure that it set Tehran’s weapons program back by at least one to two years.
“Iran is no longer a threshold nuclear state,” one Israeli source told the paper. The official said the campaign eliminated nearly all of Iran’s first- and second-tier nuclear scientists and crippled both enrichment and weaponization capabilities.
Strikes on facilities at Natanz, Fordow, Isfahan and hidden uranium caches were paired with targeting of electromagnetic pulse and nuclear fusion research. The Israeli source said the intent was to dismantle not only Iran’s hardware but also the human and logistical backbone of its nuclear efforts.
The Post described the operation as combining aerial bombing, intelligence penetration and algorithm war.
After the first two days, Israel achieved total air superiority and destroyed around half of Iran’s ballistic missiles and 80 percent of its launchers, according to the report.
Israel's surprise campaign of airstrikes and drone attacks killed hundreds of Iranians including civilians, military personnel and nuclear scientists. Iran's retaliatory missile strikes killed 27 Israeli civilians.
