Nine months after 12-day war, US, Israel seek to topple Iran’s leaders

Al Jazeera · Feb 28, 2026 · Collected from RSS

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As soon as a truce that ended a 12-day assault on Iran took effect in June last year, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared victory, saying Israeli attacks had sent Tehran’s nuclear programme “to oblivion”.Nearly nine months later, Iran is facing another assault, with both Israel and the United States launching attacks and saying they are seeking regime change in Tehran in a major escalation that could destabilise the entire Middle East.Saturday’s assault came amid negotiations with the US over Iran’s nuclear programme. At the end of a third round of nuclear talks in Geneva on Thursday, Omani Foreign Minister Badr bin Hamad Albusaidi, acting as a mediator, announced that “significant progress” had been achieved and said technical talks were expected to resume on Monday.“Iran has agreed to give up its stockpile of enriched material – zero accumulation and allow for full verification by the IAEA of its nuclear programme,” CBS News reported, quoting Albusaidi as saying. “With zero stockpiling, it becomes impossible to build a bomb regardless of enrichment levels,” he added, according to CBS.Tehran, a signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, has repeatedly said its nuclear programme was intended for civilian purposes and it has no intention to build atomic weapons.Netanyahu has been calling for military action to destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities, saying that Tehran’s atomic facilities constitute an existential threat to Israel.US and Israeli officials have said the attacks on Saturday targeted Iranian officials, missile storage and launching sites, and Iranian nuclear facilities.Iranian media reported strikes on the Ministry of Intelligence, the Ministry of Defence, the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran and the Parchin military complex.Iran responded with attacks on Israel, as well as on bases used by the US military across the Gulf region, including in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.Negotiations under threatNetanyahu, the longest-serving prime minister in Israel’s history, has long built his career around an objective of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.In 2015, he vehemently opposed a nuclear deal that then US President Barack Obama had reached, together with Western allies, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which imposed curbs on Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for easing of sanctions imposed on Tehran.Trump officially withdrew from the agreement in 2018, calling it a horrible deal, and reimposed sanctions on Tehran as part of a “maximum pressure” campaign to force Iran to renegotiate the deal.Netanyahu found his opportunity to move against Tehran after Trump won his second term in office. With Israel embroiled in its genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza following the October 7, 2023, raid on Israel, Netanyahu, with a green light from the United States, launched his attack on Iran on June 13, 2025. The US briefly joined in the campaign, bombing several nuclear facilities.Although Trump had proclaimed that US strikes had destroyed Iran’s nuclear capabilities, he had pushed for Iran to completely dismantle its nuclear programme, a demand Tehran rejects.The US has amassed its biggest military arsenal in the region since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, including the world’s biggest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R Ford.Analysts say that while Trump had spoken about the need to ensure that Iran does not develop a nuclear weapon, Netanyahu was pushing for Tehran to agree to negotiate its missile capabilities, including reducing their range to a “300-kilometre (185-mile) red line”.Netanyahu also demanded that the United States push Tehran to stop supporting proxy allies in the Middle East, including Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis.While Israel says it emerged from the 12-day war in June with a strategic victory, Iranian missiles also inflicted heavy damage on Israeli cities. Up to 33 people were killed in the attacks, compared with more than 600 Iranians, while more than 3,000 others were hospitalised.What’s nextWhile it is clear that Iran’s military capabilities do not compare with those of the United States and Israel, it is too early to predict how this confrontation will end.US officials have been wary of the possibility of being drawn into a prolonged conflict in the Middle East, like the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which Trump had criticised as a “disastrous mistake”, while Iranian officials have said that the US would find itself in a quagmire if it attacked.The Washington Post has reported that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine had warned him of potential risks of attacking Iran, including becoming entangled in a prolonged conflict and the possibility of US casualties.On Thursday, Vice President JD Vance was quoted by The Washington Post as saying that there is “no chance” that US strikes on Iran would result in the United States becoming involved in a years-long, drawn-out war.“The idea that we’re going to be in a Middle Eastern war for years with no end in sight — there is no chance that will happen,” Vance said on Thursday, according to the outlet.