{"id":5171,"date":"2026-02-28T20:35:45","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T20:35:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2026\/02\/28\/nine-months-after-12-day-war-us-israel-seek-to-topple-irans-leaders\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T20:35:45","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T20:35:45","slug":"nine-months-after-12-day-war-us-israel-seek-to-topple-irans-leaders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2026\/02\/28\/nine-months-after-12-day-war-us-israel-seek-to-topple-irans-leaders\/","title":{"rendered":"Nine months after 12-day war, US, Israel seek to topple Iran\u2019s leaders"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

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\u2019s nuclear programme \u201cto oblivion\u201d.<\/p>\n

Nearly nine months later, Iran is facing another assault,<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

Saturday\u2019s assault came amid negotiations with the US over Iran\u2019s 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 \u201csignificant progress\u201d had been achieved and said technical talks were expected to resume on Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIran has agreed to give up its stockpile of enriched material \u2013 zero accumulation and allow for full verification by the IAEA of its nuclear programme,\u201d CBS News reported, quoting Albusaidi as saying. \u201cWith zero stockpiling, it becomes impossible to build a bomb regardless of enrichment levels,\u201d he added, according to CBS.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu has been calling for military action to destroy Iran\u2019s nuclear capabilities, saying that Tehran\u2019s atomic facilities constitute an existential threat to Israel.<\/p>\n

US and Israeli officials have said the attacks on Saturday targeted Iranian officials, missile storage and launching sites, and Iranian nuclear facilities.<\/p>\n

Iranian media reported strikes on the Ministry of Intelligence, the Ministry of Defence, the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran and the Parchin military complex.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Negotiations under threat<\/strong><\/p>\n

Netanyahu, the longest-serving prime minister in Israel\u2019s history, has long built his career around an objective of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s nuclear programme in exchange for easing of sanctions imposed on Tehran.<\/p>\n

Trump officially withdrew from the agreement in 2018, calling it a horrible deal, and reimposed sanctions on Tehran as part of a \u201cmaximum pressure\u201d campaign to force Iran to renegotiate the deal.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Although Trump had proclaimed that US strikes had destroyed Iran\u2019s nuclear capabilities, he had pushed for Iran to completely dismantle its nuclear programme, a demand Tehran rejects.<\/p>\n

The US has amassed its biggest military arsenal in the region since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, including the world\u2019s biggest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R Ford.<\/p>\n

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 \u201c300-kilometre (185-mile) red line\u201d.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu also demanded that the United States push Tehran to stop supporting proxy allies in the Middle East, including Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s next<\/strong><\/p>\n

While it is clear that Iran\u2019s military capabilities do not compare with those of the United States and Israel, it is too early to predict how this confrontation will end.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cdisastrous mistake\u201d, while Iranian officials have said that the US would find itself in a quagmire if it attacked.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>, including becoming entangled in a prolonged conflict and the possibility of US casualties.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Vice President JD Vance was quoted by The Washington Post as saying that there is \u201cno chance\u201d that US strikes on Iran would result in the United States becoming involved in a years-long, drawn-out war.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea that we\u2019re going to be in a Middle Eastern war for years with no end in sight \u2014 there is no chance that will happen,\u201d Vance said on Thursday, according to the outlet<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019s nuclear programme \u201cto oblivion\u201d. Nearly nine months later, Iran is facing another assault, with both Israel and the United States launching attacks and saying … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5172,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}