Before approaching US President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had already urged several American presidents to back military action against Iran, and each rejected the proposal, according to John Kerry, former US Secretary of State.
“Obama said no. Bush said no. President Biden said no. I mean, I was part of those conversations,” Kerry said during an appearance on The Late Show with Tuesday, 21 April. He explained that past presidents refused to engage in war with Tehran because they had not “exhausted all the remedies of peaceful process.”
Drawing on his experiences as a Vietnam veteran, Kerry argued that the wars in Vietnam and Iraq highlight the need for transparency. He emphasised the importance of not deceiving the public before committing troops to battle.
“And speaking as a veteran of the Vietnam War, where decisions like that were so critical, we were lied to about what that war was about,” he said. “…and the lesson of that war and of Iraq is don’t lie to the American people and then ask them to send their sons and daughters to fight.”
The former secretary of state dismissed Netanyahu’s arguments as mere “predictions,” adding that claims of domestic uprisings or a transition in power failed to materialise, stating that none of the anticipated “regime change” occurred.
A New York Times (NYT) report suggested that Netanyahu found a more receptive audience in Trump. During a high-level meeting in the Situation Room on 11 February, Netanyahu reportedly made a “hard sell”, insisting Iran was “ripe for regime change”.
The report indicated that Netanyahu expressed a firm “belief that a joint US-Israeli mission could finally bring an end to the Islamic Republic”. Trump responded, “Sounds good to me,” effectively providing a green light for the joint operation.
Despite Trump’s initial support, the strategy faced internal scrutiny.
According to Axios, US Vice President recently challenged Netanyahu’s “overly rosy assumptions” about the “regime change”.
A US official reportedly told NYT: “Before the war, Bibi really sold it to the president as being easy, as regime change being a lot likelier than it was. And the VP was clear-eyed about some of those statements.”
US-Iran ceasefire extension not open-ended
“Trump is willing to give another three to five days of ceasefire to allow the Iranians to get their shit together,” one US source briefed on the matter told Axios. “It is not going to be open-ended,” the media outlet reported.
Axios reported that US officials first saw the divisions after the first round of Islamabad talks, when it became clear IRGC commander Gen Ahmad Vahidi and his deputies had rejected much of what Iran’s own negotiators had discussed.
The split became public last Friday when Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi announced the reopening of the , but the IRGC refused to implement it and began publicly attacking him, Axios reported.
In the following days, Iran gave no substantive response to the latest US proposal and refused to commit to a second round of talks in Pakistan.
