Israel is considering attacks on Iran’s nuclear sites and views its Mideast adversary as vulnerable, US intelligence agencies assessed in the waning days of the Joe Biden administration, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.
Israel was considering significant strikes on Iran in 2025 and viewed President Donald Trump as more amenable to their plans, the paper cited officials familiar with the assessment as saying.
US intelligence cited the risk of further conflict in the Middle East and characterized Iran as weakened following an Oct. 26 Israeli attack on Iran, adding that Israel views the window for denying Iran a nuclear weapons capability as fast closing.
Iran denies seeking a nuclear weapon but Israel says is Mideast nemesis wants an atomic bomb and must be denied the power to destroy the Jewish state.
Trump, long an opponent of foreign wars, reimposed the so-called maximum pressure campaign on Iran of his first term this month but said he much preferred a deal and described any reports of a US-Israeli strike on Iran as “greatly exaggerated”.
Diplomatic room for US-Iran talks for a nuclear deal appeared to narrow in the past week as Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei rejected the idea of negotiations and relatively moderate President Masoud Pezeshkian endorsed the stance.
Israel has publicly broached the idea of an attack in the past.
“Iran today is more exposed than ever to damage to its nuclear facilities,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said in November.
Since the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Iran-backed Hamas militants from Gaza, Israel has been locked in a region-wide conflict with Iran and its armed allies.
Escalating a conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon in late September, Israel began to gain the initiative and solidified its advantage with a direct air attack on Iran in retaliation for a missile salvo from the Islamic Republic.
Israel and the United States said those attacks mostly knocked out Iran’s anti-aircraft capabilities and left it exposed to any future strikes.
Analysts widely view Iran’s fortified and underground nuclear sites as potentially beyond the ability of Israeli bombers to destroy and may require American help or collaboration.
