Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed in an interview on Monday that killing Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would “end the conflict” with Iran.
Netanyahu made the comments during an interview with ABC News in response to a question about a report that said President Trump was opposed to killing Khamenei over concerns that it would escalate the war. “It’s not going to escalate the conflict, it’s going to end the conflict,” Netanyahu said.
“We’ve had half a century of conflict spread by this regime that terrorizes everyone in the Middle East … The ‘forever war’ is what Iran wants,” the Israeli leader said.
Eli Clifton, a senior advisor at the Quincy Institute, pointed out in a post on X that Netanyahu was a major proponent of taking out Saddam Hussein and urged the US to go through with the invasion of Iraq. “If you take out Saddam, Saddam’s regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region,” he told Congress in 2002.
Netanyahu has made clear that he wants regime change in Iran, saying in an interview on Sunday that it could be the result of Israel’s bombing campaign. When asked during the ABC interview if he intended to kill the Iranian leader, Netanyahu said Israel is “doing what we need to do.”
The prime minister also criticized the faction of President Trump’s MAGA base that opposes the US entering war with Iran. “Look, I understand ‘America First’. I don’t understand ‘America Dead’. That’s what these people want. They chant ‘Death to America,'” he said.
“So we’re doing something that is in the service of mankind, of humanity, and it’s a battle of good against evil. America does, should, and does stand with the good. That’s what President Trump is doing, and I deeply appreciate his support,” Netanyahu added.
