President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu met at the White House noting briefly that they had not reached a definitive agreement on how to move forward with Iran. There was no press briefing after their meeting. They insisted that negotiations would proceed first with Tehran to see if a deal could be achieved for them to halt rebuilding their missile arsenal and to negotiate a halt to nuclear weapons construction. In subsequent reporting by the New York Times, in these White House meetings, Netanyahu promoted an Israeli-US attack on Iran that would accomplish four objectives: destroying Iran’s ballistic missile program and drone stockpiles, decapitating the regime leaders, particularly Ayatollah Khamenei, crippling Iran’s ability to threaten its neighbors, and stimulating a popular uprising for regime change. Netanyahu played down the possibility of the Strait of Hormuz being blocked. Netanyahu’s key point stated that inaction against Iran now would allow the regime to create an umbrella of immunity against future US/Israel attacks, shielding their nuclear weapons development program.
