Israel’s Netanyahu urged Trump to hold off on Iran attack, for now: Reports

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged US President Donald Trump this week to delay any military strike against Iran, according to US officials.

A senior Saudi official said on Thursday that the Kingdom, Qatar and Oman led efforts to talk Trump out of an attack on Iran, fearing “grave blowbacks in the region.”

Criticism was quickly levied at the US Gulf allies for pushing de-escalation in their own region. Senator Lindsey Graham, a neoconservative American lawmaker who has long been an advocate for regime change and war, went as far as suggesting there would be “dramatic rethinking” on his part regarding the nature of US alliances with “our so-called Arab allies.”

However, a senior US official told the New York Times that Netanyahu asked the American president to postpone plans for such an attack.

Other US officials later told the Wall Street Journal that Trump was advised against a large-scale strike because it would be unlikely to make the Iranian regime fall and could lead to a wider conflict.

Additionally, the US would need more military assets in the region to be able to fend off any potential response from Iran, including against US forces in the Middle East and Israel itself.

The US military, which currently has no aircraft carrier in the region, is deploying one from the South China Sea.

Earlier in the week, the US withdrew some of its personnel from the largest American air base in the Middle East, Qatar’s Al-Udeid Air Base. The State Department has also cautioned citizens to limit non-essential travel to certain parts of the region.

While Trump has so far not decided to attack, officials continue to stress that all options remain on the table. US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz said the president had “made ‍it clear all ‍options ‍are on the table to ‍stop the slaughter” in Iran.