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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that the ongoing West Asia war with Iran has crossed the “halfway mark” in terms of objectives, though he avoided giving any timeline for its conclusion, noting that progress should be measured by mission achievements rather than duration.
“It’s definitely beyond the halfway point. But I don’t want to put a schedule on it,” Netanyahu told the conservative US broadcaster Newsmax.
He added that he meant the war was more than halfway “in terms of missions, not necessarily in terms of time.”
Thousands of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards killed
He added that thousands of members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards had been killed and claimed that efforts to dismantle Iran’s arms industry were nearing completion.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday said that US military operations in Iran are progressing “successfully,” with more than 11,000 enemy targets struck so far.
She added that the US campaign has significantly weakened Iran’s offensive and defensive capabilities.
War expected to continue for several more weeks
The military operation by Israel and the US was launched on February 28, and was initially projected by US President Donald Trump to last four to six weeks.
However, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said it is now expected to continue for several more weeks rather than months, even as public opposition grows in the United States and global oil prices rise across the world.
Israel and the United States are also “close to finishing their arms industry,” Netanyahu said.
“Just the whole industrial base – wiping out all, you know, just plants, entire plants, and the nuclear program itself,” he added.
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View AllDegrading Iran’s nuclear capacity
Netanyahu and Trump have repeatedly alleged that Iran was close to building a nuclear weapon, a claim not supported by the UN nuclear watchdog and that comes despite Trump saying he “obliterated” key sites in attacks last year.
“I think this regime will collapse internally. But at the moment, right now, what we’re doing is just degrading their military capacity, degrading their missile capacity, degrading their nuclear capacity and also weakening them from the inside,” Netanyahu said.
While expressing confidence that Iran’s Islamic regime could eventually collapse internally, Netanyahu reiterated that regime change is not the stated objective of the war.
The conflict began shortly after Iranian authorities suppressed large-scale anti-government protests, during which thousands were reportedly killed.
Trump has recently suggested that the war may indirectly lead to regime change by strengthening alternative leadership within Iran’s clerical system.
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