Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that “Iran is being destroyed” as the United States and Israel target its ballistic missiles and nuclear program from the air, but added that “elements on the ground” are needed for meaningful regime change.
“We don’t want to replace one ayatollah with another,” Netanyahu said at a news conference. “You wouldn’t want to replace Hitler with Hitler.”
He said Iranians ultimately need to “stand up.”
“We can create the conditions, but they have to take advantage of those conditions at a certain point,” he said.
Revolutions cannot happen “only from the air,” he continued. “You can do a lot from the air, and we do that, but you also need a ground element.”
His remarks left open the possibility that such action on the ground could take a variety of forms. “There are many possibilities for this ground component, but I will not share all of them.”
The comments came hours after President Donald Trump spoke in the Oval Office and said he would not send U.S. troops to the Middle East.
Prime Minister Netanyahu also repeatedly denied accusations that Israel effectively dragged the United States into the war. Trump didn’t need convincing about the nuclear threat from Iran — “He explained it to me, I didn’t explain it to him,” the prime minister said.
