Report: Israel Plans to Strike Iran Before US Presidential Election

Officials told The Washington Post that Netanyahu told Biden he plans to target military sites inside Iran

by Dave DeCamp October 14, 2024

https://news.antiwar.com/2024/10/14/report-israel-plans-to-strike-iran-before-us-presidential-election/#gsc.tab=0

Israel is planning to launch its expected attack on Iran before the US presidential elections are held on November 5, The Washington Post reported on Monday.

An unnamed official told the Post that waiting any longer could be perceived as weakness and that the planned strike “will be one in a series of responses” to the Iranian ballistic missile barrage that was fired at Israel on October 1, which came in response to a series of Israeli escalations.

A source close to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the Post that while Israel was coordinating with the US to some extent on its plans to attack Iran, it wouldn’t wait for a green light from the US. “The person who will decide on the Israeli response to Iran will be [Netanyahu],” the official said.

The report said that when Netanyahu spoke with President Biden last week, he said that Israel planned to hit military infrastructure inside Iran, not oil or nuclear facilities. The conversation was a factor in Biden’s decision to deploy a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile battery to Israel.

The Pentagon announced Sunday that it was deploying the THAAD and about 100 troops to operate it “to support the defense of Israel.” Iran has vowed that it would respond to any Israeli attack on its territory, and the US deployment makes US troops a potential target of Iranian missiles.

The Post report noted how the Biden administration has been fully supportive of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon and its dramatic escalation of airstrikes against the country. A former Israeli official said the US was “giving Israel and the Netanyahu government a bear hug, but for Hezbollah.”

“It is sending THAAD and promising all kinds of weapons that we need to finish off Hezbollah, saying that we can deal with Iran later,” the former official added.

US military and diplomatic support for Israel over the past year has fueled the genocidal slaughter in Gaza and emboldened Israeli escalations across the Middle East and has now brought the US and Iran to the brink of war. Brown University’s Costs of War project recently released a report that supporting Israel has cost the US $22.76 Billion in just one year.