US intelligence agencies recently warned both the Biden and Trump administrations that Israel will likely attempt to strike facilities key to Iran’s nuclear program this year, according to sources familiar with the assessments.
Israel’s willingness to use military force runs counter to President Donald Trump’s current desire for a peace deal with Tehran, and the recent US intelligence cautions that major strikes on Iranian nuclear sites could increase the risk of a wider war breaking out in the Middle East.
Overall, Israel is also still pursuing the broader goal of causing regime change in Iran, one of the recent US intelligence reports says.
The action Israel is considering taking would go further than its targeted strikes on military targets in Iran last year in retaliation for the ballistic missile attacks Tehran launched on Israel which it said were in response to the Israeli killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut.
Taken together, the US intelligence assessments reflect the competing interests confronting the Trump administration as it navigates tensions in the Middle East surrounding Israel.
Trump has stated he wants to strike a nuclear deal with Tehran, a goal that would put off – for now at least – Israeli military action.
The president said last week that he prefers a “verified nuclear peace agreement” over joint military action with Israel that would “blow Iran into smithereens.”
“I would like a deal done with Iran on non-nuclear. I would prefer that to bombing the hell out of it,” Trump said in an interview with the New York Post.
Iranian officials said earlier this month they have not had contact with the Trump administration about talks.
CNN has reached out the Israeli embassy in Washington for comment.
A White House official declined to comment, citing “intelligence matters.”
The US intelligence assessments were first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
Israel would need American help
At least one US intelligence report produced by the Pentagon in recent weeks suggests Israel’s intent is to destroy both Iran’s nuclear facilities as well as its ballistic missile capability, and that Israel’s ultimate goal remains taking down the Iranian regime, two sources familiar with the intelligence said.
Complicating Israel’s military planning is the simple fact that they don’t have the capacity to destroy Iran’s nuclear program without American assistance, including mid-air refueling and the bombs required to penetrate the facilities deep underground, a need that is also reflected in the recent US intelligence report, according to the sources.
“If you want to do a real, a total attack where you take out everything, only the United States can do it,” said a former senior Biden administration official who said that Israel is “constantly” considering their options for striking Iran.
But the US intelligence assessment highlights the fact that Trump’s calculus on Iran is likely to face pressures from multiple directions, including Israel’s desire for additional military action against Iran. During his first term, Trump both shuttered the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Tehran and ordered a US-led strike on Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani in 2020, two actions that suggest Trump’s current stated desire of diplomacy with Iran may not ultimately last.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was the first world leader Trump invited to the White House in his second term and the two are staunch political allies. With the Israeli prime minister sitting next to him, Trump suggested permanently removing the Palestinians from Gaza so it could be rebuilt, a proposal that broke sharply with traditional US policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but was cheered by Netanyahu, who said that Trump had a “revolutionary and creative vision” that was “much better for the state of Israel.”
It remains to be seen how Netanyahu will leverage his relationship with the president on the issue of Iran.
Israel argued it should take advantage of Tehran’s weakened state
In the weeks leading up to the 2024 US presidential election, Israeli officials raised the idea of additional strikes with Biden administration officials on at least a handful of occasions, making the argument they should take advantage of Iran’s weakened state and go further, targeting its nuclear program, a former senior Biden official told CNN.
Israel’s October 25, 2024, bombings of Iran’s missile production facilities and air defenses – combined with an economy weakened by sanctions and Israel’s decimation of Iran’s regional proxies – has left Tehran in its weakest position militarily in decades.
Israel notably did not target any Iranian nuclear facilities in October. Biden had warned Israel against it and said publicly he wanted Israel to strike back at Iran “proportionally” following the Iranian bombing of Israel on October 1, 2024, which included some 200 ballistic missiles but did limited damage.
Israel did want to go further. US intelligence last fall assessed that Israel was considering unilateral attacks on nuclear sites with the hope that public pressure in the United States would convince the Biden administration to join them, a person familiar with the intelligence told CNN.
The Biden administration was open to the idea, and, to some degree, explored whether the success of Israel’s October strikes against non-nuclear targets in Iran had opened up new opportunities, the former senior official said.
But those discussions between Israeli and Biden officials stopped after Trump’s November election win, as a decision was made that preemptive military strikes would not take place during the transition period, the former official added.
At that time, US and Israeli officials agreed that any move by Iran to jump start its nuclear weapons program would still prompt a military response, and they saw no evidence of a shift in Iran’s posture before Trump was sworn into office, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.
Israel also knew that it would be contending with a new administration likely to want to strike a deal and had already turned its focus toward engaging with Trump’s transition team.
But Trump’s desire for a deal does not appear to have tempered Israel’s desire for taking additional military action against Iran to capitalize on the destruction inflicted during its most recent round of strikes at the end of October.
The more recent US intelligence assessment suggests Israel has not determined if it would attempt to carry out strikes using military aircraft or long-range missiles, but either option would seek to capitalize on Iran’s degraded air defense capabilities, two sources familiar with the intelligence told CNN.
But it also described how such strikes would only minimally set the Iranian nuclear program back and wouldn’t be a cure-all to ending it, according to one of those sources.
Trump recently tapped his Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, to oversee diplomatic engagement with Iran. Witkoff is widely viewed as a “deal maker,” in contrast to the Iran hawks Trump surrounded himself with during his first term. Even before taking office, Witkoff had worked with his Biden administration counterpart on sealing a ceasefire in Gaza, which he continues to manage negotiations on.
Trump also recently distanced himself from former officials who had pushed a more aggressive stance towards Iran, like Brian Hook, whose departure has been viewed as another sign the President is interested in taking a more diplomatic approach.
At the same time, Trump’s decision to strip former officials of their security details, despite them still facing threats from Iran for their role in killing Soleimani, is viewed by some officials as a result of his shifting posture.
But Trump has yet to reveal precisely what US relations with Tehran will look like after tensions rose to unprecedented levels with Israel in the fallout of the Israel-Hamas war.
