Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel sought to mollify criticism at home that the war with Iran failed to achieve its goals in a televised address on Saturday, even as he pointedly avoided discussing the weekend negotiations between the U.S. and Iran.
Last week, President Trump announced a two-week cease-fire in the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran to discuss a diplomatic settlement. In U.S.-Iran talks on Saturday in Pakistan, which failed to yield an immediate end to the war, Iran’s leaders showed little sign of bending on U.S. demands to open the strategic Strait of Hormuz waterway and to rein in Iran’s nuclear and missile programs.
Mr. Netanyahu has openly called for the downfall of Iran’s authoritarian clerical rulers.
In a 13-minute address on Saturday night, Mr. Netanyahu told the Israeli public that “the battle is not yet over,” without elaborating. He then argued that Israel had already achieved “historic accomplishments” in the fighting.
Vice President JD Vance left the Pakistani capital of Islamabad at around dawn local time on Sunday without a breakthrough in talks with Iranian negotiators. Before leaving, he told reporters that the United States was still seeking assurances that Iran would not “seek the tools that would enable them to quickly achieve a nuclear weapon.”
Some of Mr. Netanyahu’s allies have said that Mr. Vance’s statement indicated that the United States and Israel were closely aligned on their conditions for a cease-fire.
“The American insistence on preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons proves the complete coordination between the countries,” Miki Zohar, a government minister who belongs to Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party, wrote on social media.
Opinion polls show many Israelis opposed the cease-fire with Iran, which they saw as imposed by Mr. Trump against Israel’s wishes. Opponents of Mr. Netanyahu argued that he failed to achieve the campaign’s main goals — such as destroying Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
Former Israeli security officials say that the U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran, which lasted more than a month, made impressive tactical achievements. But some were skeptical that the war dealt a decisive strategic blow to Iran.
Iran’s ruling system, while battered, is still very much in control, and the country retains large stockpiles of enriched uranium, which it could someday use to build a nuclear weapon.
In his remarks on Saturday night, Mr. Netanyahu ticked off a list of top Iranian leaders killed in the U.S.-Israeli air campaign, including the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Gesturing at a map of the Middle East, he noted the blows Israel had dealt to Iran’s network of proxy militias like Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon over the past two and a half years. Israel has continued to strike targets in Lebanon, which it says is not included in the cease-fire.
“There are massive achievements here.” Mr. Netanyahu said of the war in Iran. “This is a historic change. We crushed the nuclear program. We crushed the missiles, and we crushed the regime.”
American intelligence, however, has cast doubt on the notion that Iran’s missile capabilities have been badly damaged. U.S. intelligence reports have indicated that Iran has been quickly digging up underground missile storage sites buried by American or Israeli attacks.
Iranian forces managed to fire volleys of ballistic missiles and drones at Israel and across parts of the Middle East over more than a month of war, depleting supplies of vital interceptors in a number of countries on the receiving end.
Aaron Boxerman is a Times reporter covering Israel and Gaza. He is based in Jerusalem.
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