Anti-Israel protesters take to streets of Iranian cities as foreign minister due to meet European officials.
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6h ago
(06:40 GMT)
Netanyahu started conflict to torpedo nuclear talks between Iran, US
The Israel-Iran conflict is playing out “exactly” the way Netanyahu planned it, says Shahram Akbarzadeh, director of the Middle East Studies Forum at Deakin University in Australia.
“Netanyahu started the conflict to torpedo nuclear talks between Iran and the United States,” Akbarzadeh told Al Jazeera, speaking from Melbourne.
“He would have known, and all observers would have known, that Iran would retaliate, and the Netanyahu plan [has been] to use the retaliation by Iran to drag the United States into the conflict.”
Concerns by European powers about how the US involvement can escalate this conflict are perhaps why we see a pause in the US deciding to get involved and “giving diplomacy a chance”, he added.
There’s a big risk, however, that upcoming negotiations will fail, the expert warned.
As for the US involvement, Akbarzadeh pressed that the US is already involved through supplying weaponry.
“The Israeli military hardware is supplied by the United States, and the United States provides support in shooting down various Iranian missiles,” he said.
Targeting underground nuclear facilities, however, requires more direct US involvement, as only it has weaponry to hit underground, the professor said.
Akbarzadeh added: “And it’s not just a matter of targeting the nuclear facilities … The agenda for Netanyahu is regime change.”