Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu clashed over striking Iran in a ‘dramatic’ overnight phone call, hours after a failed plot to topple Tehran’s regime in the war’s opening days was exposed. The call was described as ‘lengthy and dramatic,’ according to Israel’s Channel 12. The Israeli outlet notes that Netanyahu increasingly doubts further negotiations with Tehran will yield a peace deal and wants to resume military strikes.
Trump, meanwhile, wants to push harder for an agreement in which Iran abandons its nuclear weapons program before any return to war. The discussion came hours after the New York Times revealed that Israel, with Trump’s approval, went into the war with an ‘audacious’ plan to install hardline former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Iran’s new leader after Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in the opening strikes. The plot collapsed on day one when Ahmadinejad was wounded by an Israeli strike on his Tehran home meant to free him from house arrest, and he hasn’t been seen since.
