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IDF Says Iran Strikes May Wrap in ‘One or Two Weeks’ as Speculation Swirls Over US Role
US President Donald Trump speaks at the White House in Washington, DC, US, June 12, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Amid ongoing Israeli airstrikes and Iranian missile launches on Tuesday and estimations by Jerusalem that its campaign would end soon, debate intensified over whether the United States would enter the conflict in the 90th hour, with experts divided on how far Washington may go.
Backchannel efforts suggest the regime in Iran is seeking off-ramps, with the Wall Street Journal on Monday reporting that Iranian diplomats had “signaled” through Arab intermediaries their willingness to return to negotiations.
But US President Donald Trump has publicly dismissed the prospect of a negotiated ceasefire.
“We’re not looking for a ceasefire,” he said, but rather for a “real end” to Iran’s nuclear ambitions. After two months of stalled negotiations, he added, “I’m not in the mood to negotiate.”
Trump later posted a message on social media that read “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER!” without elaborating, further fueling speculation that the US may take military action against Iran or at least not stop Israel from fully completing its campaign.
Military officials said Tuesday that Israel expects its current campaign targeting Iran’s nuclear program to meet its primary objectives “within one to two weeks.” Its aim — to eliminate what Israel views as the core threat posed by both Tehran’s nuclear weapons efforts and its long-range missile capabilities — would be fulfilled by then, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) brass said.
Since the start of the operation, Israeli strikes have hit multiple elements of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. According to the officials, the attacks have caused extensive damage at two major enrichment sites — Natanz and Isfahan — and eliminated at least nine senior nuclear scientists involved in bomb development. Additional strikes have targeted facilities supporting the program, including command nodes and administrative offices tied to Iran’s nuclear operations. Israeli strikes have also taken out 40 percent of Iran’s ballistic missile launchers and destroyed 70 Iranian air defense batteries since the start of the campaign on Thursday night.
One potential target that Israel has so far not hit is Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. However, Trump noted on social media on Tuesday that could change.
“We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding. He is an easy target, but is safe there – We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now,” Trump posted. “But we don’t want missiles shot at civilians, or American soldiers. Our patience is wearing thin.”
Jonathan Ruhe, director of foreign policy at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, said Trump’s recent military posturing might be designed to strengthen US leverage rather than signal imminent intervention.
“Trump has shown an inclination to always want to play peacemaker, staying above the fray and bringing both sides together when he believes US available leverage is at a maximum,” Ruhe told The Algemeiner.
Ruhe added that Trump’s increasingly explicit threats to join the war was “one more way to try to build US leverage against Iran.”
Eyal Hulata, Israel’s former national security adviser, voiced skepticism about American involvement. “I’d be very surprised if the Americans join the war themselves,” he said on call with reporters on Tuesday. “Israel is proving that it’s pretty much capable of handling the situation so far.”
Hulata noted, however, that US calculations could shift if Iran followed through on threats to strike American personnel or energy infrastructure in Gulf states like Saudi Arabia or the UAE. “That will change the American calculus,” he said.
While Israel continued its strikes in its so-called Operation Rising Lion, reports surfaced that senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) leaders were abandoning their posts. The IRGC, an Iranian military force and internationally designated terrorist organization, also reportedly controls a substantial portion of Iran’s oil industry and broader economy.
Ruhe cautioned that the collapse of the Islamic Republic, if it came, would not follow a linear trajectory. “Regime collapse is always gradual until it’s sudden,” he said. “One key factor determining whether regimes disintegrate or survive is not whether the people take to the streets and protest and conduct subversion — which we’re already seeing initial indications of — but whether the security services decide to fire on them and try to put them down or whether they drop their guns and melt into the crowds, disobey orders, or simply flee. That second factor is now very much in play.”
While the heavy losses suffered by the Revolutionary Guards, particularly among senior commanders, could spark defections or widespread disorder that might prevent the regime from suppressing uprisings, Ruhe cautioned that Iran’s internal security apparatus remained significantly more “robust, pervasive, and capable” than the non-state actors Israel has confronted over the past two years, like Hamas and Hezbollah.
“It’s also very possible, amid all this chaos, that the regime doesn’t so much disintegrate as fracture and we see an abrupt turnover in leadership in which the clerics, including supreme leader [Ali] Khamenei, give way to a more militarized government of IRGC diehards willing to fight on no matter the cost.”
Divisions remain within the US intelligence community over how close Iran actually was to a bomb. A CNN report published Tuesday, citing American intelligence, estimated that Tehran was “up to three years away” from building a nuclear weapon.
However, a White House assessment released Tuesday to counter the CNN report cited CENTCOM Commander Gen. Erik Kurilla as saying that Iran was “mere steps” from weapons-grade uranium enrichment. Iran had amassed 400 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity, close to the roughly 90 percent of weapons grade — double its stockpile from six months earlier. According to the White House, if Tehran accelerated enrichment, it could produce one bomb within a week and as many as ten within three weeks.
A recent analysis by the Institute for Science and International Security found that if Iran chooses to “break out” toward a bomb, it would have enough highly enriched uranium at two of its main facilities, Fordow and Natanz, “for 11 nuclear weapons in the first month, enough for 15 nuclear weapons by the end of the second month, 19 by the end of the third month, 21 by the end of the fourth month, and 22 by the end of the fifth month.”
Ruhe noted that even before reaching full weapons-grade enrichment, Iran had accumulated enough material to assemble a crude device that could be used for a test with its existing stockpiles of 60 percent enriched uranium.
This sense of urgency was sharpened by increasing calls from Iran’s security establishment, including advisors to the supreme leader, to “simply finish the bomb very quickly,” Ruhe said. Ruhe also pointed to the risks of misjudging Iran’s timeline. Israel had long assumed Iran would complete enrichment first and only then move to weaponization over the course of months or years. But Tehran increasingly pursued both tracks in parallel, and, as Ruhe noted, one lesson from past breakouts is that there may never be a “clear and detectable ‘go’ order from the top leadership to finish the bomb.”
“Israel’s increasing sense of urgency to strike after the horrors of Oct. 7 reflects its new security calculus where there is no margin of error to assume they could detect the last turn of the screwdriver on a bomb with enough time to act and to stop it,” he continued.
This was also a key reason behind Israel’s decision to strike Iran’s scientific brain trust in addition to its known nuclear facilities.
For his part, Hulata highlighted the asymmetric warfare Israel wages with its adversaries and the difference between Israel’s precision targeting and Iran’s indiscriminate missile barrages against civilians. “When it’s Hamas, then people say well it’s a terror organization so what do you expect, but Iran is a serious country,” he said. Even so, he continued, “the damage to Israel in this conflict so far is way below what we all would have expected.”
The post IDF Says Iran Strikes May Wrap in ‘One or Two Weeks’ as Speculation Swirls Over US Role first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Trump Eyes Bringing Azerbaijan, Central Asian Nations into Abraham Accords, Sources Say
US President Donald Trump points a finger as he delivers remarks in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington, DC, US, July 31, 2025. Photo: Kent Nishimura via Reuters Connect
President Donald Trump’s administration is actively discussing with Azerbaijan the possibility of bringing that nation and some Central Asian allies into the Abraham Accords, hoping to deepen their existing ties with Israel, according to five sources with knowledge of the matter.
As part of the Abraham Accords, inked in 2020 and 2021 during Trump’s first term in office, four Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel after US mediation.
Azerbaijan and every country in Central Asia, by contrast, already have longstanding relations with Israel, meaning that an expansion of the accords to include them would largely be symbolic, focusing on strengthening ties in areas like trade and military cooperation, said the sources, who requested anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Such an expansion would reflect Trump’s openness to pacts that are less ambitious than his administration’s goal to convince regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia to restore ties with Israel while war rages in Gaza.
The kingdom has repeatedly said it would not recognize Israel without steps towards Israeli recognition of a Palestinian state.
Another key sticking point is Azerbaijan’s conflict with its neighbor Armenia, since the Trump administration considers a peace deal between the two Caucasus nations as a precondition to join the Abraham Accords, three sources said.
While Trump officials have publicly floated several potential entrants into the accords, the talks centered on Azerbaijan are among the most structured and serious, the sources said. Two of the sources argued a deal could be reached within months or even weeks.
Trump’s special envoy for peace missions, Steve Witkoff, traveled to Azerbaijan’s capital, Baku, in March to meet with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. Aryeh Lightstone, a key Witkoff aide, met Aliyev later in the spring in part to discuss the Abraham Accords, three of the sources said.
As part of the discussions, Azerbaijani officials have contacted officials in Central Asian nations, including in nearby Kazakhstan, to gauge their interest in a broader Abraham Accords expansion, those sources said. It was not clear which other countries in Central Asia – which includes Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan – were contacted.
The State Department, asked for comment, did not discuss specific countries, but said expanding the accords has been one of the key objectives of Trump. “We are working to get more countries to join,” said a US official.
The Azerbaijani government declined to comment.
The White House, the Israeli foreign ministry and the Kazakhstani embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment.
Any new accords would not modify the previous Abraham Accords deals signed by Israel.
OBSTACLES REMAIN
The original Abraham Accords – inked between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan – were centered on restoration of ties. The second round of expansion appears to be morphing into a broader mechanism designed to expand US and Israeli soft power.
Wedged between Russia to the north and Iran to the south, Azerbaijan occupies a critical link in trade flows between Central Asia and the West. The Caucasus and Central Asia are also rich in natural resources, including oil and gas, prompting various major powers to compete for influence in the region.
Expanding the accords to nations that already have diplomatic relations with Israel may also be a means of delivering symbolic wins to a president who is known to talk up even relatively small victories.
Two sources described the discussions involving Central Asia as embryonic – but the discussions with Azerbaijan as relatively advanced.
But challenges remain and there is no guarantee a deal will be reached, particularly with slow progress in talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The two countries, which both won independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, have been at loggerheads since the late 1980s when Nagorno-Karabakh – an Azerbaijani region that had a mostly ethnic-Armenian population – broke away from Azerbaijan with support from Armenia.
In 2023, Azerbaijan retook Karabakh, prompting about 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to Armenia. Both sides have since said they want to sign a treaty on a formal end to the conflict.
Primarily Christian Armenia and the US have close ties, and the Trump administration is wary of taking action that could upset authorities in Yerevan.
Still, US officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Trump himself, have argued that a peace deal between those two nations is near.
“Armenia and Azerbaijan, we worked magic there,” Trump told reporters earlier in July. “And it’s pretty close.”
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Trump Reaffirms Support for Morocco’s Sovereignty Over Western Sahara
A Polisario fighter sits on a rock at a forward base, on the outskirts of Tifariti, Western Sahara, Sept. 9, 2016. Photo: Reuters / Zohra Bensemra / File.
US President Donald Trump has reaffirmed support for Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara, saying a Moroccan autonomy plan for the territory was the sole solution to the disputed region, state news agency MAP said on Saturday.
The long-frozen conflict pits Morocco, which considers the territory as its own, against the Algeria-backed Polisario Front, which seeks an independent state there.
Trump at the end of his first term in office recognized the Moroccan claims to Western Sahara, which has phosphate reserves and rich fishing grounds, as part of a deal under which Morocco agreed to normalize its relations with Israel.
His secretary of state, Marco Rubio, made clear in April that support for Morocco on the issue remained US policy, but these were Trump’s first quoted remarks on the dispute during his second term.
“I also reiterate that the United States recognizes Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara and supports Morocco’s serious, credible and realistic autonomy proposal as the only basis for a just and lasting solution to the dispute,” MAP quoted Trump as saying in a message to Morocco’s King Mohammed VI.
“Together we are advancing shared priorities for peace and security in the region, including by building on the Abraham Accords, combating terrorism and expanding commercial cooperation,” Trump said.
As part of the Abraham Accords signed during Trump’s first term, four Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic relations with Israel after US mediation.
In June this year, Britain became the third permanent member of the U.N. Security Council to back an autonomy plan under Moroccan sovereignty for the territory after the U.S. and France.
Algeria, which has recognized the self-declared Sahrawi Republic, has refused to take part in roundtables convened by the U.N. envoy to Western Sahara and insists on holding a referendum with independence as an option.
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Israel Says Its Missions in UAE Remain Open Despite Reported Security Threats
President Isaac Herzog meets on Dec. 5, 2022, with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi. Photo: GPO/Amos Ben Gershom
i24 News – Israel’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday that its missions to the United Arab Emirates are open on Friday and representatives continue to operate at the embassy in Abu Dhabi and the consulate in Dubai in cooperation with local authorities.
This includes, the statement underlined, ensuring the protection of Israeli diplomats.
On Thursday, reports appeared in Israeli media that Israel was evacuating most of its diplomatic staff in the UAE after the National Security Council heightened its travel warning for Israelis staying in the Gulf country for fear of an Iranian or Iran-sponsored attacks.
“We are emphasizing this travel warning given our understanding that terrorist organizations (the Iranians, Hamas, Hezbollah and Global Jihad) are increasing their efforts to harm Israel,” the NSC said in a statement.
After signing the Abraham Accords with Israel in 2020, the UAE has been among the closest regional allies of the Jewish state.
Israel is concerned about its citizens and diplomats being targeted in retaliatory attacks following its 12-day war against Iran last month.
Earlier this year, the UAE sentenced three citizens of Uzbekistan to death for last year’s murder of Israeli-Moldovan rabbi Zvi Cohen.