From an interview in the New Yorker, titled "Why Netanyahu Decided to Strike Iran Now". Aluf Benn is the Editor-in-Chief of Haaretz.
New Yorker: There had been concern among some more hawkish Israelis that Trump would not give a green light to this strike, because he wanted a deal with Iran. But what you seem to be saying is that one crucial thing that’s changed is, in fact, the timing and Trump being in office.
Aluf Benn: First of all, the operational opportunity to have an open corridor because of the suppression of Iranian air defenses in October mattered, and the Russians did not replenish Iranian stockpiles and systems afterward. And then there was the subsequent defeat of Hezbollah by the I.D.F., the decapitation of its leadership, the destruction of most of its strong ballistic-missile force, and then Assad falling. So now you can deploy a very large force to destroy targets within Iran. And it was reported recently that Israel had finished its preparations and Netanyahu was pushing for an attack on Iran. There were some different signs, like public opposition by Trump, even as recently as this week, but clearly Netanyahu told him about it in advance.
New Yorker: And today Trump has been very supportive.
Aluf Benn: Underneath that Presidential support, we have one thing that is crucial, and that was one of the last decisions of Trump’s first term, which was to include Israel in CENTCOM. That enabled Israel to be part of the U.S. regional air-defense and missile-defense system. So Israel is now relying not on American bombers and American soldiers on the ground but you have coördination, coöperation, intelligence sharing, et cetera.
New Yorker: So we’ve talked for a while now, and one thing you haven’t said is that the reason for this attack is that the situation with Iran and nuclear weapons has changed, and that the danger is much greater now. Has it?
Aluf Benn: This is very important, and I forgot to mention it. On December 5th, six months ago, Iran started doubling down by fuelling its uranium-enrichment facilities so that the product would be one step below the nuclear-weapons threshold. This was reported by the International Atomic Energy Agency. So they edged much closer to the bomb. And, if you look at the timetable—I’m not familiar with the Iranian decision-making process, obviously—but, if you look at the timetable, they did this during the American transition period, which is always a good time to do stuff, when the outgoing Administration is not looking closely and the new one is not in power yet. So they thought that they would enter the negotiations with the United States from a stronger position and maybe show that they are a few weeks away from enriched uranium for nuclear weapons.
That’s clearly part of the Israeli timetable, as well. We have a combination here of Iranian recklessness and a bold decision to go full speed or almost full speed ahead with uranium enrichment. You have the operational opportunity because of the October attack last year. And you had
Trump, who was willing, for the first time in twenty years and after several American Presidents, to listen to the Israeli plan and give it some sort of green light and coördinate and then applaud it afterward, rather than saying, “We had no idea. We were not there. We just watched it on television.”
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and...trike-iran-now
